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.