What is the biggest vets bill you've ever had to pay?

Around £6000 for colic surgery and after care, I paid around £1000 excess and insurance paid the rest. Paid it off in one go from savings. Horse made a complete recovery :)
 
I don't insure, biggest bill to date was for Jake, our border terrier, who broke a cruciate ligament. Total costs were nearly £4K and worth every penny, he lived for many more years and was PTS a year ago today (thank you FB for reminding me). The Old TB came in last night, not quite right, he had cellulitis in April and I was worried he was brewing another episode so got the vet out and he agreed. Old Tb is looking OK today, I have no idea how much he costs me to keep happy and healthy, I just feel fortunate that I can look after him properly, not everyone is in that situation and I feel for them!
 
About £3k last summer for Tinner's toxic laminitis episode. Paid by cheque and credit/debit card. I don't insure, and worked out that if I had insured I would have paid out more in the time I'd owned him than the bills, so financially I'm still on the right side, so to speak.
 
Biggest horse one so far (touch wood) was around £500 for a broken tooth which led to an abscess, mostly on antibiotics and a head x-ray. I don't insure the horses, other than third party. I was able to pay that immediately.

Our biggest vets bills were all for our old greyhound, I think the biggest was £2000 but she had several in that region. Lucky she was insured, we realised early on that was best given her accident-prone nature. She was always very healthy, just prone to stupid incidents.
 
£3500 after getting a nail in hoof and horspitalized for 10 days - insurance paid (minus my excess). Son's pony £2200 for acute hepatitis, not insured but we got a PPI payout which covered it.
 
About £2k all in, when my horse broke his leg - and I found out after claiming that I'd omitted to send one vital piece of paperwork back when taking the insurance out at the outset. So he was never insured (or chased up it appears) from the get go.

That was a nice surprise. Not!
 
mytwofriends said:
About £2k all in, when my horse broke his leg - and I found out after claiming that I'd omitted to send one vital piece of paperwork back when taking the insurance out at the outset. So he was never insured (or chased up it appears) from the get go.

That was a nice surprise. Not!
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I hope they paid you back the premiums?


£2500 on a tie back.
£1700 on a kissing spines ligament snip.

Not insured so paid it all, but I'm still well in hand over what I'd have paid out on insurance over the years on multiple horses.
 
About 4,000 in total for my lab's ears, fortunately insured so only 80 paid.
But worth it to see my dog not being in pain from her ears, scary how many dogs i see scratching and rubbing their ears with their owners oblivious.
If I had an uninsured dog only thing I would do differently is insisting on being referred to a specialist sooner, my normal vet wasted money on ineffectual treatments which meant by the time the dog was seen by specialist both eardrums had collapsed.
 
ycbm said:
I hope they paid you back the premiums?


£2500 on a tie back.
£1700 on a kissing spines ligament snip.

Not insured so paid it all, but I'm still well in hand over what I'd have paid out on insurance over the years on multiple horses.
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They did, to be fair. However, I took out insurance with a different company after that, and never had any trouble since.
 
wren123 said:
About 4,000 in total for my lab's ears, fortunately insured so only 80 paid.
But worth it to see my dog not being in pain from her ears, scary how many dogs i see scratching and rubbing their ears with their owners oblivious.
If I had an uninsured dog only thing I would do differently is insisting on being referred to a specialist sooner, my normal vet wasted money on ineffectual treatments which meant by the time the dog was seen by specialist both eardrums had collapsed.
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This is a total aside, but couldn't help following up your post; ear problems in dogs can often be bacterial or fungal infections which respond well to the ear being washed out (use a bit of sponge) with a 50:50 solution of white vinegar... dog stinks like a chip shop for a few hours, but it does usually work!
 
£800 for an emergency evening call out (10pm to 2 am) to a horse hit by a car with a completely smashed shoulder. 3 hours stitching on the lawn under crossed headlight beams, all the drugs and sutures, plus two follow up visits with extensive x-rays - vet couldn't believe there was no broken bone, so did the second lot for free for his own peace of mind. (Vet is a hero).

