How much do you spend on feed per month?

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DiNozzo

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I've only ever had good doer cobs before, but after selling my last on as not going to grow enough, I'm looking to by a sportier type, that may well need more regular feeding!

So after only ever feeding limited amounts of chaff previously, how much can I expect to spend on a horse that will likely need 2 feeds a day to keep condition on?

How much (ish!) do you guys spend on feed?!
 
I've got an ISH (sire was full tb, dam I'm guessing is tb x ) and only use a bit of chaff & handful of nuts to keep him quiet when others have a feed so don't necessarily expect to spend more!
 
Really depends on the horse, we have a hard-to-keep-the-weight-on type when stressed she looses lots, but when the grass is good she doesn't need as much. I tend to buy Countrywide conditioning nuts when on offer so bought 6 bags for the price of 4 to last till September, I think that was about £37 (in March - I checked the best before date and bought as many would allow, bound to be another offer before then).
 
As the others have said, it depends on the horse, the quality of your grazing and hay, and how hard the horse is working.
 
Depends on the horse. My sports cob per month scoffs her way through a large round of hay fed adlib (a very heavy one) and actually that doesn't include haynets in the trailer which is from a different bale, 60kgs of copra (£1/kg) and the same of alfalfa pellets (60p/kg) when in hard work. She's only 14.2!
 
How long is a piece of string?

16.2hh sport mare competing dressage at a reasonable level is a fat & fizzy type. She'd get half a scoop of laminitic chaff twice a day with vit/min powder, adlib meadow hay in small holes net and would get plenty of turnout on poor grazing.

We ran our last eventer to 1* on good grass and haylage and a mug of balancer - he always was on the porky side but made the time ok.

But then a young big lanky ISH I had would be fed as much good grass/haylage as I could get into him and £60 ish worth of conditioning feeds a month on top, this is going back to when feeds were 8-10 a sack
 
Probably going to regret adding this up but here goes! :D

15.2hh TB Stressy lad and drops weight in winter, intolerant to alfalfa and cereals and has to have low starch and sugars which makes it a little more pricey!

per day split between two feeds:
1kg of Agrobs Muesli so 2 bags a month at £17 a bag is £34pm
(new addition this winter as he dropped weight more this year)
500g of Charnwoods Unmollassed Beet at £10 a bag its roughly £8pm
250g of micronised linseed at £23 a bag is roughly £8pm
500g of Emerald Feeds Grasstastic at £10 a bag is roughly £8pm

£45 for 3 months of his vits so £15pm

so a grand total of £75 a month if iv worked it out correctly. In summer its a lot less, he doesnt have the muesli and the beet halves so my feed bill drops to £35pm which is a lot healthier on my pocket!
 
16hh quarter horse, has had ulcers, in light work but does not keep condition on well. Ad lib very good hay included with livery.
2 bags of alfa a molasses-free per month, about £28
thunder brooks balancer, £35/bag which lasts about 3 months so £11.50
Micronised linseed, 1 cup a day (just gone down a bit as now turned out daily) £22.00/bag including postage, lasts 3 months so £7.30 a month
Suppleaze gold, costs about 20p per day so £6/month.
Total £52.50 a month - less than when he was on re-leve and alfa a oil and he looks better on it.
 
As a very basic you can feed a horse for about £30-40 a month, using either bog standard pony nuts (assuming two feeds of circa 2kg each), and a bit of cheapo molassed sugar beet. Or using a decent balancer with a bit of chaff/sugarbeet thrown in
 
TBH I wouldn't feed anything initially apart from grazing and ad lib hay/hayage when in + a forage balancer in a handful of chaff. My 16.2 7/8ths TB lives on this permanently and is a good weight. If the horse was not maintaining a decent weight then I'd think about adding some oil to the chaff. I used to use hard feed then find I was having to reduce grazing or hay or the horse got too fat, which of course is ridiculous!
 
DiNozzo said:
I've only ever had good doer cobs before, but after selling my last on as not going to grow enough, I'm looking to by a sportier type, that may well need more regular feeding!

So after only ever feeding limited amounts of chaff previously, how much can I expect to spend on a horse that will likely need 2 feeds a day to keep condition on?

How much (ish!) do you guys spend on feed?!
Click to expand...


weekly between £165 - £ 299 PW INC BEDDING 8 horses
 
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I daren't add it up. He's had ulcer complications recently and trialling about 6 different feeds has been expensive.

He's the poorest poor doer ever but has finally settled on slobbermash, linseed, fibre nuggets, oats and readigrass. To be honest, I don't really care what it costs as long as he's happy.
 
Ouch - have just added it up and for two horses +/-£220 per month during the winter. One is ISH in medium work (eventer) and other a TB who needs quite a bit of feeding. That includes hay at a bale a day (£3) and supplements.

I feed Pure Feeds and use a £15 bag a week between them and only feed a scoop each a day so they get balancers. They are turned out at least 12 hours a day as well.

However come the end of the month when they are out 24/7, feed bill will reduce by at least £100 :-)
 
As someone else has said it depends on the feed you will be buying. If you buy 'branded' feeds then it will be more expensive. If you add loads of supplements to feed, many of which are already a balanced & dfon't need them, then again the cost will go up. Also if you read on the side of the bag the amounts you are supposed to feed according to the feed company you will end up with a fat horse & an empty bank account at the end of the month.

Just feed what your horse needs & when your horse isn't going to be worked reduce the feed accordingly. Your horse will continue to have sufficient energy when worked but won't be fizzy & off his head when you're giving him time off. :)
 
£47 a month on food for a highland pony and TB with hoof supplement, a small feed for the new forest.
They get ad lib hay (but that is included in our livery bill). - on average they go through one big bale a week.
 
