What does your horse cost you a month?

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SarahNZ

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I wondered if everyone could give me an idea of how many items and how much you spend per month, on bedding and feed (and anything else) for their horse?

e.g. 2xAubiose £16, 2 x hay bales $10 etc

I'm trying to get an idea of the average basic cost of keeping a horse for the month.

Thanks!
 
If you ask my Dad then the answer is too much
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Its a hard one to do really as there are lots of variables.

I buy my shavings in bulk at £4.60 per bale and use 2 (maximum 3) a month bedding on rubber matting.

Feed wise I feed adlib hayledge and get through 5 small bales at £4.50 per bale per month in winter. Hard feed is difficult as I don't nesscarily buy it monthly but here goes TopSpec at £32 per sack, Alfa A at £10 per sack, black sunflower seeds £10 per sack (I get a maximum of two sacks per winter of this) and £6.50 per sack of fibre nuts - how quickly these go depends how much they are in as I put them in a snackaball.

My farrier is £55 per set every 6 weeks for the mare and £15 per trim every 6 or so weeks for the foal.

Vet for jabs is about £30 beacuse I take them to the vet to avoid call out costs. Dentist is £30 each year.

I don't know the costs for chiros/physios as my Dad is a chiro so treats my horses for me.

You also need to remember one off type purchases - rugs, headcollars etc which can make one month more expensive than another.

Hope that helps.
 
Ouch, this is going to hurt.

£155 per month livery (DIY)
£21.50 per month shavings (5 bales at £4.30)
£65 shoes (with stud holes)
£30 feed & suplements.
£38 per month insurance (trailer included)

Basic costs - That excludes Carrots in my weekly shop, diesel back & fore to yard, higher car maintenence for running a 4x4 to tow.
Annual vaccinations/dentist/worming/vet and back man as required
saddlery/rugs/new or replacement gear
training/entries/daytickets/diesel to travel
 
Yikes, try not to think about it, but:

Summer:
£100 DIY livery
£60 farrier every 7 weeks
£10 insurance
£30 supplements (cortaflex/garlic/biotin)

Winter - all the above plus:
£15 hay
£28 shavings
£45 feed

Extras: worming is approx £10-15 every 3 months, £100 annual vaccinations/teeth (including sedation), carrots and treats, new rugs/tack etc

Although in reality it seems to add up to alot more than it does when you write it out like that!
 
wonderful! Exactly what I need to know.

What type of bedding go you guys use? It's awfully cheap compared to what I use at £7/bale of Aubiose!!
 
...far too much!


£55 a week for part livery which includes straw and hay/haylage (luckily!) so about £220 a month. (plus services though...which work out quite expensive)

£40 a month insurance.

£28 a month on a bag of TopSpec balancer, £16 on 2 bags of T.S CoolCondition cubes.

£28 on bute x, £34 on movefree.

so at least £366 a month...ouch...
 
Pony: £17 pound a week DIY, £55 set of shoes every 6 weeks, £7 two bales of hay a week, £7 bale of shavings, £15 vitamin and mineral lick once a month, £30 insurance a month, worming £60 a year and £75 annual teeth rasp and vaccination.

Horse: £17 DIY a week, £28 front shoes and trim every six weeks, £37 insurance a month, worming £60 a year and £75 annual teeth rasp and vaccination, £1.50 a bale of straw a week, £7.00 two bales of hay a week, £20 baileys lo-cal a month.

Which is roughly £5029 a year for two happy hackers (we go to two or three shows and spend an additional £20/£40 a week on lessons) or £210 a month each without pressies etc
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I would say you probably need to budget £60/£80 a week as my livery is very cheap.

 
OMG!! for 2 ponies, here we go: £160 DIY, £85 insurance, £80 2 sets front shoes every 6 weeks, summer 1 bale haylage £6.75, 2 bales shavings ever 10 days £12.40, minimal amount for feed, 1 sj or dressage lesson weekly £40, plus competition entries & diesel as well as wormers. Winter as above but 2 bales shavings weekly & 2 bales haylage, maybe £15 monthly for feed. Daren't even add it up in case I have a heart attack!!
 
£140 DIY livery
£24 shavings (£6 a bale, one a week)
£30ish feed
£100 lessons
£60 shoes (every 5-6 weeks)
£24 hayledge (one small bale every week)
FREE hay from my uncle!!!!!!!!!!!
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plus £120 on diesel everymonth, excluding travel to competitions
god, i wish you'de never asked, feeling very poor now
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Including travelling to and from the yard, if I were to start having lessons every other week like I used to or, as an alternative, hire out the school down the road twice a week for an hour for better schooling, it's £330 a month for one horse!! Duno how we managed with 2 but we are going to have 2 again very soon!

I worked it out over a year and divided by 12 as things like bedding and hay are bought in bulk once a year.

Livery (DIY) is £720 a year
Farriery is £460 a year
Vets is about £200 a year
Hay is about £200 a year, depending how much of our own we manage to get
Bedding is about £180 a year
Feed is about £600 a year
Lessons/hire of school works out at £520 a year
Travel to and from yard twice a day works out at £900ish a year but will depend where we both work as well.
Insurance is £300 a year for 1 horse (or just under)

So yup, pretty expensive hobby really!
 
Forgot the dentist - vet does them once a yr and dentist once a year.

Trailer service and insurance as well.

We also include our horses in our holidays
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I would say that all-in for 1 horse, it's about £500 a month to be safe, but it's about the choices you make as well.
 
Including livery, feed, hay and bedding my horse costs me roughly £110 a week so it depends on whether it's a 4 or 5 week month.
That includes at least 3 bales of hay, 3 bags of Excel bedding, 1 bag of mix, all per week. Chaff is probably every 3 weeks.

