Last night I spent some time breaking down some numbers..
1. You really don't want to know how much your horse is actually costing you. It isn't pretty and I wish I loved soccer.
2. I'm a lot stronger than I think I am because I honestly, in all these years of riding, never knew that a regular square bale of hay weighs between 40 - 50LBS. Did you know that?
New facts aside, I wanted to show myself how to actually analyze how much food I should be feeding Hobbs (Per LB/KG) and how much he has been costing me recently. These two go hand in hand because somehow, he's eaten TWO 20KG bags of $35 food in two weeks. Which isn't technically that much, but if I'm buying these every week it is, so something wasn't quite right.
First of all, I wholly want to emphasize the possibility of human error. I DO pay to board Hobbs and we did just move, so there is bound to be some confusion and some error between the two places. I also, really hate to be that boarder that leaves lists and notes and all that jargon because I want to be and seem very low maintenance, but in hindsight, I really should just make more lists. (I'm also just WAITING for the day my mom gets sick of the city and buys a little farm - hint hint...)
Alright so, breaking it down version 1.0 - this is a breakdown of a more expensive month in my books, but none the less, something important for other horse owners (especially new)
- November Board = $400
- Be busy at work trying to make extra money, go ride the horse, find him too skinny under his rugs, reassess feeding plan = $135
- He quickly eats all of the new grain he's on, buy another bag = $35
- Pay for Hobbs to be re-shod (really should have pulled the shoes but) = $200
- Make the move closer to the city so that I can avoid terrible Canadian winter driving = $125 (For the shipper, as I don't have my own truck and trailer)
- Pay December Board at the new facility = $550
- Buy a new sheet and a new bit and those polos I HAD to have = $200
- Buy another bag of feed (but yet again reassess feed situation because something is NOT right) = $35
That equals a grand total of $1,550 (I could have saved myself a good $300 if I knew all of these things were going to happen all at the same time, but sometimes you just need to buy a new rug OK.) So, I think this might chalk up to be one of the more expensive horse months, but I never really keep a tally on how much I'm spending when and where when it comes to Hobbs, and after doing this I can see why, because it's possibly the most depressing thing EVER. I'm hoping to save myself money buy portioning and weighing out all of his feed, AM + PM so that I can eliminate human error and also know exactly how many LBS of food he's getting. 2 birds 1 stone (AMIRGIHT!)
Now, breaking it down Version 2.0 after doing these sad calculation I had a pause moment and knew something was wrong. Like I mentioned before I've never had a great knowledge of horse nutrition and when I did this add up, I knew something was wrong. I knew we shouldn't be going through that much grain so I did some research. First of all, I want to thank the freaking internet for existing and answering so many questions about technically everything in life, but especially right here and now. I read a lot of different things, but I found that this website broke it down in the best way possible and made it very easy for me to digest all of the information:
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/agriculture/animals-and-livestock/horses/management/feed-budgets-for-horses
Now moving on to my own break down; this is plan 'GET FAT'
- My calculations show Hobbs weighs roughly 430KG
- He needs to be eating 1.7% of his weight
- 1.7% of 430KG = 7.3KG (16LBS)
- 70% of his daily intake needs to be roughage
- 11.2LBS is 70% of his daily food consumption.
- So that leaves 4.8LBS of 'grain' needed as a supplement to the roughage to equal roughly around 16LBS (he gets about half of the roughage in his stall - and has a round bale all day - am also considering adding alfalfa cubes)
- So he needs about 2.4LBS divided per feeding. (I'm still trying to work out the exact portions)
Have you noticed I like making lists?! My lovely friend Kate over at EVENTING NATION shared her two cents with me earlier today which also helped clear the air a little, she mentioned that we all have different ways of feeding our horses, and reminded me that it takes time. I can't help but want to see results quickly, but also, glancing at the chart on this website help me understand what bracket Hobbs is in, and what I need to be working towards.
