Barn owners - What kind of business do you run?

[luckycricket123]

What kind of businesses are barn owners running? Breeding? Lesson barns? Boarding? Training and sales? A combination of these?

What are the pros and cons of each? Looking for what the common problems people run into for each, which seem to be the biggest money sucks and which are the most profitable.

More importantly, which personality traits or skills are most beneficial for each? I’m trying to explore the possibility of running a barn business. I have some ideas of what I think would be best for me based on my skills, but I am limited in the types of barn businesses I have personally experienced working on.

[clanter]

our “barn” was incorporated as C Corp. at first as boarding barn for my company’s horses used in advertising. Later the barn started a beginner/introduction lesson program for horse crazy city kids.

We wrote a detailed business plan of what we wanted to accomplish before starting the operation, had our attorney and CPA review and set up the corporation. We chose C Corp in order to provide certain benefits to the employees (primarily educational scholarships)

[Redlei44]

For most horse business owners, the high overhead costs of horsekeeping (land prices/mortgage payments, hay, insurance, etc) as well as the cost of salaries for (and difficulty retaining) good staff are the biggest challenges. The higher COL area you’re in, the bigger your potential pool of customers, but also the higher the overhead expenses. A business plan and market research are absolutely critical, unless you’re independently wealthy and don’t mind making a small fortune in horses by starting with a large one. Most small businesses fail, period - and horse businesses are no different.

You should absolutely focus on areas you are already skilled and interested in. I can’t imagine being interested in and having experience in riding instruction (for example) but trying to pursue full-time breeding. That’s a whole different expertise. If you are absolutely top of the heap (like, National and international level champion level), you can get away with a lot more. The rest of us mere mortals must be solid business people, solid horsekeepers, and at least decent with people.

The trainer I currently ride with offers boarding, training, and riding instruction. She needs all of them to keep a solid business income going (though boarding verges on a loss leader most months from what I can tell).

[Scribbler]

I too think that your current skills and experience and financial resources will have to determine what business you start.

Remember that it’s a business. You need to sell your services or products to customers at a price that allows you to pay expenses and pay yourself a salary.

You can’t run a training and lesson program at a level above your own competence.

As far as breeding, if you want to produce horses that will recoup your costs and provide profit, you need to have a very good eye, deep commitment and experience in a specific breed world, and excellent brood mares. Otherwise you will end up with mediocre stock that sells at a loss, or never sells.

Usually lessons and training can go together, but successful breeding programs tend to be separate. You need big pastures for healthy babies. Often that means locating in the boondocks where there are no lesson clients.

[Luseride]

I do lessons, board a couple, occasionally do a tune up and sell one or two at the most in a year. I am also a school teacher so the teaching part is easy.

The difficult part of lessons is weather. I have only given one lesson this week and that will be all I get in. Gave a lesson Monday after school. Rain Tuesday and Wednesday, today I have a school related activity. Friday and Saturday we are hosting a dairy heifer show, I am a FFA Advisor, and Sunday my grandson wants to go to the acquarium for his birthday which is today.

Now that is a perfect storm of events of course but if I had not put back money in the summer and fall I would be hurting now.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I live in an area which was once very horsey, but the cost of living is astronomically high. There are many barns, but many are struggling.

Most of the successful barns tend to be show barns that have an established reputation. Getting along with people, particularly non-horsey people (parents and more hands-off owners) is useful. Unless you’re very talented and very winning, people are less accepting of the trainer-as-drill sergeant model nowadays (and a good thing, too). It seems harder and harder for people to survive who do the typical lesson barn model with school horses. Most barns in my area now seem to have one or two horses for a first-time beginner lesson and then have people part-leasing or leasing in a program (or people who own their own horses).

Truthfully, when barns begin to fail, the barn begins to skimp on costs (shavings, hay, pasture care, arena care), and then more people begin to leave, and things can further spiral downward. So not beginning any horse business on a shoestring for ethical reasons (for the horses) is a biggie.

I also know people who just have barns with their own personal horses, rent out a few stalls, have a small outdoor, and live near one of the areas where it’s still possible to hack out. But horses aren’t their main source of income, they’re people with other jobs who rent stalls to supplement their horsey habit.

I know a few lesson/riding barns with small breeding programs, but I honestly (feel free to chime in, others) don’t know how they profit by them, unless the owner has a very established reputation is a trainer and can put miles on the few young horses homebred at shows.

There are also a couple of barns that I still can’t believe are in business, but seem to attract cliques of kids who don’t want to leave the barn, because their friends ride there, and other barns that have very nice facilities and high-quality care, but have empty stalls because the main owner or trainer is such a PIA to deal with.

I think knowing your area, target market (like any business), your biggest costs, sunk costs, and your strengths and weaknesses, like any prospective business can be useful. Do the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats analysis) if that helps!

[IronwoodFarm]

Don’t even think about a horse business unless you have a significant income stream outside the horse business. Both Mr. IF and I had full time jobs that paid well. We ran a breeding farm with a small weekend lesson business and a few boarders. It was a breakeven proposition at best, although the value of the property has appreciated dramatically over the last 22 years. Bottom line is that there was no way the horse business could ever have paid a living wage.

We continue breeding which keeps the property in ag use, but we’re building a B&B as well as a meeting facility, then will renovate our farm house for the B&B side as well. There will be some horse orientation obviously…we have an unusual breed and can do some breed centric programs. We also are in the middle of hunt country so could be a place for out of state hunters to stay for a weekend of capping. There are definitely horse centric things to do, but we expect more business from people who want to get away to the country.

I strongly suggest you look into agritourism and what options it offers. There definitely are agritourist activities that work with horses. We are lucky that our state strongly supports it.

[TheJenners]

@IronwoodFarm

Don’t even think about a horse business unless you have a significant income stream outside the horse business

Best advice ever.