I have a 15.2 Welsh x Arab mare and I spend around £20-£25 a month, maybe less.
In winter she was getting 2 feeds a day and adlib hay overnight. She's not a good doer in winter and needs a bit more feed.

Now we're in spring, she gets one feed a day, still on adlib hay overnight in her field as she's in the winter field until we move yards.

Once we move and she has more grass, she'll have her feeds reduced as she doesn't need much feeding in summer as she holds her weight well.
 
My two get nothing all summer, just good grass. They're fed Fast Fibre, grass chaff and Saracen Re-leve while they're in overnight during the winter. A bag of Re-Leve lasts about 2 weeks and the grass chaff and Fast Fibre last about 6-8 weeks each so I work that out at about £40 per month for the two of them.

I could probably feed A far more cheaply with sugar beet and cool mix instead of the Fat Fibre and Re-leve but M has to have them due to his sugar allergy and it doesn't do A any harm. It's too much hassle to feed them something different, I haven't got the room for storage and I'd have to soak two different things.
 
I have a reasonably hard do-oer who has a medium work loads. 16'1' medium weight type

As much turnout as possible,

Per Month:
1.5 x large oblong bales of good quality hay (at lib at night) £50
5 x Saracens conditioning cubes (2.5 stubbs scoops a day) £65

He hates chaff and just pick the nuts out and he's a slow eater so I just give him the nuts. He's getting the right amount to get all his vits and mins from his hard feed so I don't add any powders.
 
17 hand WB. Not including hay/haylage as included in livery.

Alpha a oil, @ £14 lasts 16 days
Speedi beet. £11.40 every month
Red Condition and Soak £14.70 2 weeks
Linseed, Charnwood £23.00 10 weeks.

Will come off the red soak in the summer as well as the beet. Will add in a balancer though and increase the Alpha A as this worked last summer. This is a big horse who drops weight easily. I have played around with feeds over this winter such as swapping to Barley but that made him OTT. Not sure I have it quite right yet as obviously it takes times to implement changes and see what works. Preference will be to go to straight feeds ... Will be trialling oats next year.
 
Be somewhere with proper grass! When my pony was younger and had loads of grass i fed nothing in summer so£0! In winter i always feed sugarbeet and mix. The sugarbeet costs me about 8quid and lasts for months. The mix I replace every couple of months costs about 11quid.
Unfortunately now my pony is getting on and i am somewhere with no grass i am feeding a£25 quid balancer which i have to buy every month. Chaff and sugarbeet are negligible as they last me so long (same with my supplements) ,but the balancer is expensive as all the extra hay im having to buy to make up for no grass. I'm probably spending £60quid a month now. Hoping less in summer when grass grows but I dont think I will get away with no shortfeed anymore. Pony is not a good doer. I suspect she is a nf x tb or something like that. she's hyper and skinny. If you ride alot she gets very thin.
 
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Mine get micronised linseed a £27 bag lasts about 2 months, copra £19 bag lasts about 6-8 weeks, salt 20p bag lasts 2 weeks, pro balance, I think is £14 month..magox I think is £8 month....
Muzzled grazing and soaked hay. One is wbctb, other is kwpn. Both compete 2-3x month.
 
Wow, feel quite lucky compared to some others on this thread as don't seem to spend much on feed for my boy!
He is 16.1 KWPN x TB.

His feed is rather odd at the moment because I have been playing around with it a little as seems to be lacking energy and just trying to use up old feed whilst we slowly change over...
I am currently feeding him:
1 large scoop of Dengie HiFi original with apple - £11 and I think lasts around a month, possibly longer
Roughly 1/3 scoop Saracen Releve - £14 (slowly phasing this out) this would last me a couple of months
Roughly 1/3 scoop (probably less) Baileys Conditioning Cubes - £12 this always lasts me months! haven't bought a bag since before Christmas!
Roughly 1/3 scoop Dodson and Horrell competition mix - £12 just started him on this so will see how long it lasts and how he goes on it.. he's difficult to feed as he's either lazy/lacking energy or very hot and sharp!

So approx. £30 per month I think
He is out from 8am-6pm every day and he gets ad lib hay in his stable at night which I worked out costs me 89p per day!
Also bedding costs me 34p per day.
 
(not including the hay and haylage) for 3 horses (2 good doers and 1 that does less well):

2 x hifi molasses free
4 x baileys fibre plus nuggets
1 x micronised linseed
1 x progressive earth pro hoof
1 or 2 x veteran vitality

So approximately £140!
 
Probably about £10.
Pony nuts, bran and lite balancer.
All last about 3-4 months per bag :)

Good doer Highland though! I know other than spend £50 easily on one horse... That probably doesn't need all the expensive things it gets ;)
 
I have two tbs, both in medium work, they couldn't be more different in their dietary needs!

One is a very poor doer. He gets soaked grass nuts, unmollassed chaff & micro linseed in winter, nothing but grazing & ad lib hay in summer (when in). So during winter his hard feed is about £50, but shrinks to zero around April.

In contrast, the other needs no hard feed. At all. Just ad lib forage. It's amazing!
 
HGA-12 said:
all you girls pay next to nother per month.. I wish mine was £ 260 per month instead of £ 260 per week
Click to expand...

Are you saying it costs you £260 per week to feed one horse? If so something is going seriously wrong, even with a poor keeper!!
 
Appy x Cob and A Cob cross something

In the middle of winter when they were on full dinner rations

1 Bag of Speedibeet - £11
3 Bags of Spillers Cool Fibre - £33
1 Bag Micronised Linseed used to last about 2 months - £20
Tried them on Joint Supplement over winter but noticed no difference so stopped - £15

Then £50 a month for Hay Roll on Summer and grass as my feed bill is then £0 :D
 
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