This week’s excerpt on stall bedding will be more relevant for those horse owners who house their horses on their own property. Bedding is a necessity if you bring your horse into a stall, and there are a surprising amount of product choices, but which is the most economical? This primarily depends on what’s available where you live....

Moving on to the next chapter of our Thrifty Horsekeeping project: Housing. Over the next four weeks I'll be discussing ways to save on board, how to cut costs around the barn, and economical choices for barn essentials such as stall bedding. This first segment will cover boarding costs. Ultimately, keeping and caring for your horse on your own property is the most cost-efficient way to house a horse, but for many of us, myself included, it's just not an option....

Equine supplementation is a hot topic: Are supplements necessary? Effective? Over-used? Dangerous? Expensive? Supplements have become a major part of equine nutrition, and there are countless types of horses out there that benefit from and need them – high-performance athletes, horses with certain health problems, horses without access to high-quality forage, etc. – but over-supplementation is becoming a common and costly problem. ...

Now that we’ve discussed the value of quality forage for your horse’s diet, let’s talk about grain. If you’re going to try to save money on your horse’s feed you may need to ask yourself if your horse even requires grain. You may be feeding (or over-feeding) him something he doesn’t even need....