How Much Does a Horse Cost? Learn How Much It Costs to Care For a Horse.

If you are considering buying a horse, the biggest question you have is likely how much does a horse cost? Are horses expensive? Well the short answer is, it depends!

Do you already own a horse? If so, you may be wondering if your costs are in line with what other horse owners are spending. Keeping track of your horse expenses will help you stay on budget and comfortable with your finances.

The year is coming to an end and I though it would be helpful to talk about how much owning a horse costs. I am going to use my actual costs throughout the year to show you just how much it costs to actually own a horse.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. My horses live at home, so I do not pay board, but I do pay in my own time and labor as well as the additional cost of a mortgage to own a horse property. I won’t be factoring that in.
2. I feed very minimal additional feed and supplements to my horses apart from high quality hay (you’ll see I pay a pretty penny for that though).
3. If a horse can get hurt, they will get hurt. I only had one regular vet visit and one “emergency” vet visit this year (not a true emergency, but normally I only hope to have the vet out once a year). Keep in mind that you need to have a secure emergency fund for your horse, because things can always go wrong and cost you.
4. I do my horse’s feet – I own most of the tools to do it but about every year I buy a new rasp and new hoof knife. Hoof care is vital to your horse’s well being and is important, so don’t skimp on it.

Do you need help learning how to start an emergency fund? Read more here!

Here are my yearly expenses:

Hay for 1 year = $3,900 total (Per horse comes out to $1,950 a year)

Renting a flat-bed trailer and the diesel to pick up the hay = $183

Vet Visits – 1 regular check up (vaccines and check their teeth, no one needed their teeth floated this year) and 1 emergency visit (no emergency charge as we waited until the vet was back in town but Dede had a big sore in her mouth. Turns out he thinks she just bonked it and broke it open, a little bit of topical steroids and time and it was just fine) = $366

Wormer = $27.88. I only wormed each of my horses twice this year. $13.94 Per horse.

Fecal Tests = $97.60. I waited until the tests were on sale for 20% off and ordered 4. These do cost more than wormer, but not in the long run. I would rather test my horses and know that I need to use a specific wormer, versus not testing them at all. BTW neither of my horses ever show results on the fecal test. $48.80 Per horse.

Timothy pellets and beet pulp pellets = $58.96 for the year, $29.48 per horse. I don’t feed grain to my horses, just some of each of these pellets soaked with the following supplements.

MSM Supplement = $78.20 For the year for two horses, so $39.10 per horse.

Biotin Plus Supplement = $127.76 for the year (only one horse takes this). I am trying to improve the quality of her hooves. I do think this is helping, just not sure it’s worth the cost!

Horse Treats = $76.64 a year (for two horses). $38.32 Per horse.

Hoof trimming tools = $108.90 (see my note above – I trim my own horse’s feet, but I don’t suggest doing this unless you have the time and patience to learn and work on learning how to do it properly).

New tack (I got a new halter, a cooler, some lead ropes, and I’m sure I bought some other things that I can’t remember now) = $209+

Building the horses a barn = ???? It won’t be happening until the new year, but we have drawn up plans to build a barn, so that will be a large horse expense next year.

This year I spent at least $5,233.94 on my horse ownership costs. Per horse this works out to $2,616.97.

How much does a horse cost per month?

Per horse, I spent about $218 a month. I’m sure I forgot a few smaller purchases for my horses in this total. If you are boarding and training, your monthly horse ownership costs will likely be much higher than mine.

How much does it cost to feed a horse?

If you board your horse, your cost of feed will mostly be included in your boarding costs. However, additional supplements and grains can end up exploding the cost to feed a horse.

I spent $2,082.46 to feed each of my horses for a year, or $174 a month.

Keep in mind that I live in an area where hay is very expensive. We paid $10.75 a bale, which equated to about $320 a ton. If we had chosen to have our hay delivered, it would have been $14 a bale! So we saved about $600 by picking up and stacking our hay ourselves. A lot of hay suppliers here in Colorado are selling hay for $10-$15 a bale depending on the type of hay and the weight.

In many parts of the country, you can get hay for a lot cheaper than I have access to. I also bought more hay than I actually need for a year, so ultimately I will probably spend a little less on my hay costs for the year because it will last me longer than a year.

So ultimately, the answer to the question “how much does it cost to feed a horse?” can have a variety of answers. It really depends on your horse’s living situation and what you are buying.

Looking for ways to save money on horse ownership? Read more in this blog post: The top 8 ways to save money on horse ownership.

I hope this blog post has been helpful for understanding the cost of owning a horse. These are the actual yearly and monthly costs that I spent in 2019 to own my horses. Horses are not a cheap hobby, but you can save money on horse ownership if you are willing to be creative and work hard.