What's going on with the price of horses?

We have two nine-year-olds who will never be bred. We have five QHs and no hopes of selling them, so why add to the herd?

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http://hickahala.blogspot.com/

"Can provide a person on a budget with a good mount." - Aye, but see, a lot of folks, unless they're showing, don't need a "good mount". After all, we're a sophisticated society. We drive gas-guzzling cars everywhere and let out horses relax (or rather, starve) in the pasture.

Let oil prices rise the way they are and our economy bust, and then perhaps we'll see a greater need for mounts. Granted, no, earlier days were not always kinder days, but at least back then almost every horse had a reason and a use!

*sigh*

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Yep. And by in large, the horses that performed their tasks were treasured while those that did not, for whatever reason, became dinner for another critter.

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Heather Fair
Fair Skies Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats
All I Saw Farm
Wasilla, Alaska
http://HoofinItNorth.com
http://FairSkiesAlaska.com

Cindy, we have minis too. Easy keepers, aren't they?!
We will have the vet out this winter and have us a gelding party! (1 paint qh along with our 2 mini *father and son* studs) No more breeding at our place. We've got what we wanted and our little mares were not bred back this summer and will never be bred again.

I've seen some really nice horses go for NOTHING around here. I think it has a lot to do with the seller's attitude and BS-ing abilities to be able to sell "their idea" of what a good animal is.
Also... I do not think you can sell a nice horse at a nice price just ANYWHERE... come to the Ozarks! I was one of those people who thought that I could do that ... thinking my wonderfully registered horses would bring something anywhere. Surely someone wanted a SUPERB bloodlined, WELL trained horse, WITH awesome conformation AND color! Someone earlier said $100... well gosh... I've not seen one around here actually go for THAT much lately! No... I decided I have to hang on to these superb creatures that are eating me out of house and home, because I can not give them away!

I'm really tired of all of the horse problems being blamed on the "backyard" breeder! Not when those so called breeders of quality horses are "culling" out hundreds of babies because they don't "fit" their breeding program.
Surely, their not putting down all of those babies that don't fit????? A goat, or cow I understand... because it is the American way to eat these things if need be. I just can not see a BIG horse breeding business eating their horse culls. (not yet anyway ~_^)

So who's really doing the flooding of badly conformed/diseased/not ideal to the breed standard horses?

Grant it... I know there are people out there who have the land, finances, and resources that breed horses just for the sake of it, and are unexperienced or whatever, and actually breed a lot of "Not so perfect" horses. Honestly though... someone who doesn't have the money for that resource is not going to be the culprit of this current situation.

So I think those who are upset with the breeders of bad conformation are with those people who have a dream of breeding horses that are "different" than their own dreams, but have/had a bigger operation than what a "backyard" breeder is able to afford. Because... the occasional backyard breeder who maybe breeds their 1 or 2 mares, just because they can, and get a deformed baby... are NOT the ones flooding the market with a bunch of sickly horses to cause this problem with drop of prices!
Statistically... there's just not enough of them for that.

I do feel that everyone should always breed to "better" the breeds, but I do not think getting angry at someone who breeds just because they want to experience having a baby, or even try to get a few dollars out of it, or who even wants to improve what they have, is a reason to get mad or even blame them for this problem.

If it is not the occasional back yard breeder that is making these angry vibes... then who is the culprit that should be blamed?
Is it the bigger horse breeding operations? People who can afford something bigger? So what do we do, take those people's dreams of learning and developing a good horse away? Do they get angry because they think these breeders are purposely breeding for bad conformation?

If not... then who is the culprit?

If you are going to be angry with bad breeders... it's probably breeders who have a much bigger operation than a typical "backyard" breeder, and do it for profit alone, without a care for the animal, or have the land, throw horses onto it, and say "Have at it baby" without care if that animal survives or not ... or if they re-produce. They just wanted something to look at for that first day!

I just do not think my 10 acres and a couple of horses with the occasional baby is the culprit for these issues! If you do... then let's compare how many horses with issues you've sold, to mine.

And a side note... navicular and founder can be cured. If you practice natural barefoot methods... these horses should not be considered unsound and unworthy to be bred. It's not genetics causing it, but un-organic hoof practices.

Now that I've opened a bunch of worms....

Cricket

This is why our slaughter houses were out of control the last many years. Before this, things went along normal, normal amount of horses went to slaughter. Does anyone have ANY idea how many 60,000 a year is?? That is allot of baby horses. Now add on the mares that cannot get pregnant again. And not done by backyard breeders. They don't care what they breed as long as they get the mare pee to make big $$$$ with.



from: http://www.springhillrescue.com/pmu.shtml

Premarin or PMU (PREgnant MARe urINe) foals are mere by-products of the Hormone Replacement Therapy drug Premarin® that is prescribed to women in menopause or who have had hysterectomies. This drug is made from the urine of approximately 60,000 pregnant mares (female horses) and their foals are usually shipped to slaughterhouses for their meat, which is marketed overseas to European and Asian countries for human consumption. When the mares can no longer conceive they too are generally shipped for slaughter and replaced on the "pee lines". These horses and foals vary in breed, the majorities are; Paints, Appaloosas, Quarter Horses, Thoroughbreds, Drafts, and crosses of each.

