I own horses and a mule. I also pack into the backcountry all Summer long just because I'm retired and like to camp and pack. Nothing beats riding down the mountain trails with my boys in a pack string. Here are my personal opinions.
A horse needs to eat about 1.5-2% of it's body weight in forage daily. Most think the max. a horse should be packing is 15-20% of their weight. I'd go on the light side of this. It's harder for a horse to pack a load, than to carry the equivalent weight in a rider.
I used to picket horses on a 50' rope, and was forever untangling them, as there are very few good meadows that don't have shrubs, trees, logs, etc. to tangle on. Some horses have a knack for keeping their feet free, and some are always getting a foot wrapped up, and this ain't good! Then, you'll have to highline them at night, and they hate that. They'll paw the ground all night and you can listen to it! As for hobbling, they hate it and so do I. A friend hobbled his string, and the next morning when he planned to hunt, he instead went looking for his animals. He tracked them 6 miles down the mountain, and found them waiting at the horse trailer!
I opt for my portable electric fence. I've never had them challenge that hot wire. It's also compact, and simple to put up. What I've found though is if you put 3 animals in a 50 x 100 corral with great grass, they will eat down, stomp down, roll, and crap so much the meadow grass deteriorates very fast. You'd have to move the corral twice daily. That means, you need a lot of meadow for a backcountry camp, and the time has to be taken to water them, and move the corral. I don't pack in supplemental protein pellets most of the time, as they get plenty of that the rest of the year. I also save corral areas near my tent for nighttime, so if there's any 3am drama, I'll wake up for it. In summary, your camp will be dictated by the meadow size, abundance of grass, and location of water. Plan on time taken to care for the animals.
I've also found that you just can't throw a strange pack animal into your own horses. Being herd animals, the herd leader will challenge the newcomer in establishing dominance, and you don't want this kind of drama in camp. Somebody's going to go beserk and run. I don't even know any stock owners that would rent horses to a non horse hunter. If you don't know about horses, what are you going to do about a horse starting to lose a show on a trail? Just allow it to destroy the hoof? There are far too many things that you need to know about to take care of them. A horse knows in about 10 seconds of contact whose going to be the boss, in order to respect you. Are you up for that?
My advice is to seek out a really good Drop Camp. Just make sure it's in a decent game area, as some aren't. Then, you have the best of both worlds. A pack in, and your Elk and gear packed out. When the dust has settled, it will be easier and not much more in expense. Just my opinions here!
