Cost of Keeping a Horse

I'm going to go see the place in person on Tuesday, so wish me luck! Crossing my fingers, toes, and eyelashes that this will work out!!!

Okay, I just did the math. If a horse is eating 12 lbs of grain per day, then a 50 lb bag of grain will only last 4 days (plus 2 lbs leftover), and if a bag costs about $15.99, each day of grain costs about $4, times 30 days would be $120/month just in grain. PLEASE tell me that either I can't do math or they really don't eat that much?

i dont think any horse at my barn eats that much.... maybe like a scoop a day

I'm just getting too excited about this place! So I wanted to share an aerial image of the property with you:



I added in the red lines to mark the property lines. As you can see, they go off the page - but it pretty much makes a rectangle. The aerial image is just on point and there was nothing I could do about it. At any rate, where that smaller building about halfway up the picture marks the spot where the horse pastures will be (from the building downwards).

We feed about 5 lbs of grain per day of a custom blended grain based on and similar to Triple Crown Complete for horses along the lines of your 16.2 Oldenburg. That's about 3 bags per horse per month. At $15 per bag, that's $45 a month that we spend on grain. Supplements then get added to that depending on the horse. (For instance, our 2 year old Dutch Warmblood / Thoroughbred cross doesn't get the same supplements that the pony stallion would get or a 7 year old appendix, etc.

We use a square bale of orchard / fescue mix hay every other day per horse. That's 15 bales per month. The load we're having delivered this week is $4.50 a bale. That's roughly $70 per month in hay for this delivery per horse, though prices vary from $3 a bale to $11 a bale depending on the supplier, type and quality of hay, etc. A friend of ours actually drives to Kentucky to pick up a load from a friend of theirs for their barn at $2.75 a bale when they get a horse from off the track up there. They'll put one horse on the trailer and fill the rest of it with about 280 to 300 bales. I suppose the $525 or so savings in hay should pay for the diesel used to get up there and back. But that also means they have to unload and stack the hay themselves, whereas our hay people stack it in the hay loft for us. (Note that delivery they have a minimum 50 bale delivery requirement and an extra fee for loading into a hay loft. But for a few hundred bales at a time, it's well worth it.)

Your vet and farrier bills should be about the same as if you're boarding somewhere, as those typically aren't covered by boarding costs. So you're going to have those no matter where you're at.

So basically you're looking at around $115 a month for hay and grain.

Without seeing the barns, I can't say how much work it's going to be to make one into a riding arena, but keep in mind that it may not be possible without a lot of extra engineering. If it's a wide structure with all the support beams around the outside that they just built stalls in, that's one thing. If there's center poles holding up the structure, that's another. Then there's the matter of demolition. Are you tearing out all the interior walls or are you paying to have it done? Then there's the matter of arena footing. Whether it's an indoor or outdoor arena, you're looking at a *minimum* of $2k or so (may be different for your area) for a good several inch layer of M10. I'm not sure what type of soil is up there either, so you might need a different base material to put the M10 over. Here in Georgia, we can put it right over the Georgia red clay that's already hard and compacted, though some people add a few inches of gravel anyways.

There's also a matter of a horse trailer. Any time you have horses on your property, it's a good idea to have a horse trailer available to take them somewhere if you have to in a hurry. Whether it's that your vet is out of town and your horse is colicing and you have to take them to an emergency vet or whatever. Do you have a vehicle that can tow a horse trailer? For a 2 horse bumper pull, you'll find prices vary quite a bit depending on the options you want. If you're going to be doing dressage and / or three day eventing, I'm assuming you'll want to go to shows anyways, so you'd need a trailer for that anyways. Keep in mind that if you have two horses but are only going to be showing one, you'll want to take both horses to the show anyways. If there's a stall fee, etc. at the show, that's twice your costs there as well.

Anyhow, that's all I can think of for the time being. Hope that helps!

i can do it for less the $50 per horse per month...

Nate

I do not know what they are feeding but even my reiners in training do not get 12lbs of feed a day. I feed strategy and on average they get 2-4 lbs in light work and 6 to maybe 8lbs in heavier work. 12lbs is way too much unless it is a high fiber low protein feed.

On average for 4 horses who all eat the same thing I go through about 4 bags a month at about $13/bag. Then like I said they get in the winter around a bale (65lbs) split between then in 2 feedings. More when it gets cold but at that point they have large roles out side which I stand on end keep tarped and peal off large sections and put in their feeder out side for them. I go through about 1-2 500lbs rolls a month. You are only about4 hours from me in Ohio so there is little difference in climent. You might be a bit warmer in the winter but not by much. Not sure how much more or less hay is down there but even around here with in 20 miles there is about a $2 differance.

I'm from Australia and just wow - it is so much cheaper the feed your horse over there!

I used to pay about $20-25 for a bale of hay (with about 8-10 biscuits in it) and go through at least 2 or 3 a week plus chaff and and grain plus my horse was on grass 24/7. Add agistment and petrol money and I was paying more for my horse than I was in rent.

It is a lot more expensive to build an arena than you think, also, I second the separate paddocks idea, rotation is very important. What I would do if I were you is make a list of all the things you are going to use daily/weekly/monthly/yearly and find out how much each of them costs then average it out to a month, just give a few places a call and they should be able to help, even a different city in the same state is going to have vastly different costs. Remember with a property comes things like insurance, extra travel and petrol to work and back, fencing etc. I mean it would be great to have a property, but make sure you don't skip over any of the important things.

be extremely careful about riding alone.
i made that mistake, and im just lucky the neighboors got home close to after my horse and i fell.
i was litterally laying in a feild with blood pouring out of my face, and i couldnt even stand.
i dont know what i would have done if no one found me, so be very careful when riding alone, its really not worth the chance of getting injured.

i spend about $7 a bale of hay, and that lasts 1.5-2 days with my one horse.
a bag of grain (about $16), lasts like 2.5 weeks, almost one month, and my horse only eats 1.5 qts am and pm.
a bag of shavings cost about $6.25 and that lasts about 5 days.
normally, i spend about 45 minutes a day cleaning one stall, filling outdoor waterbuckets and indoor waterbuckets, and cleaning out cutters paddock.
dewormers about $13 dollars every month and a half or so, and the ferrier comes every 4.5-5 weeks (my horses feet grow crazy fast) and thats $90 for 2 shoes or $140 for 4 shoes. the ferriers alittle expensive, but he does a great job,and thats really important.
youd want to be able to go to the barn several times a day, to give hay to the horses and check to make sure their still okay. ive gotten to the barn after a windy day to find my horse loose. also, if you work full time, try to have someone you can call to bring in the horses in a emergency.

i know this is a slight tangent on this thread but re. cost i owned my 1st pony when i was 12 i,m 50 now never not had a pony/horse sometimes 20 at the one time,my granddaughter bought me a horse book last xmas when i read it it trashed me to death the price of keeping a horse if i was a newbie i,d have settled for a canary youwil always muddle through so what if you can,t always afford the best do what you can and you,l manage