The mares at PMU (Pregnant Mare Urine) farms are impregnated, fitted with a urine collector device and put on "pee lines" for approximately 6 – 8 months. They are tied in small 8’ long X 3‘ wide stalls. Many are kept dehydrated so their urine is concentrated.

The mares are taken off the "pee lines" at foaling time and put outside to foal. They are re-impregnated and returned to the PMU production line. If these mares fail to get pregnant they too are generally sent to slaughter and replaced.

The true tragedy is that there are several other synthetic and plant-based alternatives on the market today. It is not even necessary to produce this drug! Women are rarely told what and how Premarin is made. If given the choice, most would not choose to be party to this cruelty and slaughter of these tens of thousands of horses and would opt for a synthetic drug.

I read a lot and post little, but this one is just too much. I just sold a QH for 1500, nothing special, 15 hands, solid bay. Needed alittle more riding to get the rough edges off, but a good solid horse. I bought it 3 months ago for 510 at an auction. Horses are used for work here and decent horses still bring good money if you have a place to sell them. While the market was good and slaughter houses were open, even junk horses sold for 500 and up. Those horses never really had a place on a ranch or a trail riding group as they are not up to standards of working all day. Besides the weekend pleasure horse. They are breed to work and do a job just like us. If they are not up to it, some got SS and some don't. It's like us if we don't work and pay our way them we get nothing in the end. The market on horses is like anything else, it goea up and down. But good horses will always have a fair market price.

The culprit as I see it is anyone that breeds ill conformed, ill tempered horses with no direct goal for what that horse will do for the rest of it's life. It simply doesn't matter if they breed one mare or fifty. It's the person that owns a mare with conformational problems that will or already has soundness problems and is bred despite these problems usually to the closest available stallion that can get the job done that is the problem. Another scenario is the stallion owner that will have him cover anything for the $200 (or less) breeding fee, never mind the stallion should have been a gelding as a yearling due to his own conformational or temperment faults. The foal is doomed from the minute it hits the ground. Not every horse has to be an extremely well bred, perfect moving show horse, but it does have to stay sound enough to work at something and the majority of soundness problems are a direct result of poor conformation. I believe that this practice of breeding any horse that can be will slow down now that the junk horses can't be sold, or at least easily sold. There will be a few more years of irresponsible breeding until it dawns on the thickest of these people that there is no way they can make any type of profit.

XcricketX, you have interesting views on navicular and laminitis perhaps you would like to discuss them on the equine portion of this forum?

doing it in NM, I agree with you completely. A good working ranch type gelding can sell anywhere in the US for decent money.

Cindy in KY, I believe the bottom of the PMU market fell out 2-3 years ago. There may be a few of these farms still in business but it is nothing compared to what it was just a few years ago. A study came out that linked Premarin use to heart conditions and immediately physicians took their patients off it causing a huge problem for the PMU farms. That problem released major amounts of horses onto the market where some went to slaughter and some went to rescues, which in turn, caused it's own problems.

Pix

It is still going on. Here is a list of auctions coming up for the babies.

http://www.pmufani.org/2007_auction_news.htm

If you look around, most of the PMU rescues were the ones pushing the closing of US slaughter for horses. Because of all the babies and mares.

What a horrible use of a horse. A great, magnificent animal used for riding, farming and driving. Standing for 6 months in a stall so they can collect and sell the pee for $11 a gallon. Gee whiz. More mares, more pee, more babies, more pee. Yeah, it flooded the market with babies and mares and stallions. Flooded the slaughter houses. Once rescue folks got wind of it, the fight began. Rescues closed the slaughter plants with pictures of all these little babies. We all read about it 10 years ago with the opening of the internet.

What normal horse rancher is going to send his foal crop to slaughter each year???? Not gonna happen. (rare case of crippled) Can't you see that this un-natural use of our horses for big $$$ has closed our slaughter houses, and now there is nowhere for the un-useable horses to go? So in turn, horses are being turned loose all over our country.

Does anyone believe God intended us to drink horse pee?? If no rancher would do it, then there would have been no horse pee to sell in the first place. But horse pee sells for allot more than cow's milk. $$$ PLUS the $$ per pound of the foal, per year, per mare.

Everyone wants a drug for their quick fix. Women can't make it through menopause without a dose of horse pee daily. Good grief. Our grandmothers lived through menopause without drugs. Our world went drug-crazy decades ago......now look what's happened.