Then farrier £65 every 5 weeks, worming whenever that is due and then all the other bits and pieces he needs.

Then there is lessons, so that's at least another £100 a month.

If we're going to be picky and say that I drive my 4x4 because I have the horse then that costs me £90 a week to fill up at present prices.

I'd say 1 probably costs me about £8000 a year at least.
 
My in foal broodmare lives out at stud year round, ad lib haylage is included, plus hard feed during last 2 months of gestation and also foaling down - this costs me £120 per month, year round. I also insure and worm her myself, and have her trimmed by my own farrier monthly (extra £49 per months for these). Total for broodmare per month = £169 pcm

The 2007 filly I keep my self costs:

Monthly appx (Sure it's probably w all rugs I keep buying
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!)

Livery £ 65.00
Bedding (x 5 shavings £ 28.60
Hard feed (stud balancer 1kg/day) £ 30.00
Hay (in summer = £0) (x2 small bales/wk) £ 16.50
Farriery (trim every 5 wks) £ 22.00
Insurance (NFU) £ 33.00
Worming £ 9.00
Miscellaneous (kitty for vacs, etc) £ 20.00

Total = £ 224.10
 
I do full livery but not with traning. How much does it cost? too much! but its well worth it, the yard and people are brilliant, would love to have him on DIY at the yard he is on but they just dont do it
 
I have over the years worked to bring the costs down but now i have 3
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Livery - dont pay any, do YO 5 horses on a sat & sun and hubby clears muck heap away when needed to cover my livery.

Feed - the only bit i buy at "normal" prices is Top Spec Balancer & Sugarbeet. All my Alfa A comes from Dengie crops direct (i live round the corner) and its the distressed stock ie damaged sacks

Hay & Haylage - we make our own

Bedding - used to buy this in but now with costs soring we are making our own straw this year

Insurance - my mother for some reason still pays this??? I moved out of home 8yrs ago and she wont stop doing it for me (must grumble)

Shoes - 3 horses all with full sets with stud holes & one with pads in front. Costs a fortune.
 
£100 a month DIY livery
£21.60 in bedding (Sundown Yellow - approx 1 per week)
£40 monthly for Haylage (approx 8 bales a month during winter)
£14 montly for hard feed (either slow release or conditioning cubes and soya chaff)
£3.50 monthly for wormer (I buy a year pack of 4 syringes)
£58 every 8 weeks for a full set of shoes
£42 per month Insurance of Horse + Trailer (with NFU - trailer is being sold soon though)
£50 per month for lessons (maximum)

So £300 per month winter costs, I use about half the haylage, feed and bedding during summer. I couldn't support my horse myself yet and I feel very lucky to have parents who love my horse as much as I do!
 
170€ month full livery.

10 € a month on hoof products? I'm obsessed with hooves they have to be perfect or i worry like mad.. (horrible past experience)
Niagara isn't shod anymore so save a lot in money for shoes. I just pay for trims which are about 30€.
10€ month - 2 x 3kg bag of carrots - 2x 3kg bag of apples.
I don't actually spend that much to keep him.
Oh and 170€ + on petrol to get to the yard [month].
During the year i spend about £150 a year on horsey stuff- the occasional saddle cloth, pair of horse boots a body brush, a rug or a headcollar. I only buy cheap rugs now though - my horse will rip anything... He has a cheap pair of tendon boots for turnout and just general hacking. We don't compete or jump anymore.
I'm more focused on keeping him healthy now than keeping him pretty.
I find too, that when i wash everything often his things last a lot longer, and look like new ofcourse. I look after my stuff a lot better than i used to, instead of making monthly trips to the tack shop for just random stuff i go for the thing i NEED and only get that. Unless if there is an incredible deal that can't be missed. Although that's rare.
And i keep Niagara spick and span - he doesn't ruin his rugs or saddle cloths because he's so clean they don't get stained.
I used to spend a fortune on biotin and lin seed but now i don't pay out on any of those. Regular grooming makes the coat shinier than linseed does and doesn't cost anything. Niagara is barefoot so his feet are naturally hardening. He doesn't need biotin anymore. It's so expensive!
 
here's mine:

livery:free (last winter inc feed and hay, but new boss so doubt those will be free now plus she's the only baby on the yard now)
Farrier: free (when she was a foal, reckon i'm gonna have to pay for it soon)
insurance: £16 per month
she's not on any hard feed right now just a mineral lick.
just spent £80 on rugs tonight to get ready for winter, but that's a once a year cost until she's finished growing.

oh and i'll have a vets bill to pay too as there was a contagious bacterial thing going round the yard and she ended up pouring snot and is on a weeks course of anti biotics.
i'm hoping it's not going to be as bad as i think
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In terms of both parts of the question (number of items, cost per month), the answer depends on many variables. Here is a potential list:
- Stall
- Bedding
- Hay
- Food supplements (e.g. grain, museli, mash), depending on the horse's condition and use
- Salt, minerals
- Farrier
- Vet (this can be a big one)
- Insurance (legal requirement in some areas, for 3rd party injury or property damage)
- Saddle, rugs, tack
- Possibly rain jacket, fly sheet, fly hood, riding clothes for you
- Insect sprays, minor injuries medications and dressings
- Training for you. Training for the horse.

Costs typically start at $200 for self-board and $400 for full-board. However, in some areas costs can be double or triple this depending on local prices for stabling, hay and so on.

More detailed explanation of costs, plus 2 on-line calulators here: http://wowhorses.com/cost-of-a-horse.html

Suggest once you have calculated cost, add 25% for contingencies.
 
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