Vets fees - how much have you spent??

I just totted up all my credit/debit card charges at the vets for the past year (since Zeus first got his eye problem in December 2003).

I have spent close on £600 pounds this year and I only have two rabbits!! :shock: :?

Admittedly one of the guinea pigs getting ill was £50 of it and they were spayed/neutered respectively, which was £150 of it (especially since Zeus worried the wound and gave himself a little abscess).

Then there was Zeus' two bouts of stasis, then his eye problem flared up again, then because of that he got stressed = mites.

Athena has been relatively indestructible through all of this and only cost me her spay and a bit of antibiotic after the spay as a preventative.

So my question is how much have you spent??

Obviously those of you that run rescues are probably laughing at my rather paltry bill but I am running at £275/rabbit. Is this above average?

If you guys have the time to work out your average vets bill/rabbit it would be interesting to compare. Your vets may be able to supply your account details (such as number of rabbits seen and total spent).

Caz

I don't want to think about it! Probably not that much per rabbit, but we have 6...

Andi said:

I don't want to think about it! Probably not that much per rabbit, but we have 6...

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For actual treatments, probably not much. But we've spayed/neutered them all except Sheffield who was already neutered, and then they're all vaccinated. Sheffield made up for the cost of a neutering by having mites, internal parasites and a snotty eye. Monopoly hurt her leg once. They're all insured, but it doesn't cover the cost of all those injections and operations.

In January this year I got a chinchilla, who unfortunately got ill, and by March I had spent £600 on him, and he still didnt survive.

Luckily I had him insured, and the insurance company I used were brilliant and apart from the excess they paid the remainder.

Apart from the trauma of him being ill, and worrying constantly about him, it was a relief to know that the vet bills were being paid.

Needless to say when I first got Misty my rabbit I immediately took out insurance.

Carole

I have given up adding up because I would faint if I knew the real figure. Just an example: I had Magic vaccinated last week, cost me £17 and it felt like it was pennies compared to what the bill normally comes to... :? And if I add the insurance cost for seven bunnies (and the two dogs) then it is definitely extremely scary...

Up to now on Jaspers current lot of treatment we are up to £165.00

But on our other bunny Dusty we spent nearly £800.00 unfortunately to no avail as we had to have him put to sleep on 1st of June

I sometimes think we are not meant to have a healthy pet......Jinxed or what :?

I got my 2 rabbits in April,

And so far they have cost me £280.....for their operations and jabs :shock:

jewels x

I am glad to see I am not the only one out there left a little short by my pets!!

I should have got Zeus insured when I first got him but we hesitated - then his eye started playing up and of course if we tried to insure him now they won't cover any existing problems - the best line is "even if on a different part of the animal". I often wondered if this meant that they wouldn't cover if Zeus' other eye got bad - so I never bothered.

I just did some rough calculations:

£9/month insurance for a year = £108 x 2 rabbits = £216

They don't cover neuters/spays (£150)/vaccinations (£60)/mites (£100 - 3x injections + initial consultation fee) and the excess is £50 for every claim (one for eye, one for complications arising from neutering, two for stasis)


So of the £550 spent I wouldn't have been covered for £510. That leaves only £40 refunded which is cheaper than the £216 I could have spent on insurance - it wouldn't have been worth it even if we had done it as soon as we got them.

I guess insurance is only cost effective if they have one major illness or accident that leaves a huge single bill. His eye is ongoing so would be the only illness he has suffered worth claiming for if we had insurance. However once the Baytril course has finished it should only need antibiotic eye drops regularly and £5/month isn't that much to complain about!

Caz

In september I spent over £200 on three baby lops which came down with Coccidiosis :shock:

And they are still not right- small, weak, underweight, prone to gas attacks

All in all this year I have spent around £380 on four buns and a G.Pig

I think we have spent about a £100.00 on the Cats and the Rabbits this year.

Mainly vaccines and flea treatment.

Louise

I have 6 buns at the moment and I worked out the cost of insurance which is very expensive as I'm in London and decided to put an amout away each week in a savings account instead.

It must be in the £1000+ including vaccination, regular teeth treatment,which would not be covered by any insurance, neutering etc. I was having to pay £140 for one rabbit to have his teeth trimmed and because it was being done every 4 weeks the bill came down to £42 after I pleaded poverty at the vets!

Billy who was just done and had his testicals still up in his tummy cost me £110 which was a lot more than they had quoted when they thought he was a female!!! by 50%

I look at it as my hobby as they are all rescue rabbits and they give me a great deal of pleasure evan on those cold winter morning cleaning them out.


Maureen

Let me just add up this years vet fees for the fun of it (from memory I might add):

Vaccinations 7 bunnies: ca. £200
Vaccinations 2 dogs: ca. £80
Neutering 1 Angel (rabbit): ca. £50 (I think)
Anorexic hamster: ca. £80
Pippa (rabbit) lost weight: ca. £100
Dogs' dental x 2: ca. £200
Apollo's (rabbit) dentals: ca. £300
Stitches, twice, after my dog was attacked: £440

I think this could be about it. A grand total of about £1450 - I knew I shouldn't have added this up... :? ... Insurance paid about £330 (Pippa weight loss, 1 of Apollo's dentals and stitches in my dog - all minus excess of course). Plus of course the insurance fees which come to about £1200 a year for 2 dogs and 7 bunnies... So that makes it £2320 this year so far... and there is still 5 weeks to go where anything could happen.

