Equine Budget

Pia's Mom over at Pia's Parade wrote a post on her equine budget and got me to thinking about how much my horse and donkey cost me a month. So what I did was added up all of their costs for the year which came to $2800 a year (I rounded up) and divided it by twelve which put me at about $233 a month. It was easier to do that than trying to figure out the cost of everything on a monthly basis because so much varies between winter and summer. :) So here is the break down.

Yearly Costs (some of them are rough guesses)

Enrich 32 - $365
Beet Pulp - $168
Oats - $180
Sweet Feed - $30
Hay - $1200
Trims - $225 (this will go up when donkey can be trimmed unless I do it myself)
Fecals - $50
Dewormer (if needed) - $40
Minerals - $30 (probably less than this because this bucket of loose minerals has lasted them over a year and a half)
Water - $115 - I use city water to fill their water because the well isn't working yet.
Land Lease - $350

I don't know if $2800 a year is more than I was expecting or less . . . I can't really decide because I never really had a number in my head. This obviously doesn't cover variable costs like lessons (when I get to start taking them again), vet bills (like gelding!!), equipment (like my awesome $1 rope halter I made), etc. So they obviously cost more than that, but I still think it's not bad all things considered. Especially when compared to people who have no choice but to board their horses! I never realized how expensive it can be in the big cities. Wow. That was an eye opener.

Anyway I hope this wasn't horribly boring for you. :) I just found it interesting and thought I would share. I probably missed stuff, but it's close enough.

ETA: Oh and I forgot to account for the timothy pellets I've been feeding them, so this isn't completely accurate. :)