Glad to hear it. I’m on the fringe of their service area, now only have one mini mare and one mini mule and I’m abiding by their rules.
I just had a conversation about this yesterday with my vet - it kind of went along the lines of “we know we used to leave vaccines with you, but we’re not going to do that anymore”. Which is fine, I was getting a good deal with this practice for ~20 years.
Anyway, my bill was north of $600 for two horses’ spring shots, and that was only half of the shots. I know my vet isn’t making money off of this - it’s more a gripe at how damn expensive everything is lately…
You must be in an area with a lot of quality emergency vet care available. Or you have the only herd around for the vet to work on. Where I am the few vets are over worked and they do not do off hours care. I have to travel 2 hours for the nearest emergency clinic. There is no “lol I’d fire that vet” attitude here.
I am lucky to have a lot of very good vet choices but I also still won’t work with vets who treat me like I don’t know what I’m doing and that I HAVE to spend all of my money with them. That’s why I drive over an hour for my dog’s vet care when I’ve got numerous clinics within a few mins
I don’t even get vets who insist on handling every single aspect of basic care. I guess maybe they draw a hard line because it’s easier than having to assess who can (and will) actually do it themselves, and make a nuanced decision about a client’s capabilities, but jfc with the incredible shortage of vets, their time is so valuable.
It would be such a waste of my vets time to be here multiple times a year for vaccines. I do my damnedest to be respectful of her time, and handling what I’m competent to do on my own is part of that.
I think one of the veterinarians at the practice would wish I would find another clinic because he has to deal with my wee mule, Gunther, who normally a gentleman, turns into a small flying elephant when he thinks vaccines are forthcoming.
I LOVE HIM!!
Three horses, two dentals, all spring vaccines, two coggins, and a health certificate - $1400.
Phew!!!
He is adorable!
I just went and looked at my bill from last month. It ranged between $300-$350 a horse for coggins, dental, rabies and flu/rhino and I haul to the clinic. Times 7
This is an excellent point. If you haven’t already started collecting DIY skills, now is a great time to start.
This was my bill for vaccines ONLY for two horses. I will not begrudge anyone who chooses to do their own vaccines after the heart attack I had opening this.
OMG and I thought my vets were expensive!
That face…and beard!!! Gunther sounds like a very fitting name!
Just got back from spring shots, coggins, baseline bloodwork on the liver since were on Equioxx now, and I think that’s it?? Plus a tube of banamine. I was able to split the farm call with another boarder at least. I am with the clinic that has a reputation for being more expensive in my area, but after a couple rounds of subpar interactions with my previous vet clinic, I don’t mind paying a bit more for a better experience all around. I’ll share when I get my bill. It’s prob going to be more than Im hoping LOL.
On the vaccine piece in case anyone isn’t aware, if you do you own vaccines and the horse has a reaction, you will not get any help from the manufacturer. As long as it is administered by a vet, they will typically cover any costs related to the vaccine. I say this as someone with a vax reactive horse If it weren’t for that, I’d be tempted to do my own too.
Rabies & dentals alone is more than $350/horse for me. Your price looks pretty good
This was our dental last month. Had I known the sheath cleaning was going to be $50, I would have done that myself.
My general practice vet offers an annual wellness plan that includes up to 6 farm calls, coggins, spring and fall shots, 2 fecals, annual dental with sedation, sheath cleaning for geldings for about $750-800. Hurts to pay when it renews but it’s nice to have routine vet visits for the rest of the year with nothing due.
This package concept is a neat way to go. It’s optional? Do those farm calls all tie to something in the package, or are you getting a few “free” for other visits?
I’d never heard that about manufactures helping with costs. I used to be the health care manager for a warmblood breeding farm that had between 80-100 head depending on time of year so we did a LOT of vaccinating esp with all the broodmares. And with that many horses, there were definitely ones that had reactions. Some were vet given some were given by us. No one ever mentioned the manufacturers
I think there was a recent thread about someone who had an extreme vaccine reaction and shared similar, Ill see if I can find it. We’ve had people get the cost back for having to administer banamine as well. Unfortunately for me, MY guy is sensitive to everything, so we just get to deal with that
It’s optional, you can elect to pay for each individual service instead. The informational material presents it as a cheaper option by several hundred dollars, but I’ve never used this particular practice for one-off treatments before to see if the numbers they charge for individual work really result in that level of savings using the package deal. The cost of the package did fall in line with what I had been paying for routine items with a previous provider.
I’ve only used this practice for a few years and have been fortunate not to need them for other things (I have a separate sports medicine vet), so I don’t know exactly how the farm call allocation works. I’d say all the items included usually end up at 4-5 farm calls due to timing of coggins, splitting spring shots into multiple visits, etc.