So this is a thing I was thinking about this morning when I was trying to sleep: why do we feed retirees? 

When they're between 2/3 and the day before they turn 16/21, they need fed for training and breeding. But not before or after. 

Personally, I don't feed my animals until the day they hit 2/3. I don't vet, farrier/groom them until that day either. As for my oldies, pretty much all of them are unfed, mainly because my feed all ability expired the last time my upgrade did, and I didn't buy again.

The only reason I can think of that a horse/dog would need fed post-retirement is if a player wishes to do a retirement breeding. 

I know food can be bought in bulk, so it's not exactly a waste of money buying it. And it's a needed way for money to be taken from the economy. 

Another thing that came to mind is "Why do we have stalls for horses but only crates for dogs? Wouldn't dogs have kennels/runs?" lol

With the feed, it's exactly as you said, because if you ever want to retirement breed or resurrect them you'll need to feed and HP needs money sinks to control the economy. In real life you'd have to feed a horse or dog as long as it was alive, even if it was retired from working :P. Which is essentially what is happening when you don't actually "retire" the animals. But you don't have to feed them if you don't want to, they won't die or get deleted if they don't get fed.

With crates, I don't know, haha. That's just what I landed on when I originally designed HP, and now it would be more work than it was worth to change it, haha.

I know their just pixels but I would feel bad if I didnt feed them I always hated to see red by any of my animals in all the horse games I played,  but thats just me :)

I just hate seeing the red on the page/my stable. Makes me feel more organized to know that it's done and taken care of, in the off chance that I do want to use the retired ones someday.

Honestly, I don't feed my retirees hah. I can scroll to the bottom of the page and just feed my current animals if it's an account without the mass feeder, and the mass feeder doesn't automatically fill in if the animal is now on a different account. :P

I feed my old ones, but I have a mass feeder on that account so it works. I've done quite a few retirement breedings and a couple resurrections so it helps that I didn't have to check if they were fed. But that's just me, I put like 4k on each new retired animal

I feed my Oldies because I hate the red -days etc. xD