Hi everyone! So my husband and I are looking into purchasing horse property in Tennessee and we are going over the idea of using it as a boarding facility. But we absolutely want to make sure we run numbers and can make the facility run smoothly first. We are trying to run numbers and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how you figure out the cost of hay versus how much each boarded horse eats per week or month along with shavings per day/week/month, cost? Better to buy in bulk or individual? Any idea of prices or advice that is non judgemental would be greatly appreciated!!! (FYI, I’m not the numbers person, he’s the numbers person so I apologize ahead of time if this is a confusing question!!)
I don’t board but I have my two horses at home. I will say that bedding costs were a bit of a surprise to me when I got my own place. My horses are free to come and go from their stalls, but they like to sleep and hang out in there more than I would have thought. One of my guys goes outside to poop, the other just goes wherever. They both like to pee in the stalls,
I use at least 1 bag of shavings per stall per week, and often two, depending on the weather. $5.00 to 6.00 per bag per stall per week, say 10 to 12 bags total for the month. Shavings can easily cost $72.00 for the month and my horses are never locked in. I never saw that coming.
The barn I work at buys hay by weight, not by bale count. Buying by weight, IMO, is the best way, and cheapest way to purchase hay in our area. If we were to purchase local hay by bale count, example: $6 per bale, a ton of those bales would cost $480. Instead, we get hay DELIVERED AND STACKED for $260 per ton.
10 tons of timothy hay lasts our 11 horses roughly 100 days. We DO NOT feed by “flakes”, we feed by weight. Most of our horses are small, or ponies. If we had bigger horses the hay would run out even faster.
Locally, bagged shavings in bulk purchases run $6 per bag (discounted for buying 45 at a time). When horses are stalled, we go through a bag per horse per day. It definitely adds up, and is the reason our horses live OUT as much as possible.
I buy shavings in bulk, tractor trailer load. We built a shavings bin specifically for this to keep them dry. Lasts me a year or more. We grow our own hay now, much cheaper than buying!
As a general rule boarding operations run break even or a small loss, economically. They are a “leader” that brings training, lesson, show, etc. income to the facility owner. If you like working for a sub-minimum wage without tips open a boarding barn!!! 
DC gives you really good advice on feeding.
Bedding is more complex. If you can buy bulk shaving or the like then cost is relatively low. But that also requires a facility to hold it. If you’re buying bag shavings then you’re looking at a very significant cost if you want to bed deeply (which is generally recommended). Some folks do a “compromise” putting bedding over stall mats of some sort. The problem with this is that stall mats are not absorbent and do not allow urine or other fluids to “drain away.” It can cause odor issues.
The biggest cost of boarding, however, is labor. Feeding, mucking, hauling, spreading, fence repair, facility repair, the list goes on and on. And it all needs to be done.
When you have a boarding facility (or your horses at home) you “belong to the land.” No more impulsive weekend excursions or dinners in town. The stock comes first. Vacations? Only if you arrange for alternative barn care. More money, that. For some this is not an issue. For others it is.
I live in East TN. The number of boarding facilities in my area has declined by at least a third in the last 15 years or so. That’s because the horse market has contracted by about that much. Those that are left have to “stroke it” to stay profitable. Without profit the facility will ultimately fail (in this the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition are spot on). I would not recommend it as a long term investment. If you want to do it because you WANT to belong to the land and understand the business then I say “enjoy.” But it’s not a business that will pay very well.
Spend a lot of time with your yellow pad working the numbers on this. If you are around Nashville where wages are higher you can charge more. If you’re around Memphis or Knoxville your economic situation will be quite different. If you’re outside those areas then it will be vastly different.
Think about this a LONG TIME before you do it.
G.
P.S. One way to “try before you buy” is to rent a facility and see what happens. The general industry decline has meant a lot of areas have vacant facilities. That’s one way to “test the waters” without a massive capital investment.
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The smart thing would be to check prices locally. Bedding costs are also related to whoever is cleaning the stalls. If they sift carefully, they save bedding. If they don’t sift, they throw out a lot of the good stuff.
Hay depends a lot on the weather year to year. I buy the best hay I can so there is no wastage.
It helps if there is an easy configuration to the barn lay out. Ask yourself how many steps you want to take to do the chores or how many steps you want to pay someone else to take. It makes a HUGE difference!
