Owning a horse is a lot of responsibility. However, it can also teach a lot of responsibility to a younger child. Children who live on or near acreages of lands with farms often wait for the day they will finally own their own horse. With the holidays coming up quickly, many of these families will gift a horse as a holiday gift. Owning a horse can be a positive thing, as long as they are ready for it. They often come with a lot of unexpected costs. Consider the following additional costs of a horse, before purchasing one for a holiday gift.
Feeding costs Horses eat a lot of food. If you are familiar with pet ownership with a cat or a dog, the food consumption rate of horses is often much higher. Some horses may also require special food to prevent digestion or health problems. Horses also require regular sources of fresh water, which is more difficult than simply filling a bowl as you might with household pets.
Boarding costs Horses, unlike household pets, cannot live indoors. Yet, they still require proper shelter. Most horses are boarded in a barn on a farm with a lot of land. If you do not have the appropriate amount of land for a barn, or do not have the ability to build a barn in your yard, you may have to pay outside boarding costs. Exterior boarding costs can get very expensive and you will have to drive to the boarding house anytime you want to work with your horse.
Training costs You may choose to or not to train your cats and dogs. As long as they are properly cared for, they are often satisfied. However, a horse is not satisfied unless they are properly trained and given the appropriate amount of room to run in. If you do not have sufficient time to work with and ride your horse, consider not owning one. For partial riders, you can still rent horseback riding services that are already trained by other horse owners.
Medical costs Owning any pet requires medical vaccinations and preventative medications. Horses are sustainable to specific horse related diseases that may require veterinary diagnostics companies services, which can get very expensive. When horses are exposed to equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV), they may develop severe, acute signs of disease and die within 2 to 3 weeks. Equine infectious anemia is a very serious disease that only occurs in horses.
In fact, just one fifth of a teaspoon of blood from a chronic case of EIAV during a feverish episode contains enough virus to infect 10,000 horses. EIAV is a highly contagious horse disease that often requires multiple veterinary diagnostics companies services and veterinary laboratory equipment for a proper diagnosis. The disease is a common concern among those who are required to board their horses, because they are around other horses. For this reason, many boarding facilities require the vaccination for any boarding.
Medical treatment services If your horse does come down with a disease, such as EIAV, they will require expensive treatment and veterinary diagnostics companies services, such as EIAV and heartworm antigen. You may even have to have additional testing done, such as food safety testing companies to ensure that food items were not contaminated with the EIAV disease. It is possible that your horse is a carrier without showing any symptoms, making veterinary diagnostics companies testing important.
By far the majority of horses are inapparent carriers, they show no over clinical abnormalities as a result of infection. They survive as reservoirs of the infection for extended periods, and have dramatically lower concentrations of EIAV in their blood than horses with active signs. Only 1 horsefly out of 6 million is likely to pick up and transmit EIAV from this horse. However, it is important to do regular veterinary diagnostic market testing.
Anyone who owns a horse understands the extent of their responsibility. They require much more work, food, and training than household animals do. They are also more susceptible to specific diseases. These diseases require advanced veterinary laboratory diagnostic testing and then expensive treatment procedures. Consider all of these additional costs before gifting a horse this holiday season.
