Hello! I’m considering a move from Arizona to Houston Tx to be closer to family. I would like to bring my 18 yr old Missouri Fox Trotter with me. I’ve been looking for boarding facilities online, but they seem REALLY pricey. I currently board at a private residence with minimal pasture access ( pretty standard for Arizona). I really want my mare to have more pasture time. I don’t want to pay a fortune because the facility can offer a state of the art arena, but I do want somewhere with high safety standards. Any suggestions? What can I expect to pay? Are private residences an option?
You will be in for a nice surprise. Pasture board is quite common here. It would help to know what part of Houston you are looking at boarding in. You can get much more affordable options outside of the city. I board 3 for less than 400.
I won’t know my location until I start applying for jobs. I’m just trying to get an idea of what’s out there. How far out are you talking? I like to visit my mare daily and a long commute out of the city really would make that difficult.
Well I live in suburb 20 miles west of Houston. I see mine almost daily. I commute into Houston to work. A lot of private homes offer boarding. You will have endless options.
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I won’t know my location until I start applying for jobs. I’m just trying to get an idea of what’s out there. How far out are you talking? I like to visit my mare daily and a long commute out of the city really would make that difficult.[/QUOTE]
Long commutes are the rule, not the exception, in Houston. The city sprawls, and traffic is traffic.
I live about 5 minutes from my barn, but my commute to work is an hour. Scratch that… with construction on 290 and school being back in session, it’s 1.5 now.
Until you know your location–and have an idea of how much of a commute you are willing to do, either in to work or out to the barn–it’s going to be hard for people to recommend specific barns.
But in NW Houston, I’ve paid from $300 (partial board, stalls with runs and small dry lots) to $650 (full board, my horse is turned out in one of the 5 acre fields). Most of the places I have boarded or looked at were $600+, with more facilities than it sounds like you want, but turnout has usually been 1 acre+.
There’s more turnout for less price further out.
The smaller/private places tend not to advertise online; people know about them more from word of mouth. So don’t worry if you’re not seeing a lot of variety/options online–they are here, definitely. And once you have an idea of where you will be living and working and how far you are willing to drive, if you post again, people will probably be able to come up with specific suggestions for you.
^^^agree 100%. The best thing to do is figure out where you are living and working. Then look for a barn that has the amenities you want. My barn doesn’t advertise. Word of mouth is pretty common here. Your best bet would be calling a feed store near your location and asking if they know people who do boarding. You are often much better looking a bit farther from the city, but don’t worry about the distance. Distance means nothing. It may take less time to go from your job to a barn 30 miles from work outside of the city than it would take to fight traffic and go to a barn 15 miles away in the city. Also saying you plan to work in Houston doesn’t mean you will end up IN Houston. You can be working in Conroe (North) or Baytown (Southeast) and companies still consider it their Houston location. Cost of living goes way down too if you stay outside of the city for the most part.
I will be working near the Natural Science Museum, but know I can’t afford to live in that area so I’m going to spread out from there I guess. I think I’m going to have to leave my horse behind until I can find a boarding place.
The museum district is just south of downtown. Likely, then, you will want to live south of the city and board in that area. Alvin is in that area and can be way less expensive than anything inside the city or in the west or northwest parts of the county. Wait til you know for sure where you will work and then get back to us to help you decide where to live and where to board. There are many of us who can help you with that.
