Vanessa - 2016-01-17 9:30 PM

There is so much more involved than just the cost of the flushing.
The stud fee is the cheap part.
Repro farm daily rates, $15-$18/day. Typically you leave the mare there for the entire time period, and take her and the recip home when the recip checks 45 days in foal. If your mare is under lights and ready to go when you drop her off, you'll save yourself a few days or weeks board. Plan on 60 days board.
Depending on the vet, figure $40-$50 for the first palp, and $20-$40 after. And the mare should already have been cultured and vaccinated, if not, then they'll do that on your dime too. You'll pay for sedation for every palp, if she's short cycled, needs anything else.
Once the mare is ready, they'll breed her, check her to see if she's ovulated, and then you'll wait a few days to flush her. They can't palp her to see if she took, you have to flush and cross your fingers. Flushing will vary from each vet, I pay $375 for just the flush. If you get an embryo, great, if not, you start over. And yes, you pay for the flush and every palp regardless if you get that embryo. If you get a viable embryo, the vet will pop it in a recip that is in the best reproductive cycle at that very minute. That's why you have to have recip herds with many mares, even 4 hours can make a difference with what mare gets an embryo or gets put back on rotation.
Then you get to wait to see if the recip took the embryo. You're still paying board on your donor mare, she'll get palped again a few days later to make sure she's open. If the recip pops up open, you're starting over. If the recip takes the embryo, then you usually pick her and your mare up when she's 45 days along, and you pay the recip fee. It's $4000 here, and you don't get it back when you return the mare. Some farms will be more or less, and some farms will give you a little money back when you return the mare- if she's in good shape. You are to feed that mare and take care of her on your dime, and then return her when the foal is weaned.
Choosing a repro vet and farm based on who is the cheapest can cost you. Go with a facility that has good numbers. That board and the flushes add up. If you have a great mare (and I mean great) then the cost is worth it.
Going by just the numbers I've mentioned here, and say a decent stud around $5k, $16/day board, minimal palpations and meds, and only one flush, You'll be well over $10K into an embryo by day #45 after you bred your donor mare if everything goes smooth.
Keep in mind that sometimes your mare doesn't ovulate, or you don't get the embryo flushed at the right time, or there is no embryo, or the recip kicks the embryo, or the recip absorbs the embryo, whatever, it happens to all of us and you have to be prepared and ready to keep on. And back on that note about the cost and if the mare is worth it, ask if the stud is worth it too. I know of a couple folks who didn't read their contracts and didn't get their mares settled to a huge name stud ($50k fee range) the first year, and then didn't take care of business on their end with the mares in the second year if they were going to present a reproductively sound mare or use their substitute option. They lost their fee(s). I was in the office when that phone call was going down and I was out the door before objects started getting thrown.