Time to Reconsider the Horse?

[IndyIan]

I have a retired neighbor with 3 working horses, he has a couple different wagons for different uses and goes into town and back on errands everyday or just out for a ride.
He also did a month long trip with them across Ontario recently, he stayed for free with other horse people and probably got free feed at most of them too! Free gas and lodging... When does that happen on a car trip?

The economics of horse transport aren't all that bad, your feed costs are fixed for the year, about $1200/horse plus shoeing is maybe $200/horse, and maybe an average of one vet visit per year for $150. You need a shelter at about $200/year/horse and some land, so maybe $300 extra in property tax.

That totals $2050 per horse for a year. Anyone figure that car ownership is cheaper than that? Plus they can reproduce themselves.

There are also horse loggers that can stay in business, with a skidder tire costing more than a horse team, never mind fuel costs or the payments on a $100-200,000 machine, there are some situations where horses come out ahead.

I know horses seem ridiculous from an urban point of view, but to some, a modern urban city seems ridiculous...
Ian

[gascort]

I like the human powered vehicles, and horses for heavier loads. Most of us can ride a bike to work faster than a horse could get us there (assuming paved streets) and hardly anyone packs very heavily for one day at work. Leave the briefcase there and just bring the essentials home and back...
I wish I lived a bit closer to where I work. When I lived in a college town, everything was within 5 miles. I didn't have a working car for over 6 months, but it didn't matter except when I wanted to visit my family at home.
Half the time, the bike was faster anyway - no parking garages, meters, plus I could ride right up to the door of where I was headed.

[AnDoireman]

Horses produce a lot of Carbon Dioxide though. :P Prices are already more than the equivelent of $10usd per gallon here.

[jamesqf]

No, they don't, unless you're feeding them on oil or coal :-)

And before you come back with "but they exhale CO2", they're just recycling existing CO2 - remember the carbon cycle that you should have learned about in high school biology class? The problem with fossil fuels is that they dig up long-buried carbon and add that to the atmosphere...