How much does it cost to keep your horse(s)?

BroadfordQueen

BroadfordQueen

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Per week, how much does it cost you to keep your horses?
I'm particularly iterested in those of you who are on DIY livery.
How much a week do you spend on livery/food/bedding/hay?
Not including the costs of competing/farrier/vet etc. Just the basic living.
Thanks :)
 
on DIY total breakdown:
Livery: £30 a week
(all the rest approximations)
Bedding: £16 a week
Feed: £30 a week
hay/haylage: £12 a week

Obviously thats the lesser of my cost he has £120 of shoes every 4 weeks, insurance £120 a month, he likes to go through rugs/haynets/feed bowls as toys not to mention tack and all the rest of it as you mentioned with vets fees and competing etc! :)

P.S. I do have a sharer who pays £25 a week which helps a little :). But it was cheaper when I had him on part livery - problem was he was a nutcase and couldnt be handled so needs DIY :( also there haylage was awful and didnt like the management- he still cant be caught by anyone by me!
 
Livery: £18 week (stable and grazing, no other facilities)
Feed: £5 a week for Hifi and pasture mix (£10 per bag, lasts me approx 1 month)
Hay: £10 week (round bale @£30 lasts me approx 3 weeks)
Bedding: £7 week (1 bale of shavings)

Total weekly cost: £40 in winter, £18 in summer, not as bad as I feared :o
 
DIY livery= £205 month for winter, and £100 for summer

£205 includes hay, straw, menage use, stable and field.

My overall bill as I will be using haylage and shavings will be approx £240 a month in the winter.

In the summer, £100 = Field, stable, and use of XC course. My summer livery bills including any hay used and menage use were about £150 a month :)

However, our yard is very expensive! It is worth it though (I think! ;) )
 
I am in Moray, with DIY livery (field only).
Livery per week: £16.25 (£65 per month)
Hay: 1x4ft round hay bale: £5 per week (1 bale is £20 and lasts a 3-4 weeks
Feed: about £10 per week (1 bag Alfa A, 2 bags of pasture mix lasts about 3-4 weeks)


When in St Andrews, DIY with stable
Livery: £50 per week (£200 per month includes hay (yard gave horses hay)
Feed: £10 per week (feed as above)
Bedding: £9 per week (shavings was £3 from sawmill) if used Bedmax it was nearer £20 per week.
 
I'll do it by month as that's how I work it.

£115 Stable, grazing and use of indoor/ outdoor and XC course
£48 Haylage (5ft bale)
£25 Hard feed - Normally last 6-8 weeks though
£25 Straw - 10 bales

£213.

*That is for DIY only. I share a field with a friend so we do one end of the day each only*

I include also in my monthly bills £76 for shoes.
Lessons for dressage are £50 per hour and western £40 per hour. (not having lessons at the mo as bringing back into work)

You will have to factor in cost of shows, lessons, transport to shows, wormers, rug repairs, new rugs when beastie trashes it on a fence post and little things like that.
 
Crikey. Depends which horse! They are kepy at a private yard, live out with access to a stable which i haven;t yet used - this saves on bedding! They have field shelters.

Horse one:
Livery £12.50
Hay £3.50 per bale, probably 2 bales per week
Mineral lick - £8 lasts about 3 months.
Feed - £1. (token feed as doesn't need extra feed.)
He has a trim every 8 weeks -£20

Horse 2
Livery £12.50
Hay - 4 bales?? He has ad lib.
Feed - £7
Bute - 1 a day - £6
Bluechip - £42.50 per bag lasts a month
Other supplements - £7
Shoes - £70 every 8 weeks
 
£300.00 for both per month on DIY, that includes straw bedding (as much as you like as that's free) and hay (I average a big bale per week) and paying YO to bring them in just before 4pm every day.

I've not included horse feed etc in there because obviously that's nothing to do with how much I pay in livery.

I spend around £130.00 on horse food including supplements per month, so total £430.00 a month.
 
Last edited:
when i am at home, it costs about

£15 feed,
£10 hay
£8 shavings

... which is why we put up our own stables... a cheaper alternative in the long run!

when i am at school, the cost of being ridden 3 times a week .. shoots it up
 
just out of curiosity. A lot of the diy prices here are the same as my full livery price. Is it a personal preference for people to be DIY if the costs equal out?
 
At uni Obie costs me £40 a week for all inclusive livery, unlimited hay/straw/turnout school/hack wherever you want as our landlord is the huntmaster PLUS it's right out my front door!
At home it costs me £25 a week for livery which is stable, turnout and hacking.
He goes through 3/4 bales a week @ £3.50 a bale = £11ish
He has to be on deep litter shavings so I put in about 2/3 bales a week @ £9 so about £22ish?

Feed costs me a bomb as he's on a lot.

2 bags a week at £16
1 bag of Alfafa at £13
 
paddi22 said:
just out of curiosity. A lot of the diy prices here are the same as my full livery price. Is it a personal preference for people to be DIY if the costs equal out?
Click to expand...

There is nowhere locally that does full or part livery for any less than I am paying DIY that I would want to go to. I would love to cut cost's, but around us it is just not possible :(
 
Thanks everyone, very useful :)
Reason I ask is that I've always kept my horses at home, and we get hay off my grandad so keeping horses has always been really cheap for us. However I may be taking my horse back to uni with me after christmas and I'm just trying to work out where to keep her- our college livery is £22 a week for stable and all year round turnout, but nothing else included. Just in the process of finding out how much they charge for bedding and haylage!
 
yeah im always amazed how many DIYs there seem to be on the forum. In ireland where i live its virtually impossible to find a DIY yard unless you go happen to know a friends who has spare stables in their home.

