Could someone tell me what they charge (if) they were to rent out a dry stall? (boarder provides all hay, feed, shavings, feedings, turnout, everything except the actual stall)
This is someone with several horse that would provide an employee to care for their horses as well as provide all of the above mentioned.
Around here I know of one barn that has āself-careā which is what you describe. Board there is $140 for pasture board, $205 for self-care and $275 for full-care.
In the expensive Northeast, I have seen $150 as a usual number.
I think thatās even high when you put that number into the space of almost pure profit for the BO. Yes, they pay the mortgage, insurance, property taxes and maintain the place. But most of these barns donāt have remarkable facilities to offer. I also think of mortgage and taxes as what the property owner does in order to enjoy country living and invest in real estate.
I pay $150 for self board in NC. I supply my own shavings,hay and grain and labor twice daily.
My neighbor was charging $300 per stall. Weāre in an expensive, crowded, suburb, so he had a wait list of people who wanted stalls at that price.
Here (north central Fl) its between $6 -$8 a day depending on facilities.
We just moved a 2 yr old to a facility to use the race track and we are paying $7.00 a day for a dry stall and use of the track and starting gate. Seems to be about the going rate for that type of barn.
Anywhere from $100-$175.
120$ in central VA.
Several years ago I paid $75/month at a very unremarkable facility. (Well not unremarkable, but not remarkable in a āgoodā way.) There was no maintenance to the barns, pasture, etcā¦It was basically a stall (though they did cover supply costs for us to repair one, we provided the labor and tools), a field with a so-so fence, a place to store feed/hay and tack. There was also a good sized arena (though not maintained) and a round pen that we had access to.
In Massachusetts with no indoor $150 monthā¦really bare bones facility.
Very nice facility here wants 250 a dry stallā¦sigh
If I have the space, then it is $200 a month. Most people around me either have their own place or want full care.
I donāt offer dry stalls, but I can tell you from my own evaluation of what it costs to run a farm (I keep a detailed spreadsheet on this) that a ādry stallā costs me about $333/mo. This is assuming that I run at full capacity year round, and that all horses present on the property share equally in all expenses. This does not include feed, hay, bedding, or the labor required to care for a horse.
Notice that I specified the type of labor. People approach me all the time about wanting to do self care and state that they will do āallā the labor. Are they going to seed, fertilize, mow and weedeat the pastures? Buy fuel to do so? Are they going to repair and paint fence? Are they going to water and groom the arena? Paint jumps? sweep the aisle? Compost the manure and then spread it at an appropriate time? Are they going to help with the office work and the bookkeeping? Supervise employees and contractors? Be available 24/7 for emergencies? The list goes on and onā¦there is a huge amount of work involved in running a facility way beyond feeding, turnout, stall cleaning and blanket changesāthatās the easy part.
Aside from that, mortgage, taxes and insurance are not cheap. Neither are water, electric, and trash service. And I havenāt even mentioned the cost of a ābackup planā for those āself-careā boarders who fail to show up to feed or care for their horses in a reasonable manner. If they donāt show up to take care of their sick horse, who does?
I take offense at the implication that a boarder reimbursing me for any or all of the above expenses is in any way, shape or form āprofit.ā For me to not expect reimbursement for these expenses would be for me to subsidize other peoplesā horses, and Iām sorry, but I think that is a very unreasonable expectation.
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Excellent post! To the OP who said mortgage and taxes are what we pay to enjoy living in the country uhmā¦ do you have a job? Do you get paid for your job? Many (most?) BOās DO NOT take any kind of salary. We do it as a labor of love and because weāre horsey and tend to like to have horsefolk around.
We donāt have barns so that you can come knock on our back door anytime day or night and complain that your horse needs more bedding, is colicking but you have dinner reservations and could we please just walk him until the vet comes, and you wonāt be paying your board on time this month because your mortgage adjusted and your house payment went up.
LIke you, BeeHoney, I keep detailed records on what stuff costs. For a 50 stall barn, for example, each stall should contribute 1/50th the total of all monthly expenses. If the stall is unoccupied because a horse is out for a season (say, someplace with an indoor in winter) then it should still contribute its share with a dry stall fee.
Of course, dry stall only applies if someone either wants to reserve the stall for future use, or wants to do their own work, which honestly I would not allow. The self-care boarder is going to call the fly system guy and pay him 1/50th for their horse? They are going to make 1/50th of the tractor payment, and do 1/50th of the arena maintenance? Nope. It wouldnāt work at our place, although I understand that some self-care places seem to work it all out with great results.
