There was no option for me on your poll:
Zero.
I have one gelding and five mares, two of which are weanlings and one of which is very old and retired.
SO, despite the fact that I loved my stallion very much and had a lot of interest in him, I opted to lease/sell him.
I figure with two producing mares I can likely find a couple outside stallions to breed to until I can get my housing situation better suited to have a stallion, in addition to the gelding I have as well.
I couldn't turn them all out together, and right now, that option made the horse keeping very intensive and annoying. Our fences were not suitable to keep everyone separated, and we didn't have any paddock areas.
I am hoping when my little ones get bigger (sons) and we have fixed our fencing, that I can maybe get another stallion, or maybe by then I will have bred my "dream" guy.
Either way, my colts are unconditionally gelded UNLESS they are EXTREMELY NICE and the buyer is willing to pay at least two to three times more for the colt than they would if he were gelded. HE'd better be that nice, better than dad AND mom, or he's going to visit Dr. Hunter before he leaves, or there will be rare cases where I will allow the buyer to geld on contract.
So far, so good.
I just can't see selling colts for $1000 or less when it costs so much to keep the mare, for the breeding, the feed, the vet, the shots, etc. and then there is the fact that if you paid a lot for the stallion (he should have been worth it, too), why sell his offspring for a dime a dozen? Pretty soon you will be pricing him out of a job. Who would want the real thing when they could have his son for a quarter the price?
Granted, his son should be as good or better than him, but then again, isn't that what we're doing by trying to better our breed and be selective in the first place?
Not all boys should be breeding (mares, either, but at least they are limited to one per year, I guess. Wish we could spay 'em easily!), and there are so many wonderful stallions out there.
I'm kind of excited to see the options I have now that I will be breeding out.
Of course, I am very excited that Crabby Chicken has offered us at least one breeding to Mr. Falcon (Lark's sire) and we think we'll be using it for Mouse's dam for an '07 foal.
He's worth the wait!
Liz M.