A lot more yards used to offer DIY and grass, but recently they only off Full. I wonder is it due to the recession over here, that too many people wanted to downgrade from full to part?
 
My DIY costs are nowhere near the costs of part/full livery where I am. Min part livery is 140 near me and while I would love to put my boy on part I just cant justify the additional cost :(

Per week:
DIY - £35
Bedding - £6.40 (use 1 bag of shavings every 5 days approx)
Haylage - £12
Feed and supps - £10 approx
Bring in PM during week - £5
 
Im on part livery.....i muckout, but all turn out/rug changes/feeding etc is done for me.

£45 a week livery includes as much haylidge and straw as we want. Stable, turnout, use of school.

So i pay £180 a month for my livery.
Feed = approx £12 a month (for a 16.1 tb she is an exceptionally good doer!)
shoes £60 every 6 wks.
treats/toys/licks etc = £0 (fussy old wench turns her nose up at them and snorts at them)
insurance is £50 a year (she is only insured for theft and third party liability) not vets fees. so £4.17 a month insurance

so monthly she costs about £236.17 which i dont think is too bad really.
 
paddi22 said:
just out of curiosity. A lot of the diy prices here are the same as my full livery price. Is it a personal preference for people to be DIY if the costs equal out?
Click to expand...

Mine is, im a little bit of a control freak (ask my sharer :p!) and my horse prefers the routine. Hes also a very 1 to 1 horse, sounds cheesy but if you dont belive me feel free to come try turning him out and catching him in for a week and you will see what I mean, no one can do it and it took me a year to be able to! Chiffneys, lungelines, leaving out all night, buckets of feed etc nothing works. But I know around here (Watford, Herts) Part and Full livery is still one heck of a lot more expensive than DIY with its costs - up at uni (Notts/Leics) its a different story, part livery was cheaper than DIY :)
 
Costs per winter month for the bigger one:

Hay: 10 bales per month @ £6 per bale on current prices = £60
Hard feed: £12 pcm
Farrier: £35 every 6 weeks (fronts only, trim behind)
Bedding: 3 bales of shavings every 4 weeks over rubber matting: £19.50
BHS membership for insurance £5 pcm

I allow £160pcm & get away with £115 approx at present, this is due to
a) not getting hay in during summer & having to pay full whack now :mad: &
b) not paying livery
so, the 'spare' goes into savings for vets/jabs/worming/mending stuff etc.

Summer it drops to about £45 pcm as is out 24/7
 
Livery 85 a month so just over £19 per week

3 bales of straw so £4.50 a week

4 bales of hay (£11 ish)

Feed

Apple Chaff £6 a bag, lasts a month
Topline Cubs £12 a bag lasts about a month
Codlivine, Muscle Up, Supahoof & Sugarbeet <- expensive when they all run out but I think paying for mine works out about £80 a week for both, can't complain with that as a winter cost! Summer will cost me 160 a month for 2 horses - bargain!
 
paddi22 said:
just out of curiosity. A lot of the diy prices here are the same as my full livery price. Is it a personal preference for people to be DIY if the costs equal out?
Click to expand...

Round here full livery is £360+ per month, not including exercising the horse. Full/part livery prices don't drop in summer either, which with DIY they do. If there was a yard near by that did full livery at the same price as my DIY I'd be there like a shot :D I moved off part livery because I couldn't afford it and still miss the yard and facilities :(

If it was a choice between full livery on a yard without a decent school, or DIY on a yard with indoor school etc, I think I'd choose the DIY option then.
 
DIY livery £108pcm
Hay approx 8-10 bales pm @ £4.50 = £45 (max)
Bedding, roughly 4-6 pm depending on how much they are in £35.70 (max)
Shoeing £60 every six weeks so £40 per month
Insurance (low value insured for vets fees cover) £35
Feed (tiger oats, balancer and Alfa A) approx £25pm
So £288pm, I guess once you add worming and vacs/teeth its nearer £300 pm.
This is for a horse in meduim work, eventing through the summer, feed bills are lower now as he just gets a handul of hi-fi with his balancer but then I am spending more on hay so I guess it balances out.
 
*Spider* said:
At uni Obie costs me £40 a week for all inclusive livery, unlimited hay/straw/turnout school/hack wherever you want as our landlord is the huntmaster PLUS it's right out my front door!
At home it costs me £25 a week for livery which is stable, turnout and hacking.
He goes through 3/4 bales a week @ £3.50 a bale = £11ish
He has to be on deep litter shavings so I put in about 2/3 bales a week @ £9 so about £22ish?

Feed costs me a bomb as he's on a lot.

2 bags a week at £16
1 bag of Alfafa at £13
Click to expand...

Whoops, a month not every month :O
 
Livery is £40 a week inc hay, straw, use of indoor, outdoor and xc facilities
£60 every 6 weeks (ish) for a new set of shoes x2

Feed
£12 - power mix (horse 1)
£10 - competition mix (horse 2)
£24 - Alfa A x 2
£6 - Sugarbeet (lasts me quite a while)

then I have supplements like
Cod Liver Oil
Garlic Powder
and my younger horse has iron supplement cos he's slightly anaemic!

Cant think of much else?
 
Too much! lol

For my stabled horse:
Stable: £25 per week/£100 a month (Use of field, indoor and outdoor school etc.)
Haylage: £12 per week ad-lib
Bedding: £4.50 bag of shavings x2
Feed: £6.00 bag of pony nuts lasts about 3/4weeks .. £12 bag of chaff lasts the same

Then farrier, vets etc.

My 2 which live out:
£10 per week in summer, £20 per week in winter with constant supply to hay. Field sheleter and use of arenas etc.
 
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