can a vet nurse earn enough money to buy a horse

L

lauren123

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2007
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East Yorkshire
Can a vet nurse REALLY earn enough money to buy a horse?:D As i really want to be one as i love ALL animals but i would also like a horse of my own one day :D
 
To buy the horse, definately... to keep it, well that would depend on the circumstances eg mortgage, dependants, running a house/bills, cost of livery, what type of livery needed, ect.

I work 12hours a week and can afford to keep a horse but dont have any other bills/payments to worry about.
 
its not bying a horse, its the expensive of keeping one. could u pay a vets bill if it came in, wormers farriers insurance, all the bits you buy each month, thats where the cost is.
 
A vet nurse earns more than I do and I have a horse at livery so I don't see why not. Although its a bit of a tight budget for me!
 
I'm training to be a vet nurse and have one, so imagine once I'm there it will be easy!
Although it is quite a vague question, as others have said a lot of other scenarios need to be considered, such as mortgages, household bills, emergency funds etc.
 
hi, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but i felt compelled to write this.
i trained to be a vet nurse, qualified and stayed at it for 10 years, it was a case of weighing up cheap treatment verses long hours, for quite frankly an apitance of pay, i came to the conclusion that i would rather do a well paid job with decent holidays no nights and no weekends so i could spend the time with my own animals, also the experiences i had were too much to bear, and had a real effect on me.
I went into the job thinking that vets were all animal lovers, and that being a vet nurse would be the best job in the world, how very wrong i was ,
sorry to put a dampner on it, but i saw things in my ten years behind the scenes at numerous practices that was enough to make me never ever let my animals go behind the scenes at a vets without me ever.
Ever wondered why most pets shake and panic when you walk into a vets?
yes well there you go, i wasnt willing to be witness to the causes of that any longer, i had numerous verbal warnings and was told that i had too may opinions and to just deal with it, i refused to be part of anything that i didnt agree with, because of this i had locum vets complaining that i wouldnt assist them, i refused to be a part of animal cruelty, because of this i left and worked in a total of 4 practices before i couldnt take it any longer, as they were all the same.
i would never recommend vet nursing to anyone after the things i experienced.
Sorry if this wasnt what you wanted to hear, but i felt it was only fair to share my experiences.
 
I hope all vets arent like this, my vets is great, all the trainee nurses and qualified nurses are great, the vet gina is great too...the only one I dont like is the vet practise manager, Ive never seen him shgow affection for any of my dogs..very business like
anyway, Im going O/T
I dont know how much a VN earns, Id love to own a horse some day and was wondering how much money on average would I expect to part with, per month, inc livery, farrier, feeding...
At the moment I cant see it ever happening as my rent costs alot to start with!!
 
My friend is a veterinary nurse and she has 3 horses! She also has a husband though which is quite a lucrative commodity!! (I know mine is!:D:D) There's another girl at our yard who's a veterinary nurse and she has a horse on full livery, and has just bought herself a horse box. Not sure what her living arrangements are though - i think she still lives with her parents.
 
ok thanks for all the replys and SparkyJosie i understand what your saying but i think a vet nurse is what i should do and i hope that any of the vets i work in wouldn't be as bad as what you have said so i am still going to become a vet nurse :D
 
SparkyJosie said:
hi, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but i felt compelled to write this.
i trained to be a vet nurse, qualified and stayed at it for 10 years, it was a case of weighing up cheap treatment verses long hours, for quite frankly an apitance of pay, i came to the conclusion that i would rather do a well paid job with decent holidays no nights and no weekends so i could spend the time with my own animals, also the experiences i had were too much to bear, and had a real effect on me.
I went into the job thinking that vets were all animal lovers, and that being a vet nurse would be the best job in the world, how very wrong i was ,
sorry to put a dampner on it, but i saw things in my ten years behind the scenes at numerous practices that was enough to make me never ever let my animals go behind the scenes at a vets without me ever.
Ever wondered why most pets shake and panic when you walk into a vets?
yes well there you go, i wasnt willing to be witness to the causes of that any longer, i had numerous verbal warnings and was told that i had too may opinions and to just deal with it, i refused to be part of anything that i didnt agree with, because of this i had locum vets complaining that i wouldnt assist them, i refused to be a part of animal cruelty, because of this i left and worked in a total of 4 practices before i couldnt take it any longer, as they were all the same.
i would never recommend vet nursing to anyone after the things i experienced.
Sorry if this wasnt what you wanted to hear, but i felt it was only fair to share my experiences.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to hear you have had bad experiences, however please don't tar it all with one brush. My dog loves going to the vet, only thing he doesn't like is having his nails clipped there! I have done numerous shifts of both work experience and voluntary work, and have seen what goes on 'behind the scenes'. What I see are caring people, who get up at 5am to check on a dog they feared wouldn't make it through the night etc etc.

I had bad experience working at kennels, however I wouldn't advise people against it all because I happened to work in one of the select few that didn't satisfy my needs.
 