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Bedding costs don’t simply depend on who cleans the boxes.
it is entirely local. We can’t tell you what the costs and rules are specific to your location.
we can’t assess your stall set up, turn out schedule, local weather, horses boarded, your own horse keeping skills and preferences, those of your staff, disposal costs. You can’t even really do this now because it’s hypothetical.
my suggestion is for you to come up with how much you think it will cost you, then double it because otherwise you’ll just be back here in six months not understanding how your numbers were so wrong. Once you have doubled your expected expenses, then add your board rate on top of that. Then look around and see what your competitors are charging. I 100% guarantee it will be less than whatever number you come up with.
then just have your horses and enjoy your life sans boarding business.
You’re welcome.
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Read everything here, twice or three times, then think really hard about it.
As stated, most boarding is break-even at best, but if it’s combined with a lesson program, or training program, it becomes the base from which you build a profit for other services.
Your facility: design, efficiency, repairs, size, etc has a huge effect on your financials. For example, having 20-30 horses generally means one worker can take care of feeding and cleaning, depending on how long horses are in stalls, etc. 30-40 horses needs 1 1/2 workers, so completely inefficient. (Remember your actual worker:horse ratio is something you will only learn after you are committed to the business!)
Suppliers are critical, and they can change. Feed, bedding, manure disposal, vets and farriers, trainers, footing material resources, etc. are all critical to the success of a boarding stable, and they are all beyond your control.
Surprising for me, we spend more on bedding and manure disposal than on feed… and because we are in an increasingly urban area, we are prisoners to the manure mafia, the truckers who handle weekly disposal of our manure.
Labor is a huge issue. Finding trustworthy workers who have horse sense, show up, and are reliable is difficult, and paying them peanuts will guarantee turnover and drama. Legalities: are you willing to risk your personal security if you don’t have worker’s comp insurance for the barn helpers? (Which is currently 32% of wages in my state…) And keep in mind that you need reliable relief helpers too, your staff can’t work 24/7… can you find trustworthy part-timers to take weekend and vacation shifts, or are you willing to do that work and be tied down to it?
Competition, obviously, is important. Your local competition will, whether you like it or not, set parameters for pricing that will control to a large degree what you can charge, regardless of your costs. There have been some great threads about all this on COTH, with an important takeaway being that many/most boarding stables depress boarding prices because they are on legacy farms that are already paid for, so the startup costs are generally generations in the past. This artificially tamps down what boarding costs… if the board income doesn’t have to support a mortgage.
Do you have a life? Job someplace other than home? Kids? Travel? Health concerns? Buy-in/support from your immediate family? Relatives in far away places? All these things will affect your ability to run a barn.
Now…if you want to have a couple horses of your own, and a couple boarders… all these issues can usually be simplified. But if you’re considering a commercial boarding facility with more than a handful of outside horses, you’ll need to be creative in your thinking to try to anticipate the possible pitfalls before committing.
I love our barn and the majority of our boarders appreciate a nice place to keep their horses and appreciate the facility- but from a financial perspective, it has been a boondoggle. The potential for land appreciation is a consideration (although we are prohibited by zoning from subdividing) and so is an interesting lifestyle that lets me live in a neat place, keep a horse or two for myself, and generally enjoy what is going on around me.
We all have different motivations for considering a horse-based business, be it boarding, training, breeding, etc. I think it’s as important to identify those intrinsic motivating factors as part of a business plan as it is all the costs and possible pitfalls…or you’re not getting an inclusive high-altitude view on what you are considering dedicating your life to.
Happy Trails…!
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OP, do you have horses now? If so,have you ever done self-care of your horse, or have you always had him in a full board barn?
As someone who has always done self care, I feel like it wouldn’t be hard to extrapolate the numbers for feed. If the average horse eats 20 lbs of hay a day, then a ton (2000 lbs) is going to last about 100 days for one horse. All the big hay suppliers sell by the ton, some with discounts for large orders.
My horse eats 15 pounds a day, so that’s just under 3 tons a year. Multiply by the cost per ton. I figure it’s about $1100 for her hay per year. Grain on top of that.
You find out the local cost per ton of the kind of hay you want to feed, and you do the math for the number of horses you plan to keep.