So that's where all my money keeps disappearing... :? :wink:

Pet insurance is a gamble really like any insurance, but in my case with my chinchilla I took it out fortunately as a chinchilla to me was a bit of an unknown, and in hindsight it was a good idea.

There are others that pay insurance for years and never have to make a claim, but I understand, and know people, who keep lots of small pets, and it would not be financially viable to take out insurance for them all, so they put money into a savings bank in the event of any illness.

For myself, I prefer to have insurance, which I can do because I only have one chinchilla and one rabbit for the moment. It just gives me peace of mind.

Having said that had my bunny for one month - one large hutch £100, one run £65, insurance £6.50/month, vaccinations £43 and spaying after xmas £55. so totting up already.

All worthwhile though for all the joy Misty brings to me.

Carole

Having just made my calculation, I am seriously thinking about cancelling the insurances for my bunnies and put the money aside then. This would give me about £1000 a year for treatment, I think that should be enough! And looking at what I spent the money on, most is not covered by the insurance anyway.

What is the most that you have ever paid out on any single illness for your bunny? In my case it was about £600, but that was over a period of 12 months, so it was affordable. Would you, looking at my figures, still pay insurance or put money aside instead?

Vera

My most expensive bill to date was for my first rabbit Fudge - after being treated for a suspected chest infection (due to restricted breathing) for a month by my then local vets (c £75) they referred me to the specialist I now use all the time.

By the time they referred me - he could barely breath.

The vets’ bill came to nearly £400 for that one visit - x-rays, injections (antibiotic and a decongestant), anaesthesia and that "final" injection when they discovered it was an abscess as the base of his nasopharynx that was inoperable/untreatable.

That was one of the worst days ever, I lost my 15-week-old rabbit I had only had for 7 weeks but absolutely adored and I was nearly broke at the end of it too!

Didn't stop my husband ringing a specialist breeder to find a replacement the next day though (Fudge was his present to me for finishing my degree). He was just as devastated we lost him - he couldn't be in the room when Fudge was pts but he decided the best way to help us get over our loss was to find another bunny to distract us.

For Zeus his eye has been the most expensive if you include the fact his initial treatment course for the eye gave him stasis roughly £250-300 I would estimate over this year.

Including the amount it cost to buy Zeus and all the food/bedding we still wouldn't part with him for the world. I am just kinda glad though that Athena seems to be pretty strong - apart from molar spurs when we got her (not enough fibre in her diet previously) she has been a rock for Zeus
and they are totally devoted.

I am going to start a savings account for the animals now that I have a better paid job and have some spare money!!

Caz

Thought for the day: Money can't buy happiness unless, happiness is a healthy rabbit!!

I've had Blueberry 5 months, vets fee's so far approx £110 inc spay and vacs.
She is insured but am wondering if it would be better to save so much every month myself. I suppose it's peace of mind if I was faced with a huge bill. I guess it is less cost effective the more bunnies you have.

So far this year - actually since April I have spent £70 on rabbits which includes two vaccinations, one dental and one show ring removed) This was actually a discounted rate with me only paying for the medicines and the anaesthetic etc.

The dog has cost me £150 as she has ocd in her shoulder - again this was discounted. This was on top of the £300 her shoulder cost last year.

Personally having worked with pet claims I don't think insurance is worthwhile as more and more companies only pay out for a year on ongoing conditions and they put up their excesses every year. There are also more and more exclusions.

What a lot of people have started doung is putting away so much in a bank account opened in their pets name.

lol Pam

Can I just say that if I had a dog I would definately have insurance for the liability cover.

I don't see why the insurance for a rabbit is as much as a cats, they normally have freedom to go out and about and are more likely to be hit by a car etc.

One of the main problems with rabbits are teeth and the good covers nomally don't cover them (Petplan)

I think we get a bad deal from insurance companies re Rabbits and lets face it I would move heaven and earth to find the money if necessary. I also try and knock the price down as I've been a customer of my vets for 20 years+

Always try and get the price down it normally works

Maureen

Ps As I've said before mine as a BMW X5 - you don't see many poor vets in London

LurcherGirl said:

What is the most that you have ever paid out on any single illness for your bunny? In my case it was about £600, but that was over a period of 12 months, so it was affordable. Would you, looking at my figures, still pay insurance or put money aside instead?Vera

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Hi Vera - Robbie had an inflamed colon, and severe statis back in August this year - he was in hospital for two weeks altogether, and we were back and forward to Edinburgh over about six weeks. Total cost of this illness for us was £1350, and Rob was not insured :roll:

However, I did ask the vet to do every test / scan that was available to them, and took him back for two additional ultrasounds just to make sure everything was back to normal, so I guess I maybe added to the cost. :? However, he is much better now, so well worth every penny. My vet calls Rob her 'gold plated' bunny.

He also had two statis episodes earlier in the year, about six out of hours emergency appointments that I can remember, usual vaccinations etc (even nail clipping as I'm too much of a wimp to do it myself).

As for insurance, I hadn't thought about this with Rob - I had two bunnies previous to him who were incredibly healthy, so I didn't think it was worthwhile :? . I am now considering insurance for Molly though, but on initial quotes, I'm wondering if I might be better just putting money away every month as it's quite a high excess. No one will insure Rob now (well maybe his ears - think there the only things that wouldn't be excluded :wink: )

I don't even want to think about it - it will make me ill :roll: I just look at it as it needs doing so it gets done It's only money after all :shock: :lol: :lol:
Will be spending more of that money next Thursday - the vet is coming out to do all the VHD vaccinations :roll: The Hairy Mob are going to really enjoy that :shock: :?