I didn't say that there were no PMU farms still operating. There are far fewer now than when Premarin was the drug of choice. In fact, the PMU horses are no longer considered "rescues" as referenced in this link:

"The sudden close-down during 2003 - 2004 caused a tremendous upsurge of pregnant mares and foals needing immediate rescue from going to slaughter. By now the industry seems to have stabilized, with fewer producers and fewer at-risk foals and mares. The few farms still inexistence are able to sell their quality stock to interested parties, without generating a "rescue" situation. PMU groups are now "placement" rather than "rescue" groups. One by one they all wrote me, asking to be removed from my list of Rescues, so I no longer maintain that part of the website."

This paragraph was taken from this web site: http://www.mustangs4us.com/pmu_mares_and_foals.htm

The PMU farms are no longer a large contributor to the over population of junk horses in the United States. Actually, when Premarin was used I never saw a problem with the farms. The horses were not neglected and they provided a (then) needed service. Most farms used high quality stallions and the horses may not have been all top quality (for the most part draft or draft cross mares were used) but the majority of foals were usable.

Pix

But the PMU Rescues were the ones pushing to close the US slaughter houses. They have petitions all over their websites. And they won. Our slaughter houses would not have closed if not for the horse rescue groups. They weren't showing pictures of old, lame, blind horses. They were pushing pictures of baby horses going to slaughter to the general public. Now we have a huge problem.

Think about it. Young, healthy, baby horses going to slaughter at those huge numbers. Something is wrong with this picture. They should have shut down the PMU farms in the US, and left the US slaughter houses open, with no PMU babies from Canada allowed into our slaughter houses. (and no babies from surrogate mare programs either) Problem solved. Why did the rescue groups go after the slaughter houses, instead of the PMU and Surrogate farms???

The slaughter houses were getting rid of the "overpopulation problem" caused by these farms churning out thousands of unwanted babies.

The PMU ranches that are still operating are actually breeding some lovely and very desireable foals. I had two. I sold my Thoroughbred/Clydesdale to a foxhunter in Virginia, but his father was a Canadian Derby winner. The filly I kept, Lucy, is a drop-dead gorgeous draft/TB cross with the best temperament you could hope to find.
Lucy at two:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y4/...o/Photo021.jpg

Lucy is very nice, LisainN.Idaho. She's a fine example of a good usable horse that came from a PMU farm.

I believe it was less pressure from PMU petitions than the anti-horse slaughter bills (there has been a bill board type advertisement in my local mall for at least a year) that were brought up by legislators, there is still one in either the House or Senate now, or will be soon. I rather doubt there were many foals going to slaughter during the PMU farm shutdowns. Perhaps yearlings and two year olds but not many babies. Young horse meat isn't considered special like veal or lamb and the price received per pound wouldn't make it feasible. There are far too many people who feel the horse should be considered a pet rather than the stock it is. These are the people that can be "thanked" for shutting down the three horse slaughter facilities in the US and causing thousands of horses the pain of neglect and starvation plus causing them to be shipped hundreds of miles further to either Canada or Mexico for processing.

Pix

I was just offered one like that for free. This particular horse is a drop dead gorgeous nicely put together solid/blanket app with lots of chrome. Due to the drought I was not able to sprig my pasture and only have hay storage for one horse until next spring. I had to turn him down.

Oh horse-poop. The onlly folks who claim this are the bare-foot horse snake oil salesmen and their blank-eyed, kool-aide drinking zombies.

Thank you but he really isn't very pretty. He does however have serviceable conformation, a good temperament and years of experience. There's always a market for homely good old boys like him.

Don't sugarcoat it Lisa! Tell us how you really feel!

__________________
Heather Fair
Fair Skies Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats
All I Saw Farm
Wasilla, Alaska
http://HoofinItNorth.com
http://FairSkiesAlaska.com

I guess the hay expense is the problem? All I know is a neighbor wants to
trade some hay for a horse ($250. for a 2 yr old Draft/Pony mix?) and I don't
know how we can go wrong with that! He knows my wife has been wanting
one for the longest. Says he will be a good one for my wife to "learn on".
Hey, its already broke and you can ride it so I think we'll go for it ;-)
pc

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"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people..."
Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837

Did a Google search on Horse Slaughter.

Point raise is there are estmated to be over 9M horses in the U.S., but well less than 1% of them went through the slaughter houses each year. Say 500K horses die in the U.S. each year. I suspect a lot of them are being buried or rendered.

Never been a slaughter facility or an auction here. Very few horses are fortunate to get "retired" to better climate south. What is brought up and what is bred, tends to stay here.

Hay prices are through the roof here, really. I read about people whining that $4 a bale is highway robbery, and they "can't afford" their horses any more-up here, that would hardly buy "cow hay" and some feed stores are pushing $650, $700 a ton already.

I don't think it is going to be a very good winter