This morning my daughter was surfing the web looking at all the Friesian stallions that are now cross breeding. She made the statement that some of them have dropped their stud fee way down maybe we should also.
I explained to her that the stud fee is just part of the cost. Most stallion owners do not allow live cover, a customer that books with them will also have the cost of a vet on both ends, their vet to sonagram the mare each day to figure out when semen was needed, then our vet to come collect the stallion, prepare the semen for shipping and then the cost to ship the semen, then more cost from their vet to inseminate their mare. AND... if their vet is off by a day or so the mare won't get pregnant and ALL of those cost will have to be done again plus losing precious time waiting for the mare to cycle. The other reason we won't reduce our stud fee is that a RAVEN baby is almost ALWAYS superior to other Friesian stallion's cross baby. We know what Raven throws, his foals can be seen on our website on the photogallery page. Raven not only throws beautiful, athletic babies with good minds but they all take after him more than their own dam. This is what we call improving on the mare. a pretty general fact of breeding is that usually you will get 75% of the mare and only 25% of the stallion. When a stallion throws himself by improving on the mare (the foal looks more like the stallion than the mare) not only is it rare but pretty wonderful and VERY valuable. So, long story short, we do NOT need to reduce our price, if a customer wants the best they are usually willing to pay for the best. I've placed one of my favorite pictures of Raven. He is so kind and loving and this photo of his face reminds me of my blessings.
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