Charging for grain prep?

[C_L]

I have a small at home barn, with 1 boarder on full board. Both horse and owner are lovely. The issue - when I took on the boarder in the summer I said owner must provide grains/supplements etc, and I will feed. This was initially fine, and but the number of types of dry feed is now at 6 different products (salt, supplements, grain, meds etc), plus the wet feed I prep in advance.

Due to the sheer number of products, its become more time intensive then i’d like. Plus i have a very small tack/feed room, so i pack all the products away until i’m prepping grain baggies, and then spread them all out and get to work. But because the grain bags are now so full/lack of space in my rat-proof containers, i’m needing to go through the prep process for the boarder on a 10 day basis, vs 3 weeks for my horse.

So basically, i’m wanting to make a change, and considering presenting it to boarder as 2 options:

1. they prep grain baggies. no change to board fee ($650)
2. I continue to prep grain baggies but $20/month surcharge required (is this fee reasonable?)

When i boarded i always prepped my own dry feed for the feeder, so that is pretty standard around here, but I also don’t mind doing it for compensation.
Thoughts on this?

[aBayDay]

When I’ve provided grain/supplements, it has always been the expectation for me to prepare the grain in baggies. I can’t imagine asking my BO to mix my grain, salt, and various supplements together 2x a day! The only exception I’ve seen is for wet supplements that can’t be put in baggies, and should be conveniently packaged and located for the BO. I think you should absolutely ask them to prep baggies, and if they are not willing to do so, I would charge more than $20/month, I feel like $50/month is still generous.

[Simkie]

Good lord I can’t even imagine asking a barn owner to do that as a boarder!

I agree, you should charge more than $20 a month if you continue to do this. How much time does it take from start to finish, plus how much storage are you dedicating to it??

[dmveventer]

I’d go with Option 1. Option 2 doesn’t really solve your problem because she can just keep adding ingredients because she’s paying for it now, and a few months from now you’ll be back at square one. As a compromise you could also just have a conversation with her and see if she’s willing or able to streamline her regimen a bit to help make things easier on you. If she’s not involved in the prep she may not realize there’s a problem.

If you go with option 1 you just need to be prepared for a) her to ask for a reduction in board since you’re removing a service (I’m not saying you need to offer one, but it’s not a ridiculous question for her to ask), and b) what you’ll do if she forgets to prep or is out of town longer than you’re willing to store grain for. Finding a way for her to prep more than 10 days at a time would probably make both of your lives a lot easier.

[luvmyhackney]

@C_L

I continue to prep grain baggies but $20/month surcharge required (is this fee reasonable?)

Too low… at least 1.00 per day. Pay yourself appropriately and make it more likely they will bag it.

[SusanO]

You could suggest Smartpak but I have no idea how much that would cost. Or do baggies. She can do 10 days at a time and store them in a rodent proof container for you. Or pay what Smartpak would charge. I don’t spend that much time on my own meals.

[cayuse]

I’m going to vote to just go ahead and surcharge. Then if they continually forget to bag the supps you won’t feel resentful or anything. And you won’t have to remind owner that they are running low.

[Demerara_Stables]

My clients must make up baggies. If they forget/run out/don’t want to do it, they pay my barn manager her hourly rate to make them up.

I say only give her option 1 but the first time you run out of baggies tell her you charge $X per hour to make them up and tell her how long it takes. Maybe she’s ok paying that, maybe not, but I wouldn’t present that as a first option since it sounds like you don’t really want to do it.

[Dr_Doolittle]

Oh my God, I can’t even imagine asking my BM to do anything like that!

Of course she has well over 100 horses to care for. I ask for next to nothing from her, board is low, fortunately.

I mix up all of my supplements in gallon baggies, add a handful of grain to them and put them in the “feed truck”; all they have to do is dump the baggy in my horse’s bucket once a day. No WAY BM would add anything wet to that - or mix anything!

Yes, you are perfectly justified in adding a little charge to that in other words

[FjordBCRF]

Oh boy. My gelding gets a bunch of different stuff and I wouldn’t imagine having barn staff do it twice a day. I prep two weeks worth of containers for him at a time.

I’d ask if she could start prepping them herself and if she balks, give her the surcharge option. And make it fair to yourself because that kind of prepping is a royal PITA!

[DiamondJubilee]

Yep, I’m with everyone else here. I have 5 ponies, 4 kept at home and I have 1 boarded out for the winter for an indoor arena. All of my guys get about 6 supplements each, and I don’t mind doing mine at home on a day to day basis. But for my boarded out guy, I bring a baggie full of his supp. that the BO just has to dump in his grain once a day (I bring about 7 baggies each week so she doesn’t have to store too much at one time). They never asked me, I just did it as I thought it would be unfair to ask them to do what I do as I know its time consuming! She does give some W3 oil for me as well, but I just provided the scoop and said to fill it and dump it in his grain as well. Easy peasy!

I think it would be easiest for all if you just ask her to pre pack them. If she doesn’t want to do that, then a monthly $50 charge is totally reasonable if you ask me.

