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There’s no doubt that owning a horse can be very expensive. Here are a few tips to make it a little less costly.
Avoid buying hay from the feed store if possible. Because the feed store sells at retail, prices are twice as much as what the people who actually grow the hay sell it for. Sometimes this requires buying in bulk, but if you have more than a couple of horses this will be worth it. If you don’t have the storage space for two tons of hay, sometimes growers who already have large shelters for the hay will allow you to pay in advance and just pick up the hay as you need it.
Ask local ranches where they buy their hay to find the cheapest. Look at ads and signs on the road. Then call around. Before you buy though check quality, you don’t want to have to pay more on vet bills because of poor feed.
You can also often find grain cheaper if go to the manufacturer. If you do buy grain from the feed store you will save money if you mix it yourself, rather than buying the premixed version.
The biggest way to save money is to avoid buying grain or hay altogether. To do that you have to put your horses in a pasture. Two irrigated acres should feed one horse for a year. Make sure you rotate the horse to allow the other pastures to grow. Ideally you should have four half-acre pastures and rotate them about every two weeks.
If you don’t have land you can probably find someone who will allow you to keep your horse on his or her land in exchange for a small fee or riding lessons or often just so your horse can mow their pastures.
Of course if you have a lot of land, rotation isn’t necessary, but it is still desirable to allow time for any worms or diseases to die. If you also have cattle they will kill off many diseases affecting horses and vice versa. When you do rotate with cattle and horses make sure the horses follow the cattle. Cows eat by wrapping their tongue around the grass and pulling it. They leave all the grass behind that isn’t long enough to wrap their tongue around. Horses eat by biting the grass, allowing them to eat it all the way to the ground.
Horses won’t be too expensive if you follow these tips.
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