But before actually jumping into buying a horse one must have a clear cut idea of the expenses that come with it. From giving your horse a suitable home to providing it with basic food, from giving it proper medical assistance to your pet’s grooming, everything should be kept in mind prior the decision to pet a horse. If you don’t have large pastures where horses can roam and graze freely, feeding horses can become quite expensive.
Talking about the basic food cost, it basically depends on your horse but a normal healthy horse weighing generally around 1100 pounds would eat the feed and hay which would be costing round about $100 to a maximum of $250 on average per month which can lead to about $1200 to a maximum of $3000 a year. In spite of the fact that the horses having fresh grass to graze on would obviously lead to less hay consumption of the horse. Moreover, the price of the hay very largely depends upon the following factors:
Time of purchaseTime of yearQuantityType etc
The diet of the horse comprises of hay and packaged feed as described earlier but the question here arises that what are the individual costs of both of them. We are here to answer that as well.
In order to purchase an approximately 50- 130 pound bale of alfalfa or hay mixed with grass/clover or timothy hay you would pay an approximate of $4 to a maximum of $8. But another fact that must be taken in to consideration is that hay is comparatively cheaper in the rural areas because of its abundance. So you should choose according to your personal preferences. Talking about packaged feeds or the supplemental feeds they can cost between $10 to a maximum of $30 per month.
The best time to purchase hay is during the summer right after its harvesting as the prices tend to go up once the supply becomes limited later in the year. One good option is to store the hay for which optimum environment must be provided as without that, hay loses most of its nutritional value.
During the harvesting time which is around July-August a bale of hay would cost around $1. During offseason, farmers can charge up to three times more.
The quantity of hay to be purchased depends on the storage available. The most economical amount would be the one which the horse will consume during a year. The best time to purchase hay would be July as its cheapest during this time as mentioned above.
The types of hay generally available on market are of mainly three types:
Alfalfa HayTimothy HayBermudagrass HayOat Hay
Most horse owners feed alfalfa to their horses due to its high protein count, more energy and calcium when compared to other types of hays. How ever a hay bale of alfalfa would cost you around $20.
Timothy hay is the most expensive while bermudagrass is the cheapest option on the list.
CONCLUSION
An average adult horse consumes roughly 25 pounds of hay per day. For a full year supply, you must have around 4.5 tons of hay. The best quality of alfalfa costs around $255 at the current time. Which makes our total cost of hay $255 x 4.5 = $1147.5 per year.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is it suitable for horses to feed on pastures?
If you have green lands at your access, then this will be the cheapest way to feed your horse. These pastures must be kept well maintain as over grazing may damage the quality of the grass.
Can horse eat grains ? If yes, what would be its cost?
Grains are also a suitable feed for your horse as they are high in energy but their drawback is that they have low amounts of fiber. Horse owners generally feed grains in winters as horses remain warm due to high energy content of the grains. A 50-pound bag of grains can cost up to $35.
What is complete feed and its cost ?
These are usually grains with added nutrition and fiber which are missing from the ordinary grains. They are usually in shape of pallets. This is all you need to feed your horse. These feeds can also be made for a specific type of horse according to his needs.
Due to their ease of use and being nutritionally complete, this is the most expensive type of feed that you can buy. A 30-pound bag would cost you around $32.
