Horses and money

[abigalerose]

How do you make money off of horses? And I'm not talking about getting rich or turning a huge profit. But making enough to provide feed, care, and possibly some tack for them, without paying for it out of pocket.
I was kickin around some ideas and thought of having a couple stallions to stud out, not sure how reasonable it is, but if they were proven and had good bloodlines and conformation, maybe it could help lesson the feed bill?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Last I heard was the horse market is pretty flooded with horses and many get sold for meat due to over breeding. Well trained horses are still sought out, but those require money put into them.

Boarding is an option if you have the set up. Training if you have the knowledge, but most don't make money off horses without putting money out there.

 

[Bunnylady]

If you aren't satisfied with the amount you are spending/losing on horses already, get a stallion. It'll make you feel like the way things are now were pure heaven.

 

[kajira]

When you have animals - unless you are a big business operation, or have a niche market, you pretty much assume you're going to have to have hobby money to keep the animals you want.

If you were able to give riding lessons, you may be able to break even - HOWEVER that opens you up for liability to be sued if your horse injures someone. So think carefully about that. Even with safety waivers in place, being sued is still a possibility.

Boarding/Leasing is usually how people make money. Bloodlines aren't the only thing that sells, and for the average person, unless you are buying a horse worth 20,000 for a special reason, you can find a nice, regular horse, with some training foundation already started for under 1000 bucks in most places.

The amount you'd pay in fees for vet care for breeding, or even studding a male out, would probably cost more then you'd make with an average stud.

 

[abigalerose]

Thanks for the answers! I'm starting training horses right now, which isn't bad, but was just trying to find out if maybe there were other ways too. I don't think I'd ever be comfortable with giving lessons, so I'll stick to training. I don't know a lot about stallion care so I didn't know if they were more trouble then they're worth or not.

 

[donrae]

Honestly, you don't make money from horses. They're money pits. You work to support them as a hobby, that's about the best most of us can hope for.

You can do some things like compost manure, or sell straight manure for a small amount. You can scour yard sales, etc for used tack and clean it up and try reselling it for a small profit.

Take a farrier course and learn to at least trim your own horses. That can save you some money right there. My Honey does some trimming for other folks on the side from time to time.

But as far as breeding, etc....not so much. Kill pens are full of horses from folks who bred them thinking they'd make a profit.

 

[Bunnylady]

Stallions are a constant headache - even well-behaved ones. You need a fence that would stop a charging rhino, because heaven forbid that your animal breaks out and makes himself a nuisance to the neighbors. He will most likely need to be confined alone, and will most likely need extra feed because of all the energy he burns off pacing the perimeter of whatever space he is confined to. One of the "rules of thumb" that get passed around among horse people is that, if you buy a mare that may have been at a place that had a stallion on the premises, you should get her pregnancy tested; you might be amazed at how many "whoops!" foals are out there. An awful lot of boarders have been incensed when their mare turns up pregnant unexpectedly; most mare owners won't even consider boarding at a place that houses a stallion (it's unusual, but mares have been bred through fences). Gelding owners will be worried about the stud getting out and beating up their geldings; most would opt not to risk it by keeping their horses at a place that doesn't keep stallions. Very few boarding facilities will take stallions as boarders; those who do usually charge extra.

As kajira said, it takes more than bloodlines to 'sell' a stud - he has to have done something to make people believe he is worth sending a mare to. That means you have to campaign him, or pay someone else to campaign him, to get him the exposure and draw the interest of mare owners. That's time and money, above and beyond the cost of merely maintaining him. If someone sends a mare to you, you have to board her, and if it takes more than one cycle to get her settled, that's more of your time and energy that you may or may not get reimbursed for - there are lots of ways that this can cost more than it pays. A lot of people who keep broodmares send them to the stud while the mare is already in foal or with a foal at her side, which puts responsibility for care of the baby and possibly the delivery on the stud's owner.

The race horse industry arbitrarily assigns January 1st as the birth date of all horses in their registry. Every TB that was born in 2015 officially turned a year old on 1/1/2016, even if it was actually foaled the week before. As you can imagine, this would put any colt born late in the year at a severe disadvantage when it started racing as a "2-year-old." It might not matter as much in performance-based disciplines, but in those where very young animals compete (like conformation classes), age matters, so there is a general tendency toward breeding so that foals get born in the Spring. As a result, even popular stallions tend to stand idle for most of the year.

Locally, "full board" means a stall, two meals a day, daily turnout, with feed/hay/shavings provided, and the labor to get the stall cleaned and the horse in and out and fed. The usual price for that is between $350-$400/month, and about half of that is supplies. Someone built an absolutely top-rate facility with lots of amenities, including hot/cold water in the wash stalls and a covered arena, and tried to charge $600/month - and went broke. It's a tough market.

Most of the folks around here barely break even - they have some other business that brings in the cash, and the horses are a sideline.

 

[abigalerose]

Ah yes, well if I ever did venture into the stallion territory I'd have him proven, probably in reining, becuase I know it takes more than bloodlines and good confirmation. I also have a place I could keep one seperate from the rest of the horses, becuase my big pasture is to the right of my barn, and on the other side of the barn is my garage, and then after that, my house, and finally on the other side of my house is a small area (about 1 acre) with a little building, that I would fence with pipe fencing, and then fix up the building as a stall, maybe two. And keep a stallion there, with a mini gelding or mini dokey gelding as company, as I know a lot of people who do that and it seems to work.
So I do have a pretty solid plan if I ever decide to get one, just don't know if it'd be worth it. Ya'know, some people pour money into their horses and never get anything out of it, and then there's places like Silver Spurs Equine who make loads of money off their horses, and I just don't get it.
Id be thrilled with breaking even though.

 

[Bunnylady]

Ah yes, well if I ever did venture into the stallion territory I'd have him proven, probably in reining, becuase I know it takes more than bloodlines and good confirmation. I also have a place I could keep one seperate from the rest of the horses, becuase my big pasture is to the right of my barn, and on the other side of the barn is my garage, and then after that, my house, and finally on the other side of my house is a small area (about 1 acre) with a little building, that I would fence with pipe fencing, and then fix up the building as a stall, maybe two. And keep a stallion there, with a mini gelding or mini dokey gelding as company, as I know a lot of people who do that and it seems to work.
So I do have a pretty solid plan if I ever decide to get one, just don't know if it'd be worth it. Ya'know, some people pour money into their horses and never get anything out of it, and then there's places like Silver Spurs Equine who make loads of money off their horses, and I just don't get it.
Id be thrilled with breaking even though.

It's one of those situations where it takes money to make money . . . sorta. The owners of Silver Spurs are doing it as a sideline; most of the money they make from breeding and sales, etc. gets donated. My bet is that SSE is being run as a non-profit; must be nice to have so much money that you can have a business that is designed with the intent of losing money, huh? If the farm and breeding program actually had to support itself, it might not.

 

[Weehopper]

You don't. You get a job, and enjoy a very expensive luxury. Not that much money to be made from animals. It might pay for some feed now and then, but that's about it.