This message is from: Starfire Farm <starfiref...@usa.net> Eric Kozowski wrote:
>Raising horses, especially right now, is not a money making proposition. > > This is very true, unless you are willing to put a lot of money into marketing and are willing to sell just about any horse to just about anybody, which we are not. >These is a glut of horses on the market right now and even well trained >horses (not necessarily Fjords) can be had for under $2000. > > I agree with the "not necessarily Fjords" statement. The AQHA January 8, 2008 news item states that they registered it's /five/ /millionth/ quarter horse. That's 5,000,000. The Quarter Horse industry has been one of the major contributors to the glut of horses in the market in this country. And I mean INDUSTRY. The AQHA actually /sold/ the rights to the registration number for the 5,000,000th horse! According to Wikipedia, as of Feb 17, 2009, more than 132,000 Morgan Horses have been registered. Compare that to the NFHR recently registering it's 6,000th Fjord and I think that we can reasonably ask more than $500 to $2,000.00 for a well-trained horse. /// / >At even the big auctions, like Billings, nicely trained horses were >going for $500-$2000. Colts were bringing $50-$250. Hermiston was >about the same. > > Mostly Quarter Horses, I presume. >Horses are luxury items (unless you're a professional cowboy) and people >are cutting way back on spending on luxury items. > > Of course. Responsible breeders that I know have been cutting back for a couple of years now, breeding either 1 or 2 (or none -like us) offspring, which is a far cry from the "Animal Multipliers" (as Wayne Hipsley likes to call them) who don't take quality and the market into consideration when breeding animals. And, we don't sell our horses to just anyone. We try very hard to match the right horse with a proapective client. Therefore, sometimes we DO hang onto them longer than is economical, but do so for the benefit of both horse and new owner. If the initial post had mentioned that younger or (very) green started horses were acceptable, I may not have put fingers to the keyboard. As I read it, the implication was the need for tolerant, trained horses (what I presume to be a suitable horse for a lesson program.) Beth -- Starfire Farm Beth Beymer and Sandy North http://www.starfirefarm.com Important FjordHorse List Links: Subscription Management: http://tinyurl.com/5msa7e FH-L Archives: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw Classified Ads: http://tinyurl.com/5b5g2f
