izziesmum wrote:
Perhaps my friend did get a good deal.

Quoted from "The Australian Equine Veterinary Association"

Surgery - most commonly needed to treat joint and respiratory disease.
Usually costs between $1500 to $2500 per surgery for individual respiratory
and joint conditions. Multiple problems will increase the expense.
Some horses need surgery to correct conditions causing abdominal pain
(colic). Uncomplicated colic surgery procedures with rapid post-operative
recovery might cost a minimum of about $5000. Complicated procedures
involving resection of bowel with prolonged recovery times and involving
extensive medical treatment can often cost in the vicinity of $10,000 or more.


Quoted from "Canberra Equine Hospital".
Despite the good news, the very bad news is that colic surgery is expensive, and the cost can prove the limiting factor in all too many cases. In most clinics in the U.S., cost of colic surgery typically exceeds $4,000 ($AUD 5,000), which makes it the second most expensive surgery after repair of long bone fracture. Although costs of surgery and anesthesia can be standardized to some extent, the cost of aftercare is less predictable and can be altered considerably by development of complications.


Yeah I was going to say, sounds like your friend got a deal! A woman I worked with has a mid teens-aged horse and he had to have colic surgery soon after she bought him (as a younger horse, maybe 4-5). It cost about $10K for him, and they have to be very cautious about his feeds because he's super prone to colic now moreso than he was before. My neighbors had to take their gelding in to have emergency colic surgery on him. She woke up to hear thrashing in the barn, and went out to find him covered head to toe in sweat, labored breathing, constant thrashing. They managed to get him into the trailer and to the clinic. Apparently, he had somehow ruptured his stomach lining, and the intestine was basically being "pulled" through. He made it through the surgery, but upon waking, he tried to stand and slipped/fell, breaking his leg, and had to be put down anyway. They said he would have had an extremely hard recovery due to the nature of the colic, not to mention, they had to remove several feet of intestine because it had died, so he was extremely prone to more severe colics in his future. He was a young horse, maybe 6 or 7 at the time. To add insult to injury, they had to pay the full surgery amount (about $12K), and their horse STILL had to be put down.It probably does depend on how complicated the surgery is, but I've always heard stories of how expensive it is. I truly hope my horses are never in the position where I have to make that decision.