it depends on how you keep your horse.pasture or stall
some costs are the same no matter if the horse is stalled or pasture kept. Vet bills, worming, equipment, grooming supplys, tack and shoeing will remain a constant. stall kept horses require more feed and hay. pasture kept horses require more fly products for protection against pests.Lets consider stall kept first. And that you are the one careing for the horse and your not boarding it. In my area good grade square bales of hay cost around $5.50 each, and a single horse will consume the biggest part of a bale each 24 hours.So thats 30 bales of hay at $165 a month. A good brand of feed costs around $15 a 50 pound bag.feeding 2 pounds for three meals a day would be 180 pounds of feed so 3 bags of feed a month at a cost of $45. Bedding changes require about 2 bales of wood bedding a week and they are $6 each. you would use around 8 bales a month so to total up $48 stall care for one month, plus wormer (quest) which runs $14 a tube. your total would be around $296. plus shoeing $80 every 3 months or so($320 a year), vet checks once a year $150, teeth floating $30 a year. which totals 796 a year. unless you have shoeing or health problems that will cost extra. Also I didnt total up water, or the fact that every horse requires differant amounts of feed and hay so the total could be alot more depending on the horse.I also didnt include the costs of tack, grooming supplys , or equipment.
Pasture kept horses , if kept on plenty of pasture (minumum of 3 acres per horse) can be musch more cost effective. Most people use roun bales for pastured horses, hey commonly run around $40 a bale and are not usually the best quality of hay since the horse gets its ruffage mostly from grazing. If the pasture is well maintained then one round a month will suffice for one horse. grain fed out is also less or cut out completly. Its mostly fed to bring the horses up for a daily visual examination of health. so 1 50 pound bag may last as long as a month.bedding is not a concern so that is $0 wormer would be 14 a month. plus the shoeing e.t.c i tallied above would be a total of 569. a year.I hope my math is correct on all of this but it should give youa general idea of cost of care