to buy or not to buy, that is the question
I had planned a mega-birthday present to me for my 60th. Really a combined 60th b-day and Christmas present.
I lost my elderly gelding to old age 2 years ago. My mare has done well on her own, but horses are herd animals and really are better off with company. We lost our elderly barn kitty to liver disease last Christmas, and her replacement from the same shelter was kittynapped last summer and it appears she's gone for good. So Dahli has not even had her cat-friend around for company.
I was dreaming of getting a 2nd horse, this time a young mare that I could breed down the road. I believe breeding should be with a purpose, and after months of research and thought, I decided I wanted to help restore some old lines of the original type of Morgan horse that are in danger of being lost forever.
Shortly before my 60th, a preservation breeder about 6 hours to my south had a young mare on emergency sale due to a personal financial crisis. I was in contact with her and planned to go down the week of my birthday. Well, my manager picked that week to launch a passive-aggressive attack and sent me spiraling into depression, and I lost my focus. When I contacted the breeder the night before my birthday to confirm our appointment the next day, she started hedging that she might be under contract. And the next morning, on our 2nd call of the morning she confirmed that she sold that filly out from under me at 10am (just 15 minutes after she told me to drive 6 hours down to see her).
I understand her situation. The filly is going to a breeder that she personally knows, and the breed preservation club raised a wad of cash to help her buy hay for her horses this winter. Now she has stated publically on their facebook page, that other than that filly and her colt, she will not sell any of her other horses. I also learned then that one of the reasons she was broke was because 2 horses that she'd sold the year before ended up in a bad way so she spent a bundle rescuing them and getting them back to her home.
Anyway, I'm facing a bleak Christmas following a bleak 60th b-day. The mares from this line generally cost 3-4 times what she was asking, plus she was right on the track for a top-notch pro shipper I know that runs horses from Maine to Florida in the fall and you can catch a ride back with him in an empty, freshly disinfected van with video trained on your horse for a lot less than the other direction. That is how I got Dahli up here in fine form.
So I can either get a very nice morgan mare that is not a preservation prospect and offered at a slightly discounted price, but I have to make the decision today to get her coggins in time. There is a van shipping between christmas and new years, weather permitting.
Or I can just give it up and wait until next year. There is a mare from an even more scarce line (200 in the world) that is also a line well worth preserving. They are the 2 "purest" lines of morgan and produce totally true to type. They are "do-it-all" horses that are perfect for the small farms that abound up here.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I probably don't need to give her the feed...she'll lick up anything that's edible. 
