what is the maximum you would spend on vet bills for one horse?

I think it partly depends on the emotional attachment to the horse - for people with more than one, sometimes one just seems to mean more than the others.

I would spend up to the insurance amount (£5000) and then what I could afford on top. Most of the time the insurance amount would pay for emergency surgery for colic, broken bones etc. Anything longer-term than that will most likely either be little enough a month I can afford it, will compromise the horse's quality of life too much to be fair, or I will have the choice between trying to find a cure, or retiring the horse. In that case I'd retire the horse I think!
 
In June last year within 12 hours of one of my foals being born she was rushed to hospital with no immune system. Nearly 3 weeks later she came home but still on medication etc and the bill was just under £10K. No insurance but she has fantastic breeding and every day she got slightly better you just couldn't stop the treatment.
Glad to say she pulled through and now is a fantastic little filly.
 
It depends on outcome but i wouldn't spend more than about £2500 over the insurance maximum. But if it was for my black labrador I would sell my soul for him!
 
When I first had my horse he ran up over £5K in vet bills. Luckily the insurance company paid. I am totally soft on my one horse and I have to say I am so stupid that I would sell my car and move to a smaller home to pay for vet bills - If there was a reasonable chance it could help. I am not into prolonging a horse's life if they are really suffering.
 
Since 1 November 2007, Grace's vet bills have been just over £6500... firstly, she damaged her suspensory ligament so underwent four shock wave sessions, two sets of injections into the ligament, scans etc etc. Then she developed colic, was referred to Leahurst and they operated, which came to a whopping £4,400 (with stabling).

Seeing her now, I cannot imagine not having paid these amounts for her
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But in reality, I bought her for just £2,500 and just before she had the injury I would have said she was woth a lot more. She owes me nothing, she achieved my first dream which was qualifying for the Area Finals in Novice and Preliminary, but I would like to think that will everything that she has been through, she will still be able to achieve her potential
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None of my horses are insured for vet fees. Most would have somewhere around 1K allocated to them, if the condition was likely to be fixable then I would raise this amount to around 2K. If there were no guarantees, then they'd have their thousand spent on them and then it would be up to them to see if they could pull through - if not, then they would be put to sleep.

I do have a couple who most definitely have a higher allocation, however I would never get myself into debt for any of them. I have a slosh-fund precisely for these things, thankfully my lot seem to be a healthy bunch and although I do have vet bills once in a while, that is all they are, once in a while, and generally never for more than a couple of hundred.
 
Biggest vet bill so far was £5k, half covered by insurance vet bill cover, the horse was PTS, sadly the other hlaf was payed for with Death cover. If he had pulled through that £3k or whatever from my own pocket would been worth it. However it left me with no money for next horse, a risk that seem worth it. Now have 10k vet bill cover for my horses.
 
I'm afraid i will pay the excess on my insurance and not a lot over that.

To me a horse has a value, and the amount you spend on fee's is proportionate to that value. And the chances of recovery/it still fitting the bill for what i want it to do afterwards.

Call me hard hearted if you like but i simply don't have the cash to throw at a horse that at the end of it may still not be fit to do what i want.
 
I might get shot down for this but what the heck!!! I paid £8000 vets bills on my last horse. He was 25 years old and had a good chance of recovery. I paid £550 for him in 1986 and had a wonderful 20 years with him. He was insured but got nothing from them due to his age so i paid it all myself. If there was no chance of a good recovery i wouldnt have done it. Too me it was worth the money as i could have had another ten years with him. As it happens i got another 6 months as he died of colic
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. Too me it was worth the chance and i would do it again with any pony i own. Thats just me. I dont regret spending any of the money.
 
Sorry, i am terrible and i'd think I'd do whatever I could to save my horse (providing it's quality of life after would be worth living) My dog got run down 2 years ago and, although we were told the prognosis was not at all good I was prepared to do anything to get her back. Sadly the vet thought her quality of life would be greatly reduced and I suppose it would have been selfish of us to have saved her for our sakes. Still, it upsets me now and I unfortunately one of those "what if?" types. Think I'd try save everything!

I am ok however making the decision to put a horse down when it is due to old age - I think I just hate the face of ending the life of a young and otherwise healthy horse.
 
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