Sanity in Numbers

It is now March of 2009. This posting was written 8 months ago. Since then things got worse and costs were even higher than enumerated here. Now as the recession progresses, prices are slowly returning and may even go lower. So use this as a description of the elements involved in defining the cost of horses care and the numbers as a snapshot of what it once was.

There are a number of people out there that object strongly and noisily to a horse rescue getting reimbursed for the care of seized horses when animal control has served a warrant and the animals are being cared for prior to final legal action or forfeiture by the abuser/owners. I don't get this when you consider the large amount of money spent on dog and cat shelters. Maybe its just that all tax money spent is bad, maybe it's that someone else gets it when these people believe that they deserve it more, who knows.

A number of uninformed people use terms like "triple dipping" which I take to mean that a rescue gets payments from Animal Control, receives donated cash or goods as a charity and charges a fee for adopting out horses. This of course is what every dog and cat shelter does but the idea of a horse rescue doing it seems to irk some people.

I'll use March and April 2008 at Hope For Horses (HopeForHorses.net) as examples. They have been very aggressive in defining fee schedules and getting contracts in place that ensure that at least some of the cost of picking up and rehabilitating abused horses are covered. The goal is a sustainable model for a horse rescue. The history of all rescues and humane societies is full of groups that start strong with high ideals and then go bust because they can't pay for the animals they take and don't move them out to adopters fast enough. Euthanasia then becomes as much a business decision as a moral one.

During this time HFH had 6 horses at their main intake barn, 15 at a contracted boarding facility (NSAE barn) which were part of a criminal impound from Pierce County Animal Control, 14 were in foster care. Please note that these are rough approximations designed to give you a general idea of the costs involved.

Ok so here are some basics:

1. A typical, healthy 1000 pound horse requires 20-30 pounds of food a day. Each is different (easy vs hard keepers) but it's a good generalization. The high end is for active, in use horses and the low end is for lazy or recovering horses that mostly stand around all day.
2. This is dry weight and again in a very general sense means hay, alfalfa, grain or pelleted, concentrated feeds.
   
3. At Hope for Horses a typical daily ration (Fed in 5 stages) is 6 lbs of Senior feed (LMF or Nutrina), Horse guard vitamins, 2 cups of wheat bran, 1 cup of soybean oil and 3 flakes of Orchard grass hay. Total of about 22 pounds. Again every horse is different (less if just beginning the refeeding process, more if actively gaining weight, less if nearing their plateau weight) Many horses get joint supplements or other diets that require less chewing, but this is generally typical.
4. At todays prices: hay is $300/ton, senior feed is $18/bag, oil is $29/6 gal. This means a raw cost of $5.50/day just for food. With horses we see waste either in spilled grain or trampled hay of around 10% so we generally feed more hay than intended. So broadly it costs $6.00/day just to feed a horse. There are also episodic charges for worming ($10/horse every 2 months) and grooming supplies - every horse has their own brushes. combs, hoof picks plus misc expensive goo that is sprayed or lathered on them.
   
5. One other definable cost is bedding, either sawdust, shavings or pelleted (like stove pellets). This again is an estimate across a number of horses. For instance at the intake barn we purchase 24 Cubic Yard truckloads of mixed sawdust/shavings to bed 7 horses for 2 1/2 months. Currently that costs $420/load or around $.70/day/horse. Pelleted bedding used at the NSAE barn was 2-4 bags/day for 15 horses. At $4.25/bag that is around $.85/day/horse.
6. So food and bedding is around $7.00/day/horse. Pretty much a fixed cost. Many individual horses require extra care (supplements or meds) and that can add as much as $2-$6/day/horse.
7. During march HFH was responsible for Vet and farrier care for 20 horses (6 at the intake barn and 14 at fosters) . The average for all of 2007 was $130/month/horse for vet and farrier. The other 15 at the NSAE barn had vet and farrier billed directly to Pierce County.
   
8. Generally rescued horses are kept at private barns where no boarding fee is charged. This doesn't mean no additional cost just no additional charges. In the case of Hope for Horses and the Donna Gale case they boarded(stall, turn out only) 15 horses at the NSAE facility for $3.00/day/mare and gelding and $5.00/day/stallion. There were also charges for damage to the stallion's stalls.
   
9. Now Hope For Horses in spite of being called a "non-profit" is still a business. There are phones and DSL and printer and office supplies and gas. In March they had 1 1/2 paid staffers (better than minimum wage but just barely) who answered phones, managed the web site, scheduled volunteers, worked with fosters, made site visits (mileage charges) to check out new adopters and fosters.
10. During this time there were 2 horses in training (being started under saddle) but no training fees. At other times it is not unusual to pay professional trainers $300-$600/young unstarted horse to get them ridable. We did ground manners work in March with the Pierce County horses but no more until we knew we would actually take possession of them. There is always a possibility they might be returned to the abuser.
    
11. During March 2008 HFH had a total of 35 horses in direct or foster care. 21 horses were being cared for directly (HFH and volunteers). 14 were in foster care.
    
