I have a question for barn owners and managers:
What is the going rate for barn help?
Mucking stalls, feeding, turn-out, etc. Do you pay by the hour or the job? Also how much do you take off of board if someone is working off their board?
I’m hesitant to pay by the hour but want other’s opinion.
Thanks in advance.
How big is the barn? How much knowledge do you expect them to have? As far as board, I would calculate a per task pay. Ie feeding is this amount, stalls this amount etc
When I was working to work off board it was by task per horse. Every stall was worth $1.50 and every horse turned out/brought in, watered for wherever they were, and feed was worth $1. Blankets didn’t count as extra where I was but it was a very small barn. 20 horses top. Normally stalls were split between two different people a day and a different person fed in morning or evening. Everyone working was working off board. If I remember right less than half the horses there had non working owners.
We always pay by the hour. We have the potential worker come in for a 1-2 hour working interview so we can get a sense for their experience. We start them off on the low side if they seem slow and inexperienced, we start on the higher side if they seem to know their way around the barn.
As for board credit for work done, I couldn’t imagine paying anything less than the market rate.
In our area, you might find a HS WS for $10 an hour. Grooms that know their job are going to get $15 an hour or more.
An earlier poster mentioned she was paid $1.50 per stall. Now I’m not the fastest mucker, but cleaning out 12 hours of manure, urine and spent hay, adding bedding as needed, etc. takes 15 minutes easy, depending on where the shavings and manure spreader are stored. At that rate, the worker is making $6.00 an hour. Maybe it is good deal for the BO, but not the worker bee.
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We pay $15/hr and round up, and make that the standard daily rate.
So cleaning 4-6 stalls, feeding 9 horses, and turnout/in for 4, sometimes 6, horses takes 90 mins most of the time. We pay $30 for the day, with the understanding that sometimes (bad weather when they’re in) it may take the full 2 hours or more than that. We also pay $15/hr for farm chores (such as fencing repair or painting jumps) or helping at shows/clinics.
I think you’ll have trouble keeping employees at $10/hr, especially if it’s a drive to get out to the farm. For $15/hr, I expect them to notice missing shoes, injuries, etc.
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BO always paid whatever minimum wage currently is. For those working off board, it was paid by the job and that was calculated based on how long she thought a job should take. Example hourly rate / X # of stalls cleaned = credited amount. She had it down to the nitpicky too… You got extra for stalls you had to bed, blankets on/off, turn in/out, etc. Even feeding - if all you did was dump grain, vs. prepping the feed vs. throwing hay vs. doing it all…
Pay was minimal but was fair.
My trainer is currently looking for a barn manager, includes minimal stall cleaning, mostly feeding, turnout, blanket changes, etc. with pay starting at $10 for 30-40hrs/week.
We pay by the hour-ish. We pay $16-$20 per hour for legal employees (in a very expensive area of the country) and each shift is X (2-8) hours. If they’re a little over or under, I’ll pay them the same amount. If they’re routinely running over, then it’s a management issue on my end. If they’re routinely running way under, they’re probably doing a sub-par job and it’s a management issue on my end.
We pay more/hour for the shorter shifts than all day shifts. Here, everyone wants full time, so we pay a premium for our short shifts.
Our work exchange for board is at the top of the pay scale since they don’t have the option to be paid out.
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Our barn was charging $5 to clean a stall, $1 to clean the stall waterer, extra if you had a water bucket, and I think turnout and bring in was $2.00 even. Shavings were kept to a minimum so stall cleaning was rather quick.
We pay $30 for the first hour of work, and $10 per hour after that.
Feeding often only takes an hour, and most of our feeders live a good drive away. We WANT them to come to work for just an hour, so we have to make it worth their while. Paying them $10 for that first hour would barely cover their fuel to get here and back.
Our feeders pretty much just feed. Maybe bring in or turn out occasionally, but stalls are always pre-set with hay and water so all they have to do is bring in. Never any stall cleaning. Never any medicating.
For my small private/personal barn, I was paying an 18 yr. old girl $10/hour. Usually an hour per day. She would muck paddock, clean stalls, refill hay, drop hay from loft while I was at work. I asked her what she wanted to be paid before starting and she and her dad thought $10 was fair. I had her come for a weekend and upped it to $15/hour for that time.
Now, she dropped me without notice. When asked if she was no longer coming her response was “I can still come on days I don’t work”…mmmk thanks. Hasn’t been back since.
In her defense, I think it’s tough finding someone for the type of “work” I’m looking for. No one wants to work just 1 hour per day smack dab in the middle of the afternoon. However, common courtesy would have been nice, eh? So back to the drawing board for me.
I pay $40 cash per day for 1-1/2 hours a day. 4 stalls, muck, sweep, dump buckets, decobweb. No horse handling/feeding. Can’t find anybody that wants to do it. I’m not willing to trade board for work and I don’t have any rideable horses, so I’m just not sexy enough to attract workers.
My chances are getting slimmer…
If you only have an hour or two a day of work, you either have to pay a significant hourly rate, expect to have to replace someone every other week, or just do it yourself. You can find good help, but you must pay a premium for those limited hours. Or, again, do it yourself.
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Most barns around here pay minimum wage ($14/hr, going up to $15/hr Jan 1, 2019). Valuable employees will either get more or they’ll get perks like free board, an apartment, etc.
Anyone coming for just a couple hours is going to get paid more to make it worth their time or they’ll get a free lesson every time they come, or a set amount deducted from their board.
I’m not sure how you would accurately keep track of stalls mucked and horses turned in/out, etc. That seems like it would just lead to arguing over $5.
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