Stallion Promotion - What Should I Charge for Breeding?

Stallion Promotion

What Should I Charge for Breeding?

By Lisa Atkinson

You have a stallion, now you need to know what to charge for his breeding.

Comparing him to other stallions similar to yours is usually the best way to figure out the price range you should be considering.

The main areas to compare (these are what mare owners compare) are: pedigree, show record, offspring record and conformation. Temperament, while important, is usually a minor consideration.

For producing registered foals, pedigree is very important and you should be able to tell people about your stallions’ outstanding ancestors. If you are cross breeding, it is probably not as important.

A show record, proving that the judges like your stallion as much as you do, is a great benefit in attracting mare owners. It also gets your stallion out, seen at his best and hopefully, talked about positively, because word of mouth is one of the best ways of advertising.

Does your stallion have great conformation? If not, he’d better be outstanding in the other qualities.

Where are you advertising your stallion? What type of mares are you trying to attract? Will you be looking at breeding to local mares of the same breed, cross breeding or offering shipped semen to North America. If you offer shipped semen, you have a large number of mares to offer your stallion to but you also have more stallions to compete against for these mares. To attract mare owners to breed by shipped semen, your stallion must offer something that breeders can’t get locally, a stallion with a better pedigree, performance record, more desirable offspring or a different breed. With shipped semen it is less important what other stallions in your area are going for and more important how your stallion compares to other stallions being offered by shipped semen.

One challenge with a young, unproven stallion, is to get mare owners to breed to him. It is important to have quality offspring on the ground as this is really the proof of your stallion. If you have a young stallion without offspring who are proving themselves in their field you usually want to encourage people to breed with a special low introductory fee.

If you have a popular stallion, you probably want to set a high fee to limit the number of mares being bred by him, but the opposite of setting a low fee, probably will not bring mare owners to your stallion without him having other desirable features.

Remember, often it isn’t the price that will attract people, it is getting him known and showing them the qualities of your stallion.

For more information on stallion promotion, check the other “Articles” on our website

Updated March 20, 2003