[trubandloki]

@dmveventer

you just need to be prepared for a) her to ask for a reduction in board since you’re removing a service (I’m not saying you need to offer one, but it’s not a ridiculous question for her to ask

I do not agree with this.
It is a ridiculous question for this boarder to ask.

Sure, it will likely be asked, but it is very much ridiculous that anyone would consider this a service is being removed.
The barn owner here has been going above and beyond.

This thinking is a great example why no barn owner can ever do a nice thing for anyone.

Edit to fix my bad typing which said the opposite of what I wanted to say.

[MissusS]

If you ask her to prep you need to set the parameters of how much you can store at a time, and I’d also encourage agreeing on a schedule/rotation to reduce the risk of either having too many baggies to store at once or running out completely. I’d discuss what happens if you run out of prepped baggies (do you make them up and charge? does dobbin just get a scoop of complete feed? something else?) and ask for the border to advise you ahead of time if there is a change in the “bulk” - EG if there is a bunch more added to baggie and all of a sudden instead of being able to store 10 days worth you can only store 7 days worth - so that you can adjust the schedule of restocking the prepped grain.

IF you decide to just charge for the service, rather than asking the border to do meal prep, I agree $20 per month sounds quite low. I’d likely go with something closer to $50 or $60 and advise that’s for current practices, and if there is a material change you can discuss whether that impacts the charge accordingly (up or down).

[cnd8]

I’m a boarder and I make my own supplement cups. I bought 14 little tupperware cups off of amazon for like $7. I fill up my cups with his per/meal supplements, and all they have to do is dump it in his grain and put the empty cup in a walmart bag we have hanging on the wall in the feed room. I refill weekly.

I’d just ask her to do something like I do if I were you. Even if she paid, you still don’t want to be storing and having to add all that stuff yourself. Put the work on her.

[RedHorses]

I’m another one who preps containers with supplements and tries to make things as easy as possible, in consultation with the person feeding. I like doing the supplement containers myself because I don’t have to worry about forgotten changes if I add or remove something. Plus asking for more than one extra thing added to grain is a lot of work.

I would tell her that the feed prep time has gotten to be excessive so going forward she must prep the bags. Then ask “if I run out of prepped bags would you like me to skip that feeding, or just give him (the measure of the feed that forms the bulk of his meal) with the (prepared wet portion)?” to ensure she understands what will happen when there’s no bag.

Don’t charge a fee for something you don’t want to do. Just don’t offer that service.

[cnd8]

Same. And I like doing my cups so I can change my supplement combination on a whim if I desire to, without having to update anyone or explain. All they have to do is dump.

[C_L]

Thank you for all the feedback! pretty conclusive response, which is reassuring. I will move ahead with asking her to take over prep

[dmveventer]

@trubandloki

This thinking is a great example why no barn owner can ever do a nice thing for anyone.

That’s a little melodramatic. The OP wasn’t “doing a nice thing” for her boarder, she was fulfilling her side of the terms she set and they both agreed to:

@C_L

when I took on the boarder in the summer I said owner must provide grains/supplements etc, and I will feed.

Clearly those terms aren’t working and she’s well within her rights to change them (which I supported in my response), but if you have an agreement to provide X services for Y price and then you take away a key service it’s not unreasonable for the other party to ask about adjusting the price. I specifically said I don’t think OP needs to change her price, just that she should have a response ready if the question comes up. This is a business transaction, not a favor, and both sides should treat it that way. Injecting emotion is how we end up with so many stories of toxic boarding relationships. If the new terms don’t work the boarder can leave, but suggesting she shouldn’t even question the change to her contract makes no sense and is how people get taken advantage of.

And before anyone comes at me, I’ve worked in barns and am hugely appreciative of how hard it is to manage these things. I just don’t think that means they can change up their terms whenever they want and not expect boarders to have questions. The horse industry would be healthier if more people treated it like the business it is.

[trubandloki]

@C_L

when I took on the boarder in the summer I said owner must provide grains/supplements etc, and I will feed.

I will feed does not mean, I will sort out your array of random products.

I think every boarding contract I have ever signed says they will feed any owner provided supplements. Those places also ask you to either use smartpaks or do containers like people have described here.

[fanfayre]

I would suggest the boarder take her myriad of feeds and supplements home and store them there, and make up the concoctions into baggies or containers and just bring them to the barn for you to feed. A week/10 days’ time’s worth, or whatever the boarder chooses. That way the boarder will know when she’s running low on which feed/supplement AND will then realize why you asked what you asked.

I am a boarder and I make up a week’s worth of 2 feeds/day every Sunday for my guy, plus fill evening haynets, so my BO can just grab and go. I am able to store my feed at the barn since I only have a couple of different bags, and the supplements I do feed all fit inside the can of balancer, so all compact. My hat is stored with the BO’s hay.
I do this to make it as easy as possible for the BO.

Maybe once OP’s boarder realizes the extent BO was going above and beyond, she may simplify her feeding/supplementing regime and at that point the OP and boarder can come to a different murually agreeable arrangement?