Welcome to Fern Valley

Here in central Alberta prime farm country,my husband Martin and I work together raising beef cattle and Appaloosa horses. Fern valley appaloosas have long been known for their quality of temperament conformation and color.I have recently rediscovered a love of writing and have published 2 collections of poetry. "Telling Tails" and Tails Trails and Campfire stories" . I look forward to a future spreading my wings as an author and as a horse woman .

Wednesday 15 January 2014

No Tire kickers please! (bit of a rant )

Anyone who  has  ever advertised  anything for sale will appreciate this. There are always the responses that come that make you  want to shake  your head and go WTF???

Well my friend  Deb  came upon  an add on Kijiji ,that  hits the nail on  the head. I would so love to have this as  part of my adds on  horses  for sale! Edited out a few  details, but here is the gist;

"Please no tire kickers, I am a pre-menopausal woman and may just kick you back. ;) 

FREE BARN KITTY WITH PURCHASE!

Open to reasonable offers, (remember I am pre-menopausal).  No, I don't want any goats or chickens or used pallets or your brother-in-law who sleeps on your couch (unless he's cute and can fence)."



This gal is brilliant! 
I have listed Harley, Tango, Maks and Jewels  for sale, and so far the response have all been good,but I have seen some  dandies over the years! So much  so that I once had an email responding to an  add, asking  if I would  take  payments. Now this individual  had  not corresponded  with me  yet, and  or seen the horse in  question so I was pretty cavalier in my  response. I said  something along  the lines of "yeah  sure you  can make payments, and when you make enough of them , you can  have the horse" 
Imaging  my shock  when I got a reply  detailing and exact payment plan and  no less  than a week  later received  a substantial  deposit! Oops! nearly  blew that one ! 
Of course there are always the ones  from  my "long lost  Nigerian  royalty  relatives" who  just  want my bank  account  details  so that they  can  deposit double  what I am  asking , if I just pay  the shipping and send them  the change! Asking of course if the "item " is in  good  condition!Item?? its a horse! try  please if you are  going to scam  me to actually  assume I am  not a complete  moron!!! 

The  things I would add to the above cautions on  an  add  would be,

Yes, I will  take  payments
Yes,  you may come  here to see  the horse more than  once if you need  to , however, I do  not run  a park/bed and breakfast/ petting zoo. You  need to call first and schedule  your  visit , and allowing your  children and pets to run  wild  all over my  farm is NOT  ENDEARING
no, you cannot  keep  the horse here indefinitely, and certainly  not for free 
no, I don't have  video of a weanling under  saddle !!!! 
Yes if  the horse is  purebred it is registered and  the papers  will be  transferred to you  upon  purchase. NO I WILL NOT  DROP  THE PRICE AND KEEP THE PAPERS!!! its against  the law
No  I will  not haul  the horse  to the  destination of your  choosing in -30 C  so  you  can  look  at him/her  and  then  haul  back  while you  think  about it 
Yes, I am asking  for  real  money and a considerable  amount  for my  horses,and yes  you  can get a colt  for $50 at  auction, but that  colt has not  necessarily been  carefully bred , well cared  for and handled and fed. And yes, I believe  my  colt/filly is  worth more because of that, my  time is not  free.

Of course I don't  put that in  my adds, and I generally  bite  my tongue and try to be  reasonable  with  folks, but oh my ,if they  could hear  what I am  thinking !!! LOL 
Anyhow this years  adds are up and out there, in the end  I am  usually pretty successful, finding some really great  folks out there  who  take  the horses I raise and  do great things. And  those  folks are  why I do  what I do . 

Rant  over , stay  safe  friends! 

10 comments:

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

LMAO!!! I hear dat!

I think part of the reason (outside of that adorable face) I decided not to sell Little John right now is that I started hyperventilating at the thought of dealing with buyers again.

That's not to say that I wouldn't sell a horse to someone I knew or through word of mouth, but the thought of dealing with the general public...meh...I don't think it's in me anymore.

RoeH said...

LOL! Don't blame you a bit.

Shirley said...

Too funny- but you nailed it. It's amazing how annoying people are when it comes to buying horses.
Hope you find great homes for all of them. I noticed your ad for Jewel, had Andee taken her place?

Nuzzling Muzzles said...

Ahhh,yes. I've only put one horse up for sale in my life, and after just one phone call, I took her off the market because I knew it was only going to get worse. If someone is a breeder and selling horses is their business, I suppose it's worth the wait for the good buyers, but when you simply need to sell a horse and you are working overtime elsewhere, the general public can be a major obstacle in living your life.

Anonymous said...

People never cease to amaze me . . .

aurora said...

I've never sold a horse, only bought them. It takes thick skin and common sense to weed through the nonsense.

Ranch Girl Diaries said...

Great post! I love reading ads, some are so ridiculous. You can tell alot from someone's add. When I email someone about something for sale I try to be very thorough and honest. I hate to be a looky- loo and ask a bunch of questions if I'm not going to seriously purchase but sometimes you have to as you gather more information and make a decision beween items (I'm not talking about a horse purchase because I haven't done it this way. ) I'm glad you have good luck with your ads for the most part! I'm sure they are great ads to start with! ;)

kden said...

Great post :-) I once had a very large sign for sale that could have been repainted for their own use. I got the Nigerian scam request too-wanting me to mail it; sure I'll just pop it in a bubble mailer buddy.

WishIHadAHorsey said...

I solemnly swear I will only be a tire drooler and not a tire kicker.

Cut-N-Jump said...

It goes both ways sadly enough. The ridiculous in the ads and the idiocracy responding to them.

Word of mouth is always good, but it doesn't always work for everyone. Sometimes you just gotta pull on the hip waders and go in after them. Those usually turn out to be the special ones when buying. Selling- you might as well put the hip waders on when you post the ads. *sigh*