Hi.
I´ve just qualified as VN. I think money should not be a problem, the problem could be time. I am working 40 hours a week that means four 9-19 or 8-18 hours (including non paid 1hr lunch break) plus one half day (4 hours) rota. Sat and Sun one in five weeks. So I would say not too much time for a horse when working long days especially in the winter. But I am just looking for one and I´ll hope I´ll manage. If not it will be sold and I´ll be heartbroken but that is the only risk of that.
My colleague´s got a horse and she has managed to keep it on budget and with those working hours.
VN is great job especially when you can see sick animals getting better but sometimes it is very frustrating, stress full and sad job.

The best of luck to you.
 
SparkyJosie said:
hi, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but i felt compelled to write this.
i trained to be a vet nurse, qualified and stayed at it for 10 years, it was a case of weighing up cheap treatment verses long hours, for quite frankly an apitance of pay, i came to the conclusion that i would rather do a well paid job with decent holidays no nights and no weekends so i could spend the time with my own animals, also the experiences i had were too much to bear, and had a real effect on me.
I went into the job thinking that vets were all animal lovers, and that being a vet nurse would be the best job in the world, how very wrong i was ,
sorry to put a dampner on it, but i saw things in my ten years behind the scenes at numerous practices that was enough to make me never ever let my animals go behind the scenes at a vets without me ever.
Ever wondered why most pets shake and panic when you walk into a vets?
yes well there you go, i wasnt willing to be witness to the causes of that any longer, i had numerous verbal warnings and was told that i had too may opinions and to just deal with it, i refused to be part of anything that i didnt agree with, because of this i had locum vets complaining that i wouldnt assist them, i refused to be a part of animal cruelty, because of this i left and worked in a total of 4 practices before i couldnt take it any longer, as they were all the same.
i would never recommend vet nursing to anyone after the things i experienced.
Sorry if this wasnt what you wanted to hear, but i felt it was only fair to share my experiences.
Click to expand...

I too was a vet nurse for 12 years (still locum when I need extra cash) and have to say thats really not a true representation of the majority of vets :confused:
Im a very compassionate person and go mental at anyone that dares try and be out of order to an animal in any way.
I worked for a large London based chain of vets aswell as a few independent ones and alot of different vets over the last 16 years.
I have met some bad ones, even a couple that don't like animals but on the whole I would say 90% of the vets and nurses I have worked with have been excellent with the animals. I only ever went mad at two for being nasty/irresponsible with an animal and reported them both and they were 'sorted out'


Back to the question though, I was on a very good wage as a nurse but it wasn't enough to keep all the animals I had and my son and pay the rent and bills so I left and retrained to earn a better wage so that I could buy my own horse :)
The long hours will probably make it so that you have to have your horse on Part Livery as some days you can do a 14 hour shift! Most days are 12 hours anyway!
It really does depend on your circumstances though. If you want your own place, car and other pets and a family it will be tight. Not impossible but certainly not easy!
Im on £22500 now and have worked out I can just about afford a horse (who is coming next week!) but that means I will now be sacrificing new clothes, make up and nights out from here on in! :eek:
 
I am training to be a veterinary nurse and I have Twig.
3 of the other nurses that I work with have horses, in fact 2 of them have 2 horses!

It's possible but it can be hard. I'd never give my job up to have more money, I enjoy it far too much
 
I can sort of understand SparkyJosies response. I was training to be a vet nurse and was sent to all sorts of vets. I distinctly remember one very horrible practice which i ended up just not turning up to eventually. I asked to be moved. The nurses were bitter and horrible to work with. They were obviously fed up with their jobs and had just given up. The vets were no better. But another placement i had was at a wonderful vets where i ended up working in for a bit. Wonderful hard working nurses and vets.

It just really depends on where you work and many nurses get stuck in a rut in one practice and feel like they cant leave. The RCVN is no help what so ever if you feel like your not being treated right in a vets or if you feel like the vets/nurses arnt doing a good enough job with the animals (in my experience anyway).

Being a vet nurse has its good points and bad points. To me the bad points out weighed the good points so i left. But if its what you really want to do its a great job with a reasonable wage when you leave training.
 
any career you have has to be balanced around horse care, and its never easy.

yes you can buy a horse but the upkeep is where the money really goes, you need to organise finances very well and theres lots of other things to take into consoderation (esp as you get older!) like mortgages, bills, weekly shopping, vets bills (for other pets too!), running a car etc etcv THEN the horse upkeep on top.

then theres hours you work, as healthcare/vet jobs and a few others require long hours and nights :( (ex-nurse....i know all about it)
 
My friend is a vet nurse and found it quite hard to keep her horse with all her funny long shifts/working weekends etc. She ended up paying a fortune in livery costs, and in the end downgraded to grass livery and didnt have a lot of time for the horse.

Like others have said buying the horse is the easy part anyone can get a horse or a horse on loan, unfortunatley you dont need a credit or personality check!!
, Its the running costs that can cause all the problems. Really think seriousley if you can afford it before diving in as its the animal that will suffer.
Insuring for vets fees is very important I feel if you cannot afford a nasty bill out of the blue, this alone will set you back £20-£30+ a month.. then You will have your livery costs Grass livery £15-£30 a week... livery yards £20+ a week Part livery gets pricey if you need help with turnout etc...
Then Worming, farrier, Feed, Hay especially in winter, rugs,tack..
On top of that you may have a car to run, accomodation? plus a social life squeezed in somewhere!!:p

It does all sound very scary but as long as your sure your doing the right thing then go for it !!!
 
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