Breeding in a bad economy

[wcr]

It goes without saying, our economy sucks right now. What are you doing about breeding next year? Are you selling horses and if you are at what reduced amount than normal. Or are you buying to upgrade your herd?

 

[Frankie]

Well, I did not breed any for next year,,,,,so nope, not doing that.

Have one horse for sell, but it's ok if he doesn't.

And a BIG yes to buying to upgrade my herd. Maybe when I get it upgraded enough,,,,,I'll breed. Although it may be kind of tough as my upgrades have been mostly geldings.

 

[Matt73]

GREAT question! I'm "fortunate" to have one mare and two stallions (one's for sale...). My mare is in foal for an '09 baby and I can't wait. I'm prepared to keep him/her as long as it takes to find a good home. I'm glad that I breed on the smallest scale. In my area, the mini market (let alone BIG HORSE market) is very very small. But the market is a WHOLE other thread

Edited to add that, yes, when I sell my other man I'll buy one more stellar mare. When/whether I breed is debatable.

Edited again to add my sweethearts...

Royal (Sire)

Lex (My Cindy Crawford)

 

[Leeana]

I had four mares bred for 09 foals...one abborted a few weeks ago so now only have three coming. I have a waiting list on two of the mares foals, so already have a little interest in them. One of the mares that i have a waiting list on, i will deffently be keeping her 09 foal so will have to repeat that cross for 2010. Wanting to keep one or two for myself though...so we will see.

Had them read, should have two fillies and one colt coming next year if all is right

.

Im hoping next year to purchase another broodmare...as long as all goes well next year with sales i will have mares bred for 2010 foals...i want to have enough for ME to keep and to keep those happy that i have a list for...

 

[Lucky-C-Acres-Minis]

Buying to upgrade

Bought a new herdsire, a well bred mare and a weanling colt as another future herdsire.. We have 5 mares exposed for next year, and then will more than likely breed a few to our new guy for 2010 foals.. Only have one horse for sale right now, a 2008 colt but not pushing sale/ads on him as I want to see what he turns out like as a yearling, but if he happens to sell, great..

Our new fella: Oak Parks Oh Im Awesome, AMHA/AMHR 32" pinto stallion, grandson of Alvadar's Double Destiny and Bond Rollback

The new mare, Carriage Hills Copper, AMHA/AMHR 33" silver bay roan solid, granddaughter of Komokos Little King Supreme (great-granddaughter of him on dam side), also great-granddaughter of Fishers Master Mickey on sire side:

And last but not least, LCA's More Bang For Your Buck, AMHA/AMHR chestnut colt, out of the above mare and sired by Little Kings Buckeroo Merlin:

Will eventually look for a few more mares for both boys to upgrade our broodmare band..

 

[Coventry Lane Farm]

We have the same amount of mares bred for next year and I have a few horses listed for sale but I really don't mind if they stay if I don't get the price listed. I have the room and not a problem taking care of them either. Actually we have bought 8 horses, sold 5 horses this year and with upgrading our program. Alot of people are downsizing due to the economy and the market is down, well, we have a very small herd of beef cattle and they are on their way out and should be gone totally by mid spring. The prices are down on beef as well and the 7 of them eat more grain and hay than of our 20 head of miniature horses and shetlands.

Farmers locally here are taking their livestock to the auctions to unload due to costs rising in feed, hay, fuel, baler twine and fertilzer that goes with having cattle and the farmers need money as well to make their bills. Alot of people don't know that dairy farmers only get a paycheck once a month and their own milk hauler gets there cut of money out of the farmers issued check before it arrives to them, of course the government gets their cut in the money first of all. The price that you pay at the store is not even close in what they receive per gallon hundred weight not per gallon like sold in the stores.

It is just a bad time for everything and everyone. Sorry....

 

[targetsmom]

Well, we have two mares bred for 2009, but since this is our third year breeding and we don't have a single live foal yet, we are definitely not counting chickens before they hatch. And as much as the economy sucks right now, I think many mini owners are missing a very promising marketing opportunity. Now is the perfect time to promote minis to big horse people and show them how much cheaper it is to keep a mini and all the fun things you can do with them. So I figure if we are lucky enough to actually have a foal in 2009, (and can part with one after waiting so long), then I am optimistic we will find a buyer.

 

[Miniv]

We reduced our breeding expectations dramatically for next year..........Normally we have about 15 foals, but next year expect 5. Will probably do the same thing next season......or less!

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

I continue to forgo the mares and continue to stand my QH stallion. That way I don't get stuck with unsold foals, just unsold semen

Much cheaper to maintain and store (frozen).

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

Great questions!

