For one horse’s accident…$10k…total of 4 surgeries for mare that stepped on a nail. I had owned her all of 3 weeks.
I stopped counting at about $12k with another horse I have that has several chronic issues. He is retired and on palliative care only at this point.
My first horse I had for almost 28 years and had almost no vet expenses on him when he passed. I’ve made up for it with the others!
10 year old thread… How do these get bumped up? Interesting to think of those bills in 2019 dollars.
That said- about $7,000 for my grade mare 2 years ago- 2 impaction colics with vet visits, tubing, drugs etc., 2 hour trip each way to vet hospital in Guelph, workup with US, endoscopy and lab work (nothing much found), more lab work with finding of Lawsonia infection (really rare in adult horse), 6 weeks on antibiotics. No insurance, and of course she is not insurable now! She recovered very well tho, and I am glad I did the investigations and treatment.
$1200 for surgery on my dog to remove fibrosarcoma, gave us another 2 months only. If I had known how quickly the tumour would regrow I would not have put him through the surgery.
Zombie thread 🧟*♀ï¸
But the rock my horse stepped on at a show back in May has probably cost about $10K, much of it reimbursed by insurance.
Me? (I don’t know if I posted in the original or not, didn’t feel like reading all 5 pages)…
About $15k for 2 colic surgeries + 3 weeks of intensive care. She did go home and she did live another 13-14 years or so.
$15K for one colic surgery and one week of after care. 1996
My biggest single incident was no more than $500. Unless you count dogs, then I had one for about $3500 11 years ago.
Cumulative, with a cushings pony the last 6 or so years of his life was a lot more. I didn’t keep track, but that’s 6 years of pergolide, 2-3 episodes of choke per year requiring a vet, 2-3 colic episodes per year requiring a vet, and two stubborn infections during his last year of life. Of course on top of that was the costs for euthanasia and disposal.
My darling lab Phoebe was the most expensive vet bill - topping $6K with all her various surgeries. Single vet bill - $3500, TPL surgery for darling Phoebe.
So far it has been in the $300 range.
Why do people get so upset about old threads??
I’ve spent more money on cat vet bills than my horse. 2400 for a eye specialist to preform surgery on the cats eye. He only has one to begin with and we really love our cat! Haha!
A friend paid $50k, however it was for 2 horses. 1 leg injury, 1 liver surgery. I am including the hotel in the price. She didn’t want either horse home until they were perfect, so she stayed in a nearby hotel.
My dog broke a leg and it was $5k for the surgery, a pin slipped and needed it out for another $2k. So $7k during Christmas & New Years.
Colic surgery which ultimately failed. When all was said and done, the week cost me ~$10,000. Thank goodness for insurance.
Well it’s an old thread but…,current horse, TWO major medicals …first one, totalled $11,800 (severed extensor tendon, 2 months at the clinic, thank goodness for insurance!), 2nd claim…,ulcers, 2 years of treatments…spent in the vicinity of $15,000, I’m actually afraid to properly add it up…sigh…,my insurance said I can have one more claim with this horse! (EACH time they reimbursed me $10,000 thank goodness) I never thought he’d make it to 8years, he’s now 10! I’m shocked LOL
I’ve had two issues north of $15,000k all in, although insurance covered some of both. One was a proximal hind suspensory with avulsion. The other was pyloric ulcers. My third place award goes to a princess of a horse who had absolutely zero tolerance for pain. Constant exams, diagnostics, bloodwork, saddle fitting etc. to figure out what minor injustice was ruining his life.
The entire cost, from start to finish, when my horse had a hind suspensory surgery back in 2010, was about $10K, of which insurance paid $6.5K. (This started with a Lyme Dx several months before the surgery because she was “lame all over.” When she felt better, she was still lame on the LH. And then post-surgery, she had a lot of joint issues pop up, hence $$$ injections. It all turned out fine, though.)
Current horse: 2 years ago - 8K for (successful) colic surgery (nephrosplenic entrapment/impaction, no resection) and a week at the hospital. He’s recovered fully.
Previous horse: Lord only knows, but I had him for 27.5 years, and expenses were spread out over that time period. No single large expense like with the current critter. A few hundred here, a few hundred there…
My biggest bill has been $465.
It was eons ago (early 90’s?) and for spaying my mare. General anesthesia and 3 days in the hospital. I questioned the bill…even back then, the anesthesia alone should have been that much??. I asked them twice, they assured me that was the total so I paid the bill, hurried out and loaded my horse and took her home:winkgrin:. The vet had developed his own spay procedure as he didn’t like the common procedure done at the time. Maybe he cut me a break as he had only done a couple on some “practice” horses but nobody ever stated that. Horse recovered quite well and went back to competing by summer (spay was late winter).
Susan
Good lord. I’m really appreciating my local equine hospital.
My biggest bill in one event clocks in at right around $4500 - like many others, colic surgery.
They pre-charged me for 5K before getting him on the table. I ended up getting $500 back… So the pre-op attempts (tubing, ace), surgery (sorting through something like 90% of his intestine that had been displaced through a hernia) plus the post-op care… when we ended up having him euthanized (about 12h after surgery completed due to medical complications) the clinic asked if I wanted to make arrangements for the body or if I wanted them to - so that fee was also included. And I still ended up getting $500 back from my original 5K…
Really appreciate them. Good people, good vets, and apparently, really reasonable pricing.
Largest single bill was surgery to remove a sinus cavity cyst from my gelding. $3,600, I believe, not counting the previous vet bills and time we had him on SMZs thinking he just had an infection. When he was recovering from surgery, he broke his knee and is now a permanently lame drag on my horse budget. I should add that the cyst was diagnosed while he was hospitalized getting tubed for colic 12 hours before we were set to leave on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Peru.
Close runner up was $3K this year for removing an OCD from coffin joint, with $600 more for follow-up PRP treatment.
My other mare - I haven’t added it up, but almost a year ago she fractured her coffin bone, and then pulled her DDFT in June during rehab. This has been a slow creep on the bills between extra meds, supplements, shoeing to cast the fracture, followup ultrasounds and radiographs, bodywork etc. Might be getting close to $5K?
And then last year I spent about $5K on my previous mare for diagnostics due to pain behaviors, bodywork and extensive ulcer treatments.
I can only hope 2020 will be my year of only routine vet bills.
Colic surgery with 2 week stay: $18,000. Thank you insurance.
Not included in that figure: The rehab barn and the post op vet visits afterwards for 3 months.
It would be interesting to know if the owners of these large Vet bills boarded their horses, or kept them at home.
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