Costs

So Amy wrote a post that included how cheap it was for her to keep her ponies at home.

Made me remember that I recently went through the costs for the yearly bare essentials of keeping a horse in my little part of the world, Western Sydney.

Agistment:$80/week (this gets you a large grassed yard with decent fencing and depending on the situation, normally either half or no care - so DIY mostly).
Feed: $30 a weekHooves: $50 every 5 weeks (trim because I'm a barefoot person)Teeth: $150 by vet dentist with sedation once a yearVaccinations: $300 a year
So bare essentials = $6,690 a year. $557.50 a month for one horse. That's 9.1% of the average full time Australian income (a quick google puts this at $72,800 per year including tax. To be honest, in Western Sydney it would be about $10k less than this).


This makes me wonder - how much does it cost to keep a horse in your neck of the woods? Just agistment (or board or wheatever you Americans call it :P), feed, hooves, teeth and vaccinations. Also, how much of the average wage is this?

Hacking Out

Just a quick little video of Allie and I hacking out the back. We agist on a cattle farm/cutting trainers and the view is just stunning.

Making a special guest appearance are the poor Cavallo boots which are taking a beating, going through muddly puddles and dams..

Your thoughts please?

We spend too much on rent. My place is good for keeping horses, but not for riding. No arena, not even a flat area to ride in. No trails, just streets where cars speed past and scare Gracie and Nat. The footing is shit when we have had no rain, or un-rideable of we have even one day's rain.

There is nothing out there to rent where there is good fencing, flat area for riding, safe roads/trails. We have been looking for months and months.

Move back to suburbia and agist my horse somewhere seems to be the only option. Rent would need to be cheap enough to allow for agistment prices. Rent in Sydney normally sits around $400-$450 a week for a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 car garage house. Then agistment sits around at least $100 a week for safe fencing, feeds, waters, rugging, arena, float parking etc etc. then put on top of that petrol to drive there and back at least 4 days a week, plus my husband not seeing me three nights a week while i'm off at the horses, him eating dinner alone and getting jealous of Allie.

We currently pay $580 a week rent. You see my dilemma?

But I can't ride my horse properly at home. Especially not in winter. I'm back to getting up early and riding before work, or floating over to the indoor and paying $30 to school my horse under their floodlights for one hour. I do this at least once a week.

But I loathe the idea of having my horses looked after by someone else, not having them there close by, not seeing them every morning and every evening. I am a stickler for night checks, making sure gut sounds are normal and all feeds have been polished off. Getting 11pm cuddles from Allie.

Gah. What would you do? I know there will need to be a compromise there. What is it I compromise on?