05-22-2018, 11:53 PM
Quote:
4 hours ago, silverwolf1 said:
A goodly share of my income from training horses goes to just keeping two of them. Not a profitable animal, you just have to love them to keep one, even if they work for you. My neighbor hauls logs out with two mules, and operates in the red most years, so needs a 'real' job too. My main customer races his and has a working stud and a dozen brood mares... AND gives riding lessons! and just stays above water. Another neighbor boards horses and gives lessons, out of love because she loses money... etc...
sw
post script: Dogs are no different btw. Not much profit even for working dogs or purebred breeders.
There´s a proverb in the German equestrian circles: "The only way to become a millionaire with horses is to be a billionaire before..." [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/wink.png[/img]/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" title=";)" width="20" />
Yes, horses are expensive, but it isn´t impossible to make a living with them if you organise everything properly. The farm I worked on for two years bred expensive showjumper horses, sold one or two every month and also was boarding other peoples´ horses...went quite well financially, I´d guess...during my time , the farm owner, who was NOT coming from a rich family, managed to buy about 50 hectares of additional land, bought herself a friggin´ 70 K Deutschmark Mercedes with cash (!), not being dependent on a bank loan. She had constant revenue from the nearly 80 boarding horses, made hay and sold it (what saves money twice...once for not having to buy hay and straw herself and twice for selling hers to other stables) and not one of her showjumpers was sold for less than 10 K Deutschmarks. I guess it´s the same in horsekeeping/boarding as in other agricultural sectors....go big or get extinct.
Well, I keep four mares...and my expenses rarely exceed 300-400 Euros a month. I grow my own hay, so the only stuff I have to buy is muesli/pellet food....which I buy in bulk directly from the producer for lower prices. The farrier for all four of my ladies is the most expensive thing I have to deal with, every 6-8 weeks he pays me a visit and leaves with roughly 250 Euros ( 2 mares get horseshoes, the other two walk barefoot). Deworming and vaccination twice a year also doesn´t cost a fortune. What really rips your bank account is those rare occasions of emergency visits from a vet...you can be sure it gets really expensive then. Colic surgery for example (luckily I haven´t had that) can sum up to 8000 Euros ...without any guarantee the horse in question will survive. But besides that, horsekeeping doesn´t have to be "expensive"...depending on what you call expensive and how much you are willing to curb your own personal demands....and whether you´re willing to generate more income by doing some additional work.
I grow most of my food myself, I am not interested in status symbols besides driving a nice sports car and I just do fine with my four girls. From my perspective, horses aren´t expensive.
