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It Would Be Interesting

N

Northern Rancher

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Joined
Feb 10, 2005
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12,247
Location
saskatchewan
To see the economics of running cows versus mares all things considered. We run both pretty hands off but the operating cost on a mare is pretty cheap and they last easily twice as long as a cow. Every mare we exposed raised a foal even a couple that broke down and had an illicit liason. My two biggest colts are off 21 year olds. I think in country where your brood band can paw out it would be interesting. I've got cattle moving in beside me on the back half of our place-I think I might just get a fairly sharp pencil and see if it might work just to use that grass for horses and run cows out on our tame stuff. The kicker with cayuses is getting them marketed at any kind of money of course.
 
Well NR, an old timer once told me the biggest positive in raising horse's is on sale day you will get the entire check as there isn't a bank in the country that will put up a loan against them :lol: :lol:
 
:lol: ---my banker asked me one time if i had any horses.i said yep,,3

he told me i had 2, to many. :lol: i still have 3 horses/ponies but a different banker.
 
I've seen too many $75 horses go through the ring to want to play that game. An old fella that used to live next to us ran about 300 head and no cows. He was dirt poor but happy enough I guess.
 
Never relevant to my life!! My neighbor just down the road has a condo in Hawaii-he sold lots of $75 horses that he bought for $50 lol. A friend whose a quadrapeligic and another friend's son buried because of 4-wheeler accidents in the last month not my favorite topic right now. I've seen guys with three hundred cows and no horses pretty damn hard up to so I guess you just pick your poison!!
 
We've got some friends that are running a few hundred mares custom for the meat market. I think they are contracted by the pound on weaned colts. Draft crosses so there is some pretty good pay weight. Pretty thin market though so you'd want all the i's dotted and t's crossed on your contract.
They enjoy it, although there is a definate learning curve as far as breeding pastures etc. compared to cattle.
 
Northern Rancher said:
Never relevant to my life!! My neighbor just down the road has a condo in Hawaii-he sold lots of $75 horses that he bought for $50 lol. A friend whose a quadrapeligic and another friend's son buried because of 4-wheeler accidents in the last month not my favorite topic right now. I've seen guys with three hundred cows and no horses pretty damn hard up to so I guess you just pick your poison!!
Click to expand...

I knew a guy who got killed in a horse wreck too.I watched a horse sale on the internet $25 would have bought you alot of weanligs.Don't get me wrong I like horses I just can't see how it would pencil out.I've got a friend who's got a place in Hawaii also. All he did was join the Marines
 
Overheard in the Dawson Auction mart many year's ago when canner's were selling for $1-1.25 # "well Frank, you gunna round up a buch of your wildie's and bring them in?" "hell no, first time in my life I've had somthin worth sumthin.......I'm keeping them!!"
 
There's an oufit to the northwest of us that when they need a new tractor they just round up and ship till they have it paid for-they are sitting on alot of reasonable lease land. Haven't heard what those broncs of Shane's brought-I think if a guy had the time to play with them a bit some haulable horses probably hid in the bunch.
 
Ty has been on lots of Franklin freshies-we aren't replacing our cows with horses just thinking of maybe increasing the horse side some more-I'm down to 30 lol. I imagine he's rode some of those ones they sold probably some of the tryout horses from Lakeland College. One thing about starting out riding broncs up here by the time you get done the McDonald's and Franklin colts life gets a bit easier. I'd say this year the best colts he was on were Shoshone Mountain and Simon's Warrior of Calgary and one of Shane's at Lea Park-they all bucked him off but he'd like another crack at them. He was one chute away from Shoshone Mountain in Calgary lol. One thing about horses there's lots of stories about all of them.
 
It's not my fault you can't handle the reality of other people's experience. If you don't want honest answer's don't ask the question's.If you can make a string of horses pay more power to you. I just know from here there's no way you could make enough to cover 1/2 of the cost.Horses could'nt pay for anything south of the border unless your a very established breeder/trainer but loose wild type horses full grown bring a $100 -$25 commision. You have a good day now Little Buddy.
 
Recent foal sale here reportedly had a $550 average. Sure sounds bad when you think of horses selling that way, but I think that's just the preconceived notion in my head that horses are worth more than cattle. If you think about the costs involved, I'm betting a mare is cheaper to run year round. So if a mare costs you $350 for the year, and you average $550 on foals, run 300 mares and net around $60,000.

Then again, I'm a person who firmly believes there are already far too many horses in the market. JMO.
 
Pretty sure were a fair bit under $350 I was thinking more like a couple studs worth. I haven't found out what Kling's sale averaged in Cody this week. Horses are alot like cows you can sink unbelievable amounts of money into them or not...
 

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