2 years of conservative management afterwards (nerve damage followed by muscle atrophy), but he is now a healthy, happy hack, and even drives occasionally.
 
One of my fellow liveries has just had a £2k bill for her cat that was hit by a car. They tried very, very hard to save the cat but after amputating one hind leg it became obvious the other leg couldn't take the weight so sadly PTS. Not insured and she couldn't get the ashes back without paying the bill so a very good friend paid it off and she's repaying them in instalments.

Its one of those situations where I think a lot of heartache would have been saved if the poor cat had been PTS immediately, but the vets said the prognosis was good and she wanted to give it a chance :-(
 
I had £2k on the mare for ulcer and PSSM investigations which the insurance covered - but she's now got virtually everything to do with her stomach, metabolic system and muscles excluded.

Boy horse isn't insured as he has too much wrong with him already but I forked out £450 recently for x-rays to see how bad the ringbone had got. Going forward he's going to cost me in bute until the time comes when he doesn't march over to me for breakfast with his big fluffy ears pricked. Then I know it'll be the last vet call for him. Dreading that day.
 
I'll tell you after it arrives.
x-rays after a laminitis scare.
A fair amount of Bute
x2 examinations (and call outs)

(In 10 years, around £200 was my biggest for dental, vaccination and call out for 2 ponies).
 
This is why I have insuarance. I have definitely got back more money from insurance than I have paid them. Soli had a bill of £5000 vets fees and I still lost him. Insurance also paid loss of animal then. 3 months previous ti that had a bill of £2500. Plus various other scraps and issues
 
over the years I've had bills of a few hundred quid here and there - an out of hours call out for impaction colic, a call out to have a mare cleansed and one to have a thorn removed where one of them had managed to get it lodged under the jaw. Never had anything major until this year when madam Freyja decided to damage herself, a visit to Leahurst for SDFT tendon and tendon sheath repair cost £2500. It was put onto the special credit card that I keep for vets bills and will be paid off in full next month.
 
Have had B for 6 years now, and I think his biggest vet bill has been his initial vetting!

I'm very lucky in that he is surprisingly healthy and sturdy, he has choked in the past but luckily we had a livery who was on hand to help and show us what to do as she had had a horse who frequently choked in the past, and an instructor who was doing a training course that had just covered choke so between them they were able to sort him out before a vet was needed.

He's now 15 though, and I can imagine over the next few years he may end up being a bit more expensive. He stuns me as he does many, many stupid things and manages to only come out with scrapes and bruises. The worst injury he's had is a sore back, but it all seems to be muscular and physio usually sorts it :)
 
My gelding has had a few large bills but the biggest was £12,000, £5000 was covered by insurance the rest by me,but it was over a period of 2 years so was paid as I went along. I paid whatever I could at the time & my parents helped, only just finished paying my parents off 4 yrs after his final bill,I'm very lucky as my parents are very generous. His young replacement managed £5,000 with a knee injury & that was all covered by insurance. I wouldn't be without insurance, I paid out a lot for my old boy because he means a lot to me & owe me nothing but after that experience I'd think hard before embarking on a problem with potentially huge bills with any other horses.
 
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Plus all the surgery for the big bill kept leading to gastric ulcers so another £5k on ulcers was wiped out in a year but that was also covered by insurance.
 
TheMule said:
Over 5k on my homebred yearling for a week's stay in vet hospital and an operation. She still ended up being PTS but I'd pay it again in a heartbeat if it gave her even a 1% chance of survival.
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^ 5 like which is why I/we paid the £ 10.000.00 even though the end came too soon I would do it again
 
I wouldn't be without insurance now. However, I also would never embark on major investigations or treatment just to keep my horse rideable, so long as she was paddock sound. For example, if she was found to have kissing spine or SI problems, or any other injury requiring lots of expensive and time consuming investigations or treatment, I wouldn't even start. I have yet to see a truly successful outcome to horses with such problems coming permanently right. The journey is a rollercoaster and IME always ends one way; huge vet bills and a broken horse. My mare will get whatever investigations or treatment she needs for her own welfare, but not so I can ride her. I would have to think very carefully about colic surgery though and would probably PTS after my previous experience with it.
 
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