Ok, first question.. What on earth is BLM?!
I imagine that you can pick the yearlings and foals up pretty cheap at the round ups? You can in the UK with the New Forest ponies, so what is it about your foals, which in essence are the same thing, that is going to make people want to pay more money for them?
Mine wont be sold till after i have worked with them and they would have preformance horses in their background.
When you are in a serious breeding program, you will inevitably HAVE to sell off youngstock.. This is taken as read, you can't possibly keep them all just in case. Think of the land and time issue involved with only 10 youngsters! And you would be adding to that every year! Would get far too much all too quickly, and only breeding one or two a year wouldn't keep the bank manager from your door!
oh i know i will have to sell but if there are some not fit to sell i will keep them i dont plan to have alot of horses on my property anyway im thinking about going back to cows as a career
Also, not many people I know would happily stable their horses with essentially wild horses.. The risks are quite large even if they appear tame and calm all the time, so you would miss out on any livery business at your barn, which can be all important "Top up" money! It's a regular income!
i wont board at my stables except as a service to friends. i dont want the added responsibility and with having the cows and all that it will be to much
And from what I understand of the Mustang, correct me if I am wrong here... They aren't overly large?! So your potential buyer would have to be a small adult, or VERY capable child. And here in lies the problem, a child can lose confidence very quickly when they are outhorsed!!
The difference in sizes is actually my main worry thats why im not sure but since most serious BR riders are women.
Is there really a market for that many Barrel horses a year? Are there enough potential customers for pleasure horses?!
BR with the few i would be yes. I know quite a few ppl here who want to make the transition to mustangs but cant find anyone they trust and dont want to deal with the BLM and all that it entails.
Turning them out for half the year sounds idyllic doesn't it, but it causes MAJOR issues with "Feral" horses. It happened to a friend of mine, she bought a New Forest, backed her and everything was going swimmingly, she turned her away to mature, and she reverted to a wild pony.. We couldn't catch the darn thing for 6 months, and she was a total she devil when we did!! It took my friend a further YEAR to get her back to where she was when she was turned away. Luckily she wasn't in a hurry and she was a bit of a pet project, but if she was buying and schooling to sell again, it would have been awful! Think another whole year before you would get any money from that horse, and another years worth of winter feed, vets bills, and farrier, not to mention worming and all those other little bits and pieces that soon add up.
that is another concern that im thinking about and tossing back and forth i may change that or i may just do it a month in and a month out.
Not trying to rain on your parade, just giving you food for thought!