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I’ve worked in the horse industry for years, currently at a boarding farm with 35 horses that see plenty of farm calls. Vet visits to the farm are typically somewhere between 300-500 a visit. Basic Injuries, one set of xrays, something mild injected, etc. normally they don’t go over 1,000 unless the vet has to make multiple trips. But we can do iv shots in house, pull stitches, etc so our boarders don’t have as many vets bills as a lot of other places.
I typically expect $100 yearly coggibs/shots + farm call. 200-300 when teeth are done yearly.

My vet charges a flat fee + an additional fee based on the time he was at the farm. For taking a coggins he charged me $31 On a $40 coggins so I paid him nearly as much to draw blood as to have the test done, $81 total. Vets around here are terrible with trip fees. He works 10 minutes from the barn and worked with my horse for 30 seconds. Ugh.

I normally keep 1,000 set aside at all time for injuries to my horse. Freak accidents happen, no matter how careful you are. My filly had 10 stitches because she scraped along the edge of an arena.

I few grand I think is reasonable for a horse. Emergency vet bills can be very high.

Thank you for the helpful insight, I definitely have an idea of how much I need. The most likely culprit for injuries is barbwire, since it’s the primary fencing material here. Both of her close calls involved wire.


@FallenShadows714, I make sure the corrals or pasture she is in are nice and tidy, a pet peeve of mine is horses that are in a yard full of junk.

Personally I trust barbwire more then electric fence, I trust cows and horses to stay put with a barbwire fence better than electric one. It a regional normal the people who have livestock are mostly ranchers, and it’s a different mentally/way of life. However I do agree barbwire is a whole lot more nasty than electric wire.

Her first incident she went to bluff the fence (a habit) and she didn’t give herself enough time to stop since it was muddy, I didn’t see it but she slipped/skidded for at least 8ft on her side of the fence, busted a 4ft wood fence post off at the base and somehow ended up on the other side of the fence. That was a 4 strand fence, she didn’t get a scratch on her I looked thoroughly. She hasn’t bluffed a fence since, at least not that I’ve seen. The next incident was my fault. We were chasing a runback calf at a full gallop trying to get ahead of it, and I realized we were about to go over a wire gate laying on the ground about 3 seconds before we went over it. She didn’t get tangled or anything when we went over it thank God, and my husband got the gate closed before I got the calf turned back around. I checked her over once I was able too and she didn’t have a scratch, but that one could have been very bad for both of us. So we’ve been lucky since both accidents could have been crippling if not fatal. Which is why I started wondering what a decent emergency fund for a horse would/should look like.

The vet school I'm in sees a lot of urgent care and emergency cases, so I've seen a fair number of unexpected vet bills get cashed out at the register. As many have said, an emergency can run you through a good couple thousand quite quickly and easily - but it really varies based on the type of emergency and what kind of care is involved.

Two types of cases seemed to be the most common for emergency presentation: cuts from wire, animal attacks, other horses, etc and colic. $500 (for our area - yours may vary a little in either direction) seemed to be the absolute low end for any emergency case - I can't think of many clients who checked out with a bill below that. $1000 - 2000 seemed an average bill for a in-and-out on the same day emergency that could be reasonably resolved without full anesthesia. Anything requiring more extensive anesthesia (colic surgery, etc) or hospitalization (wound led to a bad infection requiring IV medication, etc) had a minimum of $5000 - $7500 and could go up, appreciably, from there.

In the end, I don't think it's possible to have 'too much' in an emergency fund for horses. I know a lot of our clients approach the question from the perspective of: "how much am I really, truly, willing to spend; what's the limit of a vet bill that I wouldn't be willing to pay" and use that as their goal.