Hay there!

[altivo]

Hands swollen and marked with little welts, legs tired and sore, itchy stuff down my neck... It must be hay time again.

Later in the year than usual, we find ourselves wanting to refill the hay supply to make sure we get through the winter. With four horses, five sheep, and assorted rabbits, we go through quite a lot of hay, especially in winter when there is no grass to speak of. Unloaded and stacked two racks full of bales over this weekend, and we'll have at least one more coming sometime this week probably.

Fortunately we've been buying from the same source mostly for five years now, and they know our needs and anticipate our requests to some degree. Jeff is very nice, he delivers a full rack and positions it for us to unload (we have no equipment that can move a full hay rack--150 bales plus the rack can weigh nearly four tons) then comes back to take away the empty when we're done. We can stack almost 700 bales in one side of our arena, which is an amazing pile of feed and a truly depressing sight when it is almost gone. Why? Because that means we're going to have to start unloading and stacking again.

The price of hay varies with the supply and demand of course, and we've paid anywhere from $1.75 to $3.25 per bale over the years. Unlike gasoline, it doesn't just go up and up, though. The average has stayed around $2.25.

Let me stick a needle in the haystack and puncture a myth at the same time. It does not cost a lot of money to feed a horse. At least, not a horse of an efficient breed. The annual cost of hay and grain for one of our Haflingers is about $750 (depending on market prices, of course.) The veterinary bill for the same horse runs about $450 a year. The farrier (just to keep feet trimmed and balanced, we don't use shoes) runs about $210 for a year (six visits). With a few additional expenses, round that to $1500 a year to keep a horse. Of course this doesn't take into account capital expenditures, like the cost of barn, fences, or pasture. But overall, owning a horse is within reach of almost anyone who wants it badly enough.

I'm not wealthy. I'm barely middle class, but I want this very much. One soft nose against my cheek is enough to make it worth far more than mere dollars. I set priorities and go without things other people take for granted in order to have my horses. We don't have cable or satellite television, for instance. We don't have cell phones. We have old computers that are barely functional with today's software demands. Our vehicles are serviceable, but far from new.

Why? It's simple, really. A satellite dish or a shiny new pickup truck will not perk its ears and nicker a greeting when it hears your footstep. And it certainly won't come running across the pasture to greet you, ready and willing to let you put a halter or bridle on it and ask it to do something for you. A good horse will do all that and more, even though you have to stack hay and shovel a certain amount of manure. (At least it's honest manure, unlike the shit you probably shovel every day for your employer anyway.)

Comments

[animist.livejournal.com]

Stuff is just stuff. Animals are so much more! Life on the farm with horses sounds so nice for you! I have found memories of farms from my childhood summers spent in Eastern Kentucky with my mom's relatives.

A reason many people do not - and probably should not - have animals is the responsibility. Between work, caring for my elderly mom, and attending my recovery meetings, I sometimes don't have time to eat, let alone feed another living soul. There are days I leave at 7 am and don't get home until 10:30 pm. But one day, this will change! Until then... it's life in the suburbs for me.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course. I don't mean to suggest that everyone should own a horse. Only to point out that it has intangible benefits and doesn't cost as much as people often think.

A committed smoker spends more in a year to support that habit than I do to have my horse. And the horse is a health benefit rather than a liability. :)

[calydor.livejournal.com]

... Said the man with a memory of getting up on a horse and then waking up in a hospital bed.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually I was conscious before they got me into the ambulance. And that incident was entirely my own fault, no blame for the horse (who has a history of abuse that I was unaware of and should have suspected) or for anyone else involved.

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

The joys of loading/unloading hay. Fortunately, that's something I've not had to deal with much, since we get hay deliveries during the week, when I'm at the regular job. About a year ago, we changed the way we handled the hay. With 30+ horses, each delivery is pretty big, and getting that all up into the haymounts is no small feat, even with a few folks and some mechanization. Recently, we've been getting it delivered inside both parts of a tandem trailer, which are dropped behind the barn. When near empty, another load is brought in and the old trailers are taken away.

There's something very nice about being in one of the trailers this time of year, with the cool air and the smell of hay. I kinda just had to sit on a bale and enjoy it for a bit yesterday.

The real expense in horse ownership for most folk is board. If you don't have enough land, or it isn't zoned for horses, the costs of even pasture board can be terrible. Unless one boards well outside the metro area, pasture board around here generally runs $100-150. Sometimes even higher.

Buying the horse is the cheapest part of horse ownership, to be sure.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's easier if you have several people to do it, of course. We've been lucky in that sometimes but not so much recently.

Yeah, with stables in your size range, your approach is very sensible. With five acres and four horses, though, it doesn't work that way for us. Hay is cheap here from July to September or October, and then the price starts rising rapidly through June. Obviously, it's to our advantage to stock up as much as possible during the cheapest time of year. If I had the money to buy or lease the land and equipment, I'd go into the haymaking business myself. The horse population of this part of Illinois is skyrocketing, and most owners have only small acreage so they need to buy lots of hay.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

You'd think a large animal like a horse would cost more to maintain, but I guess not. Thanks for explaining that. I guess it is easy to forget that farmers, who've never made piles of money, have historically (though not anymore) owned most of the horses and have been able to afford it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, it does cost more than a dog or cat. :) But far less than a child, that's for sure.

Somewhere back in the 1920s and 30s, I think, when tractors and pickup trucks replaced most of the remaining working horses in the US and Canada, and when cities began to clap restrictions on the remaining horse owners that made it almost impossible to keep a pleasure horse in town... Horses began to be viewed as toys of the wealthy. Forget the fact that junk collectors, gypsies, and milkmen continued to use horsedrawn wagons well into the 1950s. People were somehow convinced that only the wealthiest people could afford horses.

I frequently hear people say "I'd love to have a horse, but I can't afford it." Then I look at their collection of technological gadgets, their shiny new cars, their designer clothing, and think "Right, you mean that about as much as George W. Bush means it when he says he cares about the environment." In most cases, their incomes far exceed my own, yet I support four horses in a style that one vet referred to as the "Horsie Hilton".

Being responsible for any animal is a big commitment, and not for everyone. But almost anyone who really wants to have a horse can do so.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

A fellow ham once took delivery of his new high frequency transceiver while his neighbor was out. Asking about it, the neighbor wondered aloud how the ham could afford to spend so much on a radio. The ham pointed back into the neighbor's yard and explained, "Simple, I don't have a boat."

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's a cute one. Everyone should understand it easier than my examples. Thanks.

Unfortunately, most folks have no idea what ham radio is any more. "Is that like CB?" I have working equipment myself, but, definitely not the shiniest new technology. I'm debating at the moment whether to spring for a new 2 meter HT (actually dual band) since the one I have is 15 years old.

73 de KA9NZI