>>> Even my two 16 hh Tennesse Walkers and llama only eat one bale and two quarts of grain among them a day and cost $1200 last year.
I've had a few years where individual horses cost me only about $600 each too. That doesn't mean that's what it costs over the period of their lives though. It doesn't count anything for all the initial fence installation. It doesn't count anything for fence repairs, tractor upkeep, and fertilizer for the field where we cut hay. It doesn't count anything towards paying back the cost of the land. It doesn't count anything towards paying off the initial cost of the horses. It doesn't count anything for my time spent at seminars, on foal-watch, doing farm chores or for my time training the horses. It doesn't pay me back for owning my stallion for two full years before I decided to breed him - to be absolutely sure that he was a good breeding prospect. Yep, maybe I'm a worrywart, but I bought him, and then kept him for two years to be certain I was only breeding quality animals. I can't imagine making foals with weak conformation or faulty gaits, ones that no one would want. I realize that I'm creating little lives that may live on past me. I want to give them every advantage I can. In 2004, one of our horses had a spider bite that cost us $3000 to treat. We've had a couple of Cushing's related laminitis cases that cost us well over $1000 each to treat - two in one year one time. I had a mare with a vague lameness that cost me over $2500 just in her medical costs to diagnose, (I never bothered to go to the ER for MY incurred "lameness" costs due to her problem....) about two years of her lost riding time, and an unknown amount in retraining - but she came back and is a sound and healthy riding horse again. We're lucky though, I guess. We've never had a $10,000 colic surgery. I've never lost a horse to colic, and only one horse has died here - at age 24. We've had no cancer in our herd. We vaccinate, so we've had no WNV nor EEE nor rabies. I went with my good friend when she took her beloved nine-year-old gelding to the vet school last fall for a never-diagnosed ailment that caused him to have some neurological symptoms. I think her bill, just for tests, no surgeries, was about $5000-6000...and because she realized how helpless she was because she didn't have her own trailer, the real expense came next: the horse trailer. Luckily she'd just bought a truck that could pull a trailer. So, add in truck and trailer to the necessary expenses to account for... My friend was also lucky. Her gelding recovered with no visible lasting effects. I HAVE dropped some noticeable money into the care of a few rehab and rescue horses. I guess I don't have to count the cost of these into my breeding costs, but I'm a big believer in the old adage, "If you don't rescue, don't breed." I feel a moral obligation to work with some of the already-living creatures with issues, to morally compensate for the new lives I'm bringing into the world. I HOPE if any of my foals ever develop problems for whatever reason and I can't take care of them, I hope there will be someone out there to return the favor for the time I'm spending with the rehabs now. I HOPE so. I believe in finishing a job that I start, figuratively at least, if not literally. My horses that are in their golden years will finish out there lives here. I won't sell them on because I'm "finished" with them. In my mind, they've earned their retirement and they are still my responsibility. I have to count their expenses too, because it's all part of the cycle of breeding...births and deaths... I had four normal deliveries here last spring. All the foals were healthy. However, the blood test the day Landi was born showed that he didn't get his colostrums, so he had to have a plasma transfusion. Counting the extra farm calls and tests that alone cost me about $800 I think - plus a lot of lost sleep and worry. If we hadn't tested him, he most assuredly would have gotten very sick and probably died - and would have cost me still more money, plus agony for the foal and distress for the mare. He is fine now though - no problems, big, strong and healthy. That doesn't include the prenatal care I paid for his mom. It doesn't count the extra shots for her, or the ultrasound to prove when she was due...and to be sure she wasn't carrying twins. All of that has to be done (by my standards) for ALL my broodmares. And of course, pregnant mares can't eat the fescue that is prevalent here, so I have to continue feeding them non-fescue hay, with some vitamin supplements. And of course, that doesn't count a penny for his shots, his wormings, our time in teaching him about halters and leads, the farrier work or for training him to stand for the farrier. Since I own the stallion, I didn't have to pay for a breeding fee - but to be honest in my accounting, I have to figure in how much I paid for him initially, and how much it costs me to keep him. I don't count any expenses for the month or two in the spring when I have mares due where I'm farm-bound and can't join friends for fun, horsey trips to Equine Affair, trail riding, when I can't go to clinics. It doesn't count anything for getting up several times a night, or staying up all night for many weeks those springs. I count myself very lucky with the foal deliveries here - I haven't lost a mare or a foal. I've never had to pay for a c-section. I haven't had a mare crippled during delivery, as several people on the list have, although one of our mares had to have her foal pulled - I'm sure we would have lost the foal, and probably the mare too, had we missed her delivery. We were lucky that she decided to deliver while we were present. I haven't had a foal or a pregnant mare to get very sick due to complications of pregnancy, but I know it's possible. I'm lucky...but I'm still not making any profit, and not making a dent in my initial expenses. I love the babies though. The more horses you have, the more these expenses add up. The older the horses get, the more likely these expenses will pop up, but I won't sell my older horses on, simply hoping that someone else will take proper care of them. The more horses you have, the greater the odds that you'll hit these horrible emotional and financial crises in health care. That's ok - that's the downside of having these great animals. I'd owned horses for 15 years before I decided to breed, so I had some idea of the costs we'd incur. I am very aware that I'm risking my mares' health every time I breed, and it worries me - every time I breed. It worries me that my foals may have some defect or imperfection that may make finding good, appropriate homes for them difficult, and I know I can't promise to live forever to care for them. If we waited for someone to breed under circumstances where they'd have an honest profit, these horses would cost a lot more than they do - or maybe horses would totally vanish off the face of the earth. In fact, it's only because of the glut of horses in the USA that we can find horses as reasonably priced as we do. Some people just don't care if they don't get good prenatal care for their mares, and sometimes they are lucky. I just prefer not to leave my mares' and foals' health to luck, and I'll do everything I can to have foals that a choice of people would love to own. When you account for it all, it costs everyone MUCH more than $600 per year to keep a horse. I've bred seven foals now because I love the horses. I don't make any money doing it, and it really annoys me when people assume it's all Fun and Profit. Karen Thomas, NC -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.7/711 - Release Date: 3/5/2007 9:41 AM
