A young friend of mine is graduating college somewhere in Iowa. She tells me that the price of quality stall board up there is like $400. Yowza…in my area, it’s more than double that.
What areas of the country have cheaper board (specifically I’m talking about places with quality care, stall board, and daily or nightly turnout). I assume it has much to do with land prices, hay prices, etc…but I’m really just curious.
Western/ NW PA. Only because we have cheap hay here.
Currently paying $325 for stall board with pasture turnout. Please note, this does not include any riding facilities.
I was paying $250 for pasture board on 7 acres with barn access before I moved here. No riding on property there either.
Locally stall board with outdoor arena is $350-425, add an indoor, $450-500.
Also, this is well north of Pittsburgh. The closer you get to the city, the prices go way up of course.
Wages are pretty depressed here though, it is cold and grey 7 months of the year and we have real winter.
Quality board runs in the neighborhood of $600 -$700 here. I personally think that is a reasonable cost as we are a popular beach vacation destination area. We can grow grass year round and I speculate that helps.
Availability is a different matter. Good barns here are almost always “full” and getting a stall can be tricky. Particularly if one wants to stay moderately close to civilization.
“Decent” board with fewer frills and less options for “customization” can be had for closer to $500.
All will include arena facilities, some better than others.
we do not board horses of others but are boarding a Goat for a person whose city forced her to remove the goat from her property … $100 per month board for a goat
Which beach area do you live near?
$400 is not quality boarding even in Iowa for most places. You are looking at $600 to $800 normally for what I would consider quality. Quality meaning not fancy, safe turns outs and more than 3 flakes of hay a day. I live just across the boarder in Nebraska and had to have my guy an hour away for a barn I was not afraid to leave him at without supervision.
Pensacola FL, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores AL.
I’m not as familiar with the boarding scene further East near Panama City and Destin (FL) but I know there are some options
It can be deceptive, as many times areas that have lower cost board also have lower wages, Not always, as things like hay and pasture availability also factor in, but often.
IME, @sheltona01 has it right. Cheap board goes hand-in-hand with some unattractive negatives. For example, lots of those places are in more remote areas, where you don’t have immediate access to quality vets and farriers. Or good trainers. Or good facilities to do any serious riding.
And availability, like @lenapesadie said, is often a problem. I live in a fairly remote area. I am lucky enough to board at a good quality facility that is incredibly inexpensive compared to where I moved from. They also have a waiting list a mile long because they are, quite literally, the only quality h/j boarding facility in this region.
Yep.
Median income of the county my old barn is in is $26,000. Current barn, $34,000.
No problem getting grass hay around here for 4-5 dollars a bale though.
Wages are lower in my area compared to wages in the DC area. So is COL though 
I work for a company with transparent pay grades and the same job pays more if you work at the office near the DC area than it does in the Pensacola office. Rents and real estate prices are much lower in the Pensacola area. I think it works out
Near the city (Saint Louis) you’re looking at $500-1000+ A lot of that cost starts to factor in training rides/lessons–more “full service” types. Less turnout, but nicer arenas/barns
Out in the middle of MO you can find decent board for $350-550. Those you would assume some form of riding arena, stall, and daily turnout. A very wide range of quality. Can also find pasture board for $150-300 (but usually no grain/blankets/just round bales/etc.)
Very true. When I moved my horse from a desirable barn to my own farm, I had multiple folks contacting me asking if I would assist them in getting my stall. The BO wasn’t even taking names on her wait list anymore at that point. Not all barns have quite that much demand, but the place is literally 15 minutes from the beaches so it’s a pretty primo location.
I know not the direction of the conversation but I worked for a similar national company. I was based in a lower cost area. The difference in pay between say Los Angeles and Ft Worth was substantial. I negotiated with my boss that the company kick in extra into my pension …specifically the difference in company contributions for social security for the pay differences. This amounted to hefty sum after twenty years…which is paying for our horses needs now that I am retired.
I was “based” in Los Angeles for about ten years, never lived there but commuted two to three times a month.
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