So, to determine the dry stall fee, you can either add up all the monthly expenses and divide by # of stalls, or do what I do which is that, then deduct my monthly feed and bedding per stall. I do NOT deduct labor- it is a fixed expense that does not change for us with more or less horses.
Our dry stall cost is about $225 a month; I charge $200 because all the above is too hard to explain if youāve never been a BO. 
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Thank you everyoneā¦
This has been an enlightening post. Obviously there is a big difference in opinion between BO and Boarders.
I had been a boarder all my life before having the opportunity to own my own facility. It has been a huge eye-opener. Even charging full board you donāt make a profit when you consider all the things that have been outlined in this post. I do all my own labor too and even if the amount of physical labor isnāt too hard just the demand on your schedule can be tiring. You must be at home at certain times to feed which really can put a damper on your social lifeā¦ not that I have one anymore.
I love my facility and love having my horses at home but sometimes I fondly remember being a boarder and simply going to the barn, riding, socializing, maybe going out to dinner with friends and then going home.
Thank you for all the info. I appreciate it!
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I think it would be very hard to work in a self-care boarder mixed with full care at a busy well maintained facility. Usually when I have seen or been to a self-care place most of the horses there are all self-care or a co-op type deal and basically they are renting the space and the BO is not involved with daily care of any of the horses unless they have their own.
If I was seeking self-care I would not really expect the place to maintain the ring or even provide jumps (if I wanted them). Then again it would vary from place to place too. In my experience people trying to do self-care mixed with boarders doesnāt make anyone happy. If the facilities are nice and maintained I would expect to pay only so much under normal board there, because really you are mostly paying for the facilities. The grain, bedding and labor is only so much of the bottom line for a place that takes care of manure removals, field maintenance, ring maintenance, fly system, etcā¦
When we first bought our farm, I did rent out dry stalls (self care) ONE time. We were very involved with planning some renovations and it seemed like it would be a good fit since I did not yet have enough staff to help me and I was very wrapped up with some other things at that point in my life.
It was a very educational experience. Self care boarders have no interest in maintaining/preserving the facility, since they donāt own it. They may or may not pick up their own trash, make appropriate repairs in a safe manner, use paddocks/pastures appropriately, take care of equipment, etc. I also found that a backup system was absolutely necessary to prevent self care boarded horses from being neglected. I donāt think that horse care necessarily has to be āfancyā to be good quality, but I realized that I did not want to be personally or professionally associated with the slovenly and intermittent horse care some people provide.
Iām sure there are a lot of great horse owners out there who do their own self care, but the labor to provide a backup system was a real problem for meā¦I might as well be doing the chores myself if I had to be around twice a day to make sure they happened.
[QUOTE=mvp;4895656]
In the expensive Northeast, I have seen $150 as a usual number.
I think thatās even high when you put that number into the space of almost pure profit for the BO. Yes, they pay the mortgage, insurance, property taxes and maintain the place. But most of these barns donāt have remarkable facilities to offer. I also think of mortgage and taxes as what the property owner does in order to enjoy country living and invest in real estate.[/QUOTE]
My BO does self care and he doesnāt even go in the barns. He has nothing to do with the horses/pastures/facilities at all unless we ask. We do all the work unless we need the backhoe (I love that backhoe/front end loader: I canāt tell you how great it is to be able to move anything you want), and he just bought an ancient Farmall for us to mow the pastures. Heās good with providing us machines. :lol:
If I need something I just take it off my board. Sometimes I donāt pay any board due to buying supplies for the farm. Works for me. He charges $125 a horse.
$150 a month. I provide all supplies, do all the work associated with my horses with the exception of the BO either turning out in the morning or bringing in in the morning, depending on the season. Itās a nice, basic facility. Dry lot turnout, which isnāt ideal, but we move the round pen periodically so all of the horses have access to grass on a regular basis and plenty of hay while turned out.
This BO and her husband are very busy people, not necessarily horsey, but their hearts are in the right place. I do whatever I can to help them with their sole horse, e.g. clean his stall and get him set up. They make improvements to their little farm all the time. Now that they are almost finished with an addition to their house that was intended to house her mother (she recently died), they will be building a run-n shed in the back paddock, which will be huge for me (like it would be now, as I look at the sky and wish I had left the horses outside despite forecasts for thundery downpours!)
I think I get a great deal for my $150!
