As horse owners, keeping our horses healthy is our top priority. However, keeping horses can be very expensive. Here are 4 tips for keeping naturally healthy happy horses on a budget.
1) Keep Your Horse Outdoors Keeping your horse in a pasture is much cheaper, easier, and healthier than keeping him in a stall. When kept in a stall, horses require bedding and more frequent hoof work with the added cost or time keeping the stall clean. If you keep your horse at home, building a run-in shed and fenced lot is much cheaper than a stall barn. If you board your horse, most boarding facilities offer cheaper pasture boarding options.
2) Go With Natural Hoof Care Keeping horses barefoot is much better for them, and it cost you a lot less. Keeping a horse shed can be very pricey and really wears on their hoof health. A good barefoot trimmer will charge a lot less that a shoer and will not need to make as many visits. A healthy barefoot horse will maintain a nice hoof for a lot longer than a shod horse. Most horses do well on 5-8 week schedule. You can save even more money by learning to do some basic trimming or even rasping yourself. You can keep your horse's shape in check and spread your trimmer's visits out further.
3) Get Rid Of Grain Feeding Horse's grain can really add up. Besides the cost, a grain free diet is really a much healthier choice for your horse. Spend your money on high-quality, low-sugar hay instead of loading your horse with sugar laden feeds. You will not only see a difference in the size of your bill fold, but also in your horse's behavior and health.
4) Go Bitless Rope Bitless bridles cost significantly less than most bitted bridles. Your horse will love the change as well. You will save money that you would normally spend on leather cleaning products and repairing broken pieces of a bitted bridle. Bitless bridles like these are made to last a lifetime without needing cleaning or repair.
Thanks for reading, happy trails!
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