Cost of a horse…

J

Jellymoon

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Just being lazy really as I could work it out myself, but thinking of putting one of my mine on retirement livery and trying to work out how much I actually spend on keeping him at home. Just seeing if the reduced cost of not having him here means I can in any way afford it. He’s 17hh and eats about a bale a day (£5 per bale so that’s easy to work out) then 2 scoops chaff and 3 tubs Baileys low cal balancer a day. How much would that cost?
Then I can have a stab at how much he adds to the freelancer labour cost and much heap removal!
Plus no longer needing to shoe…
 
I think the balancer and chaff would cost about £50/£60 per month, plus £150 for hay. If you're having the freelancer take care of him every day then retirement livery would likely work out cheaper. I have a similar dilemma with one of mine, especially as I am now short of grazing with one more horse than I really have space for. The first thing I would try to do if I were you would be to try to source large bale hay. My 3, all 16.2 plus wb eat 1.5 large bales between them in the winter which works out at about £80 a month per horse, a bit less in summer. The bales are delivered for £38 each.
 
Not shoeing will reduce the cost, but you'll still need to factor in trimming costs. Would your farrier still be trimming his hooves, or would the retirement yard arrange their own farrier/trimmer? If so, it would be worth checking what they charge, some of the hoof trimmers charge twice what a farrier would (for a trim).
What kind of chaff and scoop size? Also, will the retirement livery give hard feed as part of the basic livery package, or will you need to pay for that as an extra?
 
It cost me £215 for basic retirement livery which was out in a field 24/7 and in an enclosed hard standing area overnight in winter.

Hay cost was divided by how many horses they had versus how many round bales were put out overnight.

Feet trimming, rug repairs, hard feed, holding for farrier/vet and, application of poultices, treating mud fever, rain scald, worming tests, fly spray all as extras.

I was often paying £160 a month on top. Pay about £70 now and do him myself!
I pay
 
I was 260 for retirement livery, out 24/7 with access to field shelter. Then I still had to pay farrier,feed,supplements etc on top if that sp was quite expensive
 
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