Has this been your most expensive winter?

Ironically, it's cost me less to keep my horses over the winter than it did last summer :(
We had such a lot of rain last year, that the fields were like bogs, there was no grass and I was bringing them in at night so was going through a large bale of hay a fortnight and chucking three feeds a day down my two boys trying to keep weight on them. Despite that, they both lost weight because they were working 4-5 times a week out hacking.
My boy came down with mud fever in September, something he hasn't had in the 9 years I've had him, so they had to come in 24/7 (can't turn one out without the other cos they stress without each other :rolleyes:) and once they were in, they slowly started to gain weight. The hay that the farmer supplies from the farm is such good quality that I was able to stop feeding bucket feeds and my costs went from £40 a week to £15 because I was no longer buying hard feed for them. All they had was a bit of speedi-beet so they could have their vits and minerals.
Unfortunately, this summer seems to be looking pretty grim too. By now, we're usually looking to turn out 24/7 by the end of this month, as it stands there is nothing out there. I turn them out in the morning and by the time I'm done mucking out and filling nets and water buckets, they are back at the gate wanting to come back in. :(
I try to draw consolation from the fact that my boy who has had laminitis in the past, is unlikely to come down with it this year! :rolleyes:
 
Oh yes, quite apart from the fact that they came in overnight in September, were in 24/7 for a week in the snow and are still in now, when normally they come in for Bonfire Night and have often gone out in March, I've spent £1000 on vet bills. It is the first time in years that we have had such big vet bills.
 
Yes - cost per horse has been huge plus they've been fed for 9 months now instead of 4 maybe 5 for a bad winter!!! And as it was so wet last year we couldn't use our summer grazing so our main field never got a rest or a chance to grow before winter to give them something to chew on till nearly xmas!! I've had to hard feed this year too, i have fat friesians so never need feed unless in foal!, as the nutrients in the haylage were crap - it was such a wet year last year it's like feeding soaked hay to the point of being cardboard, but at £32 per bale it's very expensive cardboard!!!:D We still have no grass coming through and we've just had the first showers here in cumbria for weeks, even our daffodils are not up!!!!:O
 
VERY expensive. I'm still feeding winter rations of hay as the grass is non-existent. We were flooded out (stable & paddock) around Xmas so had to pay for Diy for 6 weeks until we could use them again and now have to pay for more woodchip for the turnout area which was reduced to mush in the floods.
 
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