We have no mares of ours on our farm that are bred for next year. I'm glad about that for a variety of reasons. We have no horses for sale currently but have sold 5 this year. I am buying right now because it's a great time to improve my herd for a reasonable price. We've bought three horses, one being Spirit, and I bought another one today and have plans for one or two more before the year is over. There are two outside mares at our farm that are bred and I'm thinking the owner is going to offer at least one of them for sale.

Even though I have no bred mares of my own here I do have...and haven't announced this yet...the mare I leased for the sole purpose of my Patton breeding that I purchased...she is bred!

Keeping my fingers crossed for a healthy, beautiful baby!

 

[Shortpig]

Sorry haven't read any of the other posts but this I must say[SIZE=36pt] "I am way too old my daughter is raised".

[/SIZE]

 

[topnotchminis]

I don't have any bred for next year. I am going to show my horses, and if they do well then I will breed later on.

 

[RockRiverTiff]

I am expecting more foals than usual next year, but that's only because the usual for us is 0-1. I only had two horses for sale this year and decided to keep one as a future driver. I have been buying to improve the herd, but most of my recent purchases were junior stock that I intend to show first. I am trying a couple new crosses for '09, but there's a good chance I'll be keeping those foals too.

 

[JWC sr.]

This coming year we are breeding about the same numbers as we did last year. Sales have been fine and we retained 3 babies for future breeding and/or show purposes.

Additionally we bought 3 new horses this year and will buy one more if we can arrive at a mutually acceptable price on a really nice filly we are looking at.

 

[ontherisefarm]

Well, I wasn't going to breed any mares for next year but when I decided to sell my one stallion I bred him to three.Dunno if they are all bred or not as he was a 2 yr old. I hope i get at least one foal but if i dont no biggie. If I get three that will be awesome. I can afford to take care of what i have including the new ones if they come. I do have all of my weanlings and yearlings available as I would like to upgrade my herd. The older mares I have are lifers here as they have become part of the family. I love all my horses but raising and selling babies is what i do mostly with my small herd. I sold the one stallion this year but that is it. I did lower my prices a bit on those i have offered hoping someone will be tempted. They are nice horses, maybe not all world quality but not bad. When you are on the lower end of the pay scale it takes awhile to get things where you want them to be...I will always strive to improve as should everyone....JMHO.

 

[MyBarakah]

I have 3 foals coming next year out of 5 mares. I had one mare abort and then the other mare I left open because she had a late foal this year and did not want another late foal next year to interfer with my show season. And I am hoping/planning to keep 1 or 2 foals out of the 3 next year. And hope to have 3 foals for '10. 3 foals a year for me is just the "right" number..... And I bred them with showing them in mind. I LOVE to see how they do in the show pen and see how they mature and turn out!

 

[Suzie]

We have possibly 4 mares bred for 2009. We have interest already in one of the foals. We elected to keep more foals from 2008 than we usually do (very good crop this year!) so we only bred a few mares back. We had decided to reduce our spring workload for 2009 but that was basically before the economy tanked.

We have cut the prices on a couple of our colts for possible holiday sales but if they sell fine, if not okay. We added 4 more acres of pasture in 2008 so we have much more room to keep a few foals than we used to have. We had planned on breeding only 1-2 mares for 2009 but we were really anxious to see what our cremello junior stallion would do with our bay mares (hoping for two buckskins from this cross). We did sell a mature mare this year (very unusual for us to sell a mare) but she did go to a wonderful non-breeding home as a companion to a little dwarf horse, so we felt really good about that.

Basically for us the tanked economy has not really changed our plans any so far. However, if the economy continues to drag in 2009, we probably will just leave 95% of our mares open another year. We can love our mares for just being themselves and not necessarily baby makers.

 

[txminipinto]

Haven't sold anything this year and am expecting 4 foals next year. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't bred all of the mares but what do you do? We're in the situation where we can keep foals for the next year but may only breed 1-2 mares next year for my Congress Sweepstakes baby.

 

[Kim~Crayonboxminiatures]

I have 2 mares bred for 2009, and 3rd mare I sold bred coming back to foal out for the client. I have sold one mare, and one '09 filly so far this year, but I'm okay keeping the other two foals from this year. I won't be maxed out as far as space goes if next years foals don't sell. I did put an article in one of the local horse publications promoting minis as cheaper than full-size horses, and that's how I sold the one filly from this year.

I was thinking of taking a break for a year or so from breeding anyway, so I'll be breeding 0-1 mare in 2009, I want to focus more on training for awhile.

I did "upgrade" and purchased a new appy mare in January this year, and I want to shop for a pinto mare, but have put that on hold for now. I'm keeping two of my 2009 foals instead.

 

[justjinx]

My daughter and I have 1 mare bred for a foal we will be keeping and showing. jennifer