1. You really don't want to know how much your horse is actually costing you. It isn't pretty and I wish I loved soccer.
2. I'm a lot stronger than I think I am because I honestly, in all these years of riding, never knew that a regular square bale of hay weighs between 40 - 50LBS. Did you know that?
New facts aside, I wanted to show myself how to actually analyze how much food I should be feeding Hobbs (Per LB/KG) and how much he has been costing me recently. These two go hand in hand because somehow, he's eaten TWO 20KG bags of $35 food in two weeks. Which isn't technically that much, but if I'm buying these every week it is, so something wasn't quite right.
First of all, I wholly want to emphasize the possibility of human error. I DO pay to board Hobbs and we did just move, so there is bound to be some confusion and some error between the two places. I also, really hate to be that boarder that leaves lists and notes and all that jargon because I want to be and seem very low maintenance, but in hindsight, I really should just make more lists. (I'm also just WAITING for the day my mom gets sick of the city and buys a little farm - hint hint...)
Alright so, breaking it down version 1.0 - this is a breakdown of a more expensive month in my books, but none the less, something important for other horse owners (especially new)
- November Board = $400
- Be busy at work trying to make extra money, go ride the horse, find him too skinny under his rugs, reassess feeding plan = $135
- He quickly eats all of the new grain he's on, buy another bag = $35
- Pay for Hobbs to be re-shod (really should have pulled the shoes but) = $200
- Make the move closer to the city so that I can avoid terrible Canadian winter driving = $125 (For the shipper, as I don't have my own truck and trailer)
- Pay December Board at the new facility = $550
- Buy a new sheet and a new bit and those polos I HAD to have = $200
- Buy another bag of feed (but yet again reassess feed situation because something is NOT right) = $35
That equals a grand total of $1,550 (I could have saved myself a good $300 if I knew all of these things were going to happen all at the same time, but sometimes you just need to buy a new rug OK.) So, I think this might chalk up to be one of the more expensive horse months, but I never really keep a tally on how much I'm spending when and where when it comes to Hobbs, and after doing this I can see why, because it's possibly the most depressing thing EVER. I'm hoping to save myself money buy portioning and weighing out all of his feed, AM + PM so that I can eliminate human error and also know exactly how many LBS of food he's getting. 2 birds 1 stone (AMIRGIHT!)
Now, breaking it down Version 2.0 after doing these sad calculation I had a pause moment and knew something was wrong. Like I mentioned before I've never had a great knowledge of horse nutrition and when I did this add up, I knew something was wrong. I knew we shouldn't be going through that much grain so I did some research. First of all, I want to thank the freaking internet for existing and answering so many questions about technically everything in life, but especially right here and now. I read a lot of different things, but I found that this website broke it down in the best way possible and made it very easy for me to digest all of the information:
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/agriculture/animals-and-livestock/horses/management/feed-budgets-for-horses
Now moving on to my own break down; this is plan 'GET FAT'
- My calculations show Hobbs weighs roughly 430KG
- He needs to be eating 1.7% of his weight
- 1.7% of 430KG = 7.3KG (16LBS)
- 70% of his daily intake needs to be roughage
- 11.2LBS is 70% of his daily food consumption.
- So that leaves 4.8LBS of 'grain' needed as a supplement to the roughage to equal roughly around 16LBS (he gets about half of the roughage in his stall - and has a round bale all day - am also considering adding alfalfa cubes)
- So he needs about 2.4LBS divided per feeding. (I'm still trying to work out the exact portions)
Have you noticed I like making lists?! My lovely friend Kate over at EVENTING NATION shared her two cents with me earlier today which also helped clear the air a little, she mentioned that we all have different ways of feeding our horses, and reminded me that it takes time. I can't help but want to see results quickly, but also, glancing at the chart on this website help me understand what bracket Hobbs is in, and what I need to be working towards.
Goodnight from a little Hobbits' in his embarrassing cooler that sadly for him, lives on.