The Cost of Bandaging

Since we were just talking about the cost of keeping horses, I thought I'd figure out exactly how much each of Speedy's bandages is costing me.

Just how much are those puppies?

I'll go from the inside out. I start with a Hydrophilic Foam Pad. Those bad boys are not cheap. Each one runs approximately $3.30, and I use one per leg.

I soak each pad in saline solution which was $4.00 a bottle. Each pad uses a quarter of the bottle so that puts the cost of the saline solution at $1.00 per soaked pad.

The next piece of the bandaging system is the cotton web roll. The rolls that I am using aren't your typical cotton ball type roll. These things have a waffle-like texture that gives them a lot of loft and stability. They'd better be fabulous because I am paying approximately $3.16 per roll, and I use an entire roll for each leg.

The Cadillac of cotton rolls.

The final layer is vet wrap or co-flex or whatever I found cheapest. Since I bought mine from the Riding Warehouse with a hefty discount, each roll was $1.56.

You can never have too many rolls of vet wrap.

So what do we have?

• Hydrophilic Foam pads - $3.30 each
• Saline Solution - $1.00 per pad
• Cotton Web Roll - $3.16 each
• Vet Wrap/Co-Flex - $1.56 per roll

That makes a total of $9.02 per leg. I do two legs at a time which bumps the cost to $18.04. I've wrapped every other day since February 9th for a total of 12 days of wrapping (so far). That brings my current cost of bandaging material to $216.48. That doesn't include the several weeks of wrapping for abscesses, nor the next two or three weeks of continued wrapping. Wow. I think I was happier not knowing.

But seriously, $9.00 leg? I have to find a cheaper hobby.