When deciding whether to bring your horses home, cost is a major factor to consider. But in fact, asking the title question ("How much does it cost to keep a horse at home?") is like asking "How long is a ball of string?"
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| 3,712-lb ball of string. Length? Unknown. |
The answer is always: it depends. It depends on so, so many things that there really is no one true answer. You have to consider factors like:
- How much hay will I need to feed?
- In some areas the grass may grow year-round, whereas in others you may need to feed hay 6+ months out of the year
- More land generally means more grass and less hay, but that depends on climate of course
- It also depends on whether you have any special needs horses who can't eat much or any grass
- How much land will I have?
- The more land, the more maintenance, higher taxes, etc...
- ...but in most climates more land = more grazing = less hay
- What lifestyle will my horses have?
- Stalling will cost you more in bedding and hay (not to mention time/labor cleaning stalls)
- Full turnout is more likely to require footing improvements to mitigate mud or a dry lot to save your pasture during wet weather; it can also be labor-intensive in its own way, depending on your setup
- What does hay and bedding cost in my area?
- Hay prices especially vary a lot by region!
- For a 50-lb bale of grass hay I've heard everything from $4 in rural, hay-growing areas to $25-30 in places like Florida where hay has to be imported
- Hay prices also vary by year depending on the weather and growing season; I've personally paid between $6.50 and $11 per bale over the past six years, with prices generally trending upward, and with no real correlation between price and quality
- Will I need to hire help?
- Going out of town will be much more expensive than if you were boarding; for a small farm you should plan on at least $50-100 per day for a farmsitter
- At minimum, you should have a backup plan in case of injury
If you are buying a larger, more expensive property than you would otherwise, you should also consider the additional cost of your mortgage, insurance, landscaping, snow clearing, etc. And if you're moving to the country from the city or suburbs, you should also factor in your longer, more expensive commute. You may even need to drive farther to buy groceries and other necessities.
None of this even gets into what it might cost to build or upgrade horse facilities if you don't purchase a turnkey property, which is a whole other can of worms.
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| My nerdy self calculating horsekeeping costs |
Marginal Cost of Another Horse
All that said, once you've brought your horses home and accepted all of the above costs, you may at some point wonder how much more an additional horse will cost. Perhaps your existing horse needs a companion, you'd like another riding horse, your spouse or child would like a horse of their own, you'd like a "guest" horse to take friends on trail rides, or you'd like to take on a resale project. By the time you're thinking of adding horses you should have a decent idea of what your existing horses cost. (If you want to see how I easily track my farm expenses, you can read a previous post here. And if you'd rather not do the math, I understand that too!)
I'll share my experiences with two horses whose expenses I tracked to the dollar. Both were resale projects so I wanted to know how much I was spending and whether I was actually going to make a profit (spoiler alert: the answer both times was no!). I wrote about the first, my adorable pony Gwen, previously here. As it turns out, the two horses ended up being at opposite ends of the spectrum in pretty much every way, including cost.
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| See what I mean about opposite ends of the spectrum?? |
Gwen (July 2018 - July 2019)
- 13.2 hh Welsh/Thoroughbred mare who required small amounts of grain and hay and did not need to be stalled
- Monthly "board" cost including grain, hay, and bedding: $50
- During that time, I was paying $7-9 per ~50-lb bale of second cutting orchard grass hay and $75-85 per roundbale (in the winter)
Harry (July 2020 - December 2020)
- 16.3 hh Thoroughbred gelding who required huge amounts of grain (10 to 12 lbs per day) and needed to be stalled during the day to eat
- Monthly "board" cost including grain, hay, and bedding: $263 (although really this is an underestimate because I needed to stall my other two horses with Harry, whereas normally they would be on full turnout starting in about October)
- During that time, I was paying $10 per ~50-lb bale of second cutting orchard grass hay
As you can see, I have experienced a pretty wide range of per-horse costs even at my one farm, and the range would be even wider if Harry hadn't sold before winter really set in.
Still, even $300 per month seems to me a pretty reasonable cost for an additional horse. In my area, board at a facility with an outdoor arena and excellent care typically costs at least $600 per month. Of course, the people running those facilities want to get paid for their time and labor, which I don't factor in myself. If caring for each additional horse takes half an hour per day (not counting grooming and riding of course), I can "pay myself" a whole $20 an hour and still break even! ($600 - $300 = $300 / (30 days in a month x 0.5 hours per day) = $20/hour)
So, despite the fact that I have yet to make money on a project horse, this is how I can justify someday adding a third horse to my herd again.
