02/02/2021
Today’s post is regarding the true cost of rescuing a horse from a kill pen or auction.
First you have the purchase price. This can range from anywhere around $600-1400 depending on which auction or pen the horse comes from.
Then you have transport. If bought on the east coast near me, it’s about $300 to get down from PA, or $500 from TN, or $1400 from any of the border states.
Then you have quarantine. QT board ranges from $350-800/month. Depending on individual board requirements, hay and grain may also have to be provided. So let’s say $300 a month for food.
Which continues out of QT, plus board/rent, so let’s say $400/month, on the cheap side for Northern Virginia.
Then you have farrier/barefoot trims. All my guys are barefoot, but when I first transition them to it, their feet have to be done every 4 weeks. That’s $50/every four weeks.
Then you have vet care. Horses must be looked over by a vet, coggins pulled, and shots given. Sometimes chiropractic work must be added on. Let’s give a healthy estimate of $400, while in reality it could range up to $1000.
So when people criticize privately run rescues like mine who accept donations but still make an effort to rehome horses into forever homes, it’s quite disheartening.
Say purchase price is donated, and maybe transport.
That still leaves me with a balance of $1500 or more in the first month alone for these horses. I find them forever homes for not much more than all of their costs are. This doesn’t reimburse me for time spent taking care of them, evaluating them, posting them, and riding them. All donations go back to horses in some way, whether it be horses we’ve rescued in the past, or applying the balance to future horses, if we even make a profit.
Next time you go to tell a privately funded rescue that they shouldn’t rehome horses or that they’re charging too much because the horses are rescues, with some or all bail donated, ask yourself if you’d be willing to give up hundreds of hours a month, thousands of dollars upfront, barely breaking even, if that, to find these equines good homes.
