6. How have you dealt with the current economic climate?
Ouch! We are still dealing with it every day, as well as the terrible Texas drought that has driven hay prices into the stratosphere.
One thing we have done is to limit our breeding to only custom foals. A custom foal is one that is paid for before the mare is even bred. In our program people can choose one of our broodmares and we will breed her to any stallion in the world for which shipped semen (fresh or frozen) is available. For a single, turn-key price, we will handle everything including training the resulting foal to lead, tie, bathe, clip, load in a trailer and stand for a farrier. The new owner gets the foal of their dreams with the exact bloodlines they want (and can even be listed on the registration papers as the breeder of the foal) and either takes the foal at weaning or begins paying board. In this way, we do not produce foals "on speculation" and avoid having young horses around that may not sell in this economy.
We are also now purchasing a year's worth of shavings up front and having it delivered as needed so that we lock our costs for the year and also (because it is paid for up front) ensure that a load is delivered when we need it instead of being put at the bottom of a list when we call. We are considering doing the same with hay, but we go through almost 400 square bales of coastal bermuda hay a month and buying 4,800 bales at one time would be an enormous expense up front.
Farm improvements have been put on hold unless it is an improvement for which we can see an immediate return on the investment.
As our lesson horses retire, we are not buying others, but instead are working out arrangements to use some of our boarders' horses for lessons. In that way, we save the costs of keeping lesson horses and the boarders get a small break on their monthly board.
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