12. So approximately, it cost us $340/month/horse to care for the 6 horses at our intake barn (food,bedding, vet, farrier no stall charges). $310/month/horse For the 15 Pierce County horses at the NSAE barn (Food, bedding, stall, no vet or farrier) and for 14 fostered horses it was $130/month/horse. This doesn't include costs for a couple of very hard to keep older and EPSM horses that were at fosters but for which we paid for food and bedding.
13. So for March 2008 the 35 horses in their care cost HFH approximately $9000. This is real money paid out, donated or purchased goods consumed and services applied directly to horses.
14. Money came in from a number of sources. $4875 was paid by Pierce County directly to HFH for the Donna Gale 15. $1400 was goods purchased and donated to HFH at Bothell Feed and Dayville Hay. NSAE Bedding was all donated by the Grange. No horses were adopted out. That leaves $2300 that HFH covered out of it's general fund.
15. Now April was completely different. The Donna Gale horses were forfeited, 13 were turned over to us, 2 were given away by the County but all payments stopped at the beginning of April. We did adopt out 1 of the 13 for $1000. and one died at the fosters. We still had $1400 of donated feedstore goods and the donated pelleted bedding. That leaves 31 horses that HFH had to come up with approximately $6000 out of its general fund

Notice that this is not a fully burdened cost. All of the office expenses and salary's are not included. Operating expenses are also not included. HFH tries to reimburse real expenses of its volunteers and employees. As an example the donated pelleted bedding cost over $400 in gas and trailer rental even with a donated truck.

It also does not include L&I expenses. HFH tracks volunteer hours and pays insurance. In 2007 we logged 5000 hours donated by 52 people.

The net of all this is that even though HFH got paid by Pierce County and got some very large donations at the feed stores and was paid for the adopted horse there was no excess money. HFH is a charity. They do amazing things with very little money. Bringing a starving, sick and depressed horse back from near death and doing it for a little more than 400/month is amazing.

Some extremely ignorant and selfish people just can't add. But again it doesn't matter. HFH and all other rescues are full, the next large group of starving horses will have no where to go.

A Long Strange Trip

On Wednesday April 2nd 2008 Hope For Horses, a horse rescue in Woodinville Wa transferred this stallion to the veterinary offices of Linda Hagerman for a vet check. He was being turned over to Rose Corey to avoid a potential lawsuit with Pierce County.

This photo was taken about 10 minutes before a commercial horse transporter picked him up. He loaded easily, trailered well and unloaded easily.









On Wednesday April 9 2008 the Dispatch News, a small weekly paper in Pierce County printed this article that began with this picture. The article says it was taken on April 3rd 2008, the day after the first picture and just hours after the article says he had an almost catastrophic medical emergency while being transported by Corey from the vet to her farm.

The article states that after the vet check, on the way to Rose Corey's farm the stallion choked, went into convulsions and required emergency treatment. The suggested cause was "a handful of loose hay". The article has many errors in fact and incorrectly leaves the impression that Hope For Horses might be responsible.


Here he is a week before being sent to Corey The difference in the two pictures at HFH and the picture in the article is shocking. How can a horse go from healthy and active to bony and thin in one day? An uninformed guess might be that this is a horse that is severely dehydrated because of the choking incident while being trailered by Corey. My photographer friend tells me it's primarily lighting and angles. I have no idea! The problem is that the picture was used to accuse HFH of mishandling the stallion.

This horse was in the care of Corey from Dec 31 to Jan 20 when Pierce County transfered him to Hope For Horses. He is one of 15 horses alledgedly neglected and starved by Donna and Lisa Gale in Spanaway Washington. Hope For Horses was responsible for his overall health and recovery.

This is a gradual process that can take much longer than the 2 1/2 months that he was in their care. He was very thin when he came in to HFH and he was gaining weight slowly. He was still thin when he left but even so he was an extremely healthy and very active stallion.

Here is a list of related links for those who can't get enough

Original Youtube Video === News Report after Impound
Negative News Article === Rebuttal News Article
A few choice photos

Sadly there was another horse involved.

This little guy was removed from the field at the same time as the stallion You can see them both in the YouTube video. The words used were that he was "deformed". That deformity appears to be garden variety cow hocks that were made worse by the muddy conditions and the colts and his mothers poor nutrition.

He too was originally sent to Rose Corey and cared for from Dec 31 07 to Jan 19 08. He came back at the same time as the stallion and was reunited with his mother. Amazingly they rebonded, she started producing a little milk and he started nursing again.

As HFH suspected the deformity was just early growth problems that are slowly sorting themselves out as he gets stronger and plays with another weanling/yearling filly from the same group. All three get turned out together.




Rose Corey however wanted him transported to her "Immediately". HFH asked the county to give him some more time to mature and get stronger in familiar surroundings with his mother and then let them do a gradual weaning in adjacent stalls and turnouts. Maybe 2 months total

You would think they were the devil himself. She went ballistic. Her lawyer (G Paul Mabry who defended the convicted abuser Anita Miller) worked overtime accusing Hope For Horses of deliberately stalling. HFH cannot stop the transfer, he belongs to the county. They just want him in the best shape possible and after what happened with the stallion HFH documented like crazy people.



The ultimate transfer of this little guy resulted in this article: 3rd Dispatchnews article

The tragedy of all this is the waste of precious time. Hope For Horses has 35 horses in their care. they are fully occupied. Yet days have been taken up dealing with the nasty accusations, untruthful newspaper articles, drafting replies etc.. All things that take away from horses that need their attention. Even now they still don't know what motivates these people.

In the end though it all may not matter. HFH and all other rescues are full. Fosters and adopters are fewer due to the incredible price increases in hay, grain and bedding. Pierce County is close to broke so Animal Control has less money just when they need much more. Good luck to us all in the coming months.


www.Hope For Horses.net is where you can go to offer your support. They need it more than ever right now.