Learning Lessons

I have just been given a great lesson about horses that I was not taught at summer riding camp, or working in the barns. You don't learn this lesson till you have to take care of your own horse all by yourself.

I thought that when I moved three horses into the field next to my house that it would be free. Free land, to put three free horses. All I would have to do is provide water and the occasional vet bills, farrier, and dentist. They would just eat grass and it would be affordable.

The first big expense was to divide the field in half. The lower half had openings in the fence, and was too overgrown to mow, and it was very wet and swampy. I needed an electric fence. I needed to get a Solar Fence charger because it was too far away from our garage to supply electricity. I had to research the fence how to put it up, get the fence tape, and grounding rod, and boom I had fence.

This all cost about $350-$400. And this was a cheap alternative to getting real fence put up. As I drive by horse barns now I notice their PVC, or wooden fence. How did they afford that? Your looking at about $1,500- $10,000 in materials and labor to have a real fence. I never thought about fence before, it had always just been there.

Next, I had to focus on the grass... was there any poisonous plants? Was the grass too rich? Was there any holes from groundhogs? After a week of the horses living in the field, they started to drop weight. How could they be losing weight so fast if they are constantly eating grass? I have poor quality grass that has lots of weeds, it clearly wasn't enough to keep their weight on.

 I would never had known this otherwise... every place I worked at always just put their horses in the field, and then in the morning they were fed grain, hay, and supplements and then they were fed again in the PM. I never thought about horse food before... never realized that even though these horses were turned out to pasture that it wouldn't be enough for them.

So I had to go and buy bags of horse food. I started with regular grain. $12 a bag. After a few days, I noticed it wasn't enough, they weren't gaining weight. I had to give them more food. I decided to add some sweet feed. $12 a bag. I mixed the two together, and was giving them a quarter of a scoop, which went up to a half scoop, which then turned into a whole scoop of food. About 1-2 lbs of food for two horses and a quarter pound for the pony. The bags of food are 50 pounds. About 50 scoops of feed are in each bag. The horses were going through 5 scoops of food a day. After twenty days I needed more food.

After all of this my horses were starting to gain weight except for Giselle the lowest on the pecking order. She eats very slow. Ellie, the other horse would eat her food fast, and then push Giselle off her bucket and then eat her food too. Giselle was only getting about a quarter worth of food, and was losing weight. I decided to add a supplement feed. Empower Balance. $22.79 a bag. It has all the nutritional benefits, and is high in fat. I had to research all the different feeds. Which kind of food would be good for horses in light work that are pastured? I had a few options. I learned about Rice Bran, and Beet Pulp, but decided on the expensive supplement.

Now that Ellie has put on weight due to eating all of Giselle's food, I decided to make a makeshift stall to put Giselle into so the other two brats wouldn't eat her food. I put up some posts and made a box with some poly tape. Giselle can finally eat her food in peace.

Now I have them all figured out with the feed, and they all have their special diet plans.

Today I spent $42 on 150 lbs of horse feed that will last about 20-30 days (hopefully)

There is no such thing as a free horse. They all cost money.

A month: for three horses
$42 horse feed

and then in the winter I'm going to have to give them hay which is $5-6 a bale. They will go through about one-two bales a day. Lets just say $10 a day. $70 a week $280 a month....

If I had stalls I would need bedding not sure how much that would cost for straw or shavings.

And this is just the start.
I need a truck to haul the stray and hay before winter comes, and a trailer to haul my horses to shows, or trails, or clinics.
A good used trailer is about $6,000-12,000.
And a truck with a V8 engine and tow package strong enough to haul a horse trailer. New is $20-30,000. Used in poor condition $2,000.

To board a horse it costs about $350-600 a month.

And here I thought boarding a horse was really overpriced. You wonder why these barns charge an arm and a leg to care for your horse.

The horse world is a money pit, and I really didn't understand the costs of running a business till I watched my boss Ginger struggle with the payments every month.

I don't know why we never learned about this at camp, or at the barn. I think that should be a lesson for the kids when they ride... they should know how expensive it is to keep horses. They need a lot of care and they eat a lot of food and they are delicate creatures that need a lot of time, and medical care.

It's been a wonderful experience, and I suppose I'm really lucky to have learned this before trying to start a business. In order to have horses you need to have a lot of cash just floating around- nothing about horses is free.