As far as bedding, when I was a kid we got a ton of sawdust delivered by dump truck from the mill, and we kept it in a pile near the barn under a big plastic tarp. It was very affordable. Now,in a different barn, we all buy bagged bedding, and the cost really adds up. If I had my own farm I would be getting it by the ton again.
The other big thing to consider is manure management. With my current suburban barn, we have it taken away by dumpster. In the country you can set up a compost routine so that you use it to fertilize your own fields.
The other huge expense is maintaining the property. I am on the board of directors for our non-profit stables, and we are always fixing things, fences, footing, electric, water, parking lots, etc. I have also watched a good friend take on a somewhat rundown boarding rental property, and seen how much work goes into trying to refurbish.
Absolutely, the amount you can charge for board will be limited by local prices. If you are not offering interesting add ons like a big name trainer, you will not be charging at the top of the market.
We don’t run a boarding facility, but we do have our own private barn. For bedding, we purchase pellets by the tractor trailer load; using about 6 bags a week at $4.95 each or about $125 per horse per month. We also purchase hay by the tractor trailer load. On average, one horse consumes $6.00 of hay a day (more in the winter, less in the summer) or $180 month. We buy very good quality hay, use less grain and we supplement to round out the diet. Other barns in our area use lower quality hay, so I know it can get done cheaper, but our system works for us and there is little/no hay wasted. Labor is by far the largest expense line we encounter, dwarfing the bedding and hay expense. Workman’s compensation is very expensive, running well over 10% of hourly wages paid, so be sure not to overlook that item.
Like most threads it would be handy, more educational if people gave their general location. Its not like we need the exact address.
Location will dictate certain fixed costs. But the following are pretty good general numbers to work with. They do not include the cost of equipment needed and the monthly cost to service that debt, or pay back the cost of if bought for “cash”. The cost of manure removal if needed. It does not included the cost of the horse side of the property, the cost of that debt above the cost of one’s “personal property and residence”. It does not include the cost of personal household expenses, etc.
Fixed cost per day for a stalled horse
$3 for hay, 20+lbs per day at $6 per 40+lb bale of hay.
$3 for feed
$4 for bedding
$304 per horse per month.
I am sure there are plenty of people who say they can do it for less. But not much if they are doing things “right”. But a lot of people seem to have an idea of the definition of “right”. Especially paying boarders.
Fixed cost per year to be pro-rota per horse. This is where the economy of scale kicks in.
$1,200 Utilities,
$3,000+++ Insurance Equine Farm insurance is based on the number of horses and their use. If you plan to cater to minors expect sticker shock.
$25,000+ For 1 employee at $10 per hour for a 48 hour week, 6 days
$2,500 Workman’s comp @ 10% of salary
$2,500 Repair and maintenance. This number can vary wildly. If one is not a pretty good jack of all trades with a decent repair shop. Paying others to do this is very $$$$
$3,000 per month (round up), $35,000 per year.
So $10 horse based on the above $600 per month before putting a dime of profit in one’s pocket. Nor paying themselves. Paying one’s self IMO is not considered “profit”.
$450 per month per horse with 20 stalls. Assuming 1 person can,will want to do 20 stalls per day and all the other associated work.
Even if the above numbers are on the high side of things. It still gives a pretty good idea. Plenty of people can do it for less but they discount their time and quality of life. Even though field board can cut the above direct horse cost down a bit. It does require a lot of extra labor at times.
A lot of good advise being offered up. Do the numbers for your area. Write a realistic Pro-forma. Check out market forces for what can be reasonably charged in the area. Don’t expect people to be knocking down the door in the first year. Let alone the second or third. The majority of business fail regardless of the widget because they are under capitalized.
The majority of horse business fail because they try to undercut the market to get a foot in the door. They end up subsidizing their clients at the expense of their time, money and sanity.
Remember when the economy stalls, drops the first thing people will give up are expensive hobbies. No matter how much they may love it and their horse. NO BODY NEEDS A HORSE. No body needs what those of us who do this for a living with horses or side business. Farm owners, vets, service providers, etc.
DO NOT think that you can “afford” a bigger property/farm by assuming you can “swing it” by offering, relying on boarding income, horse service income. More times than not it will become a ball and chain. It can and does strain a relationship. IMO 80+% of people aren’t cut out for it. Buy a property that you can close down the boarding side of things at any time and still live within your means.
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Are you the cost is $4.95 each when buying in trailer loads? That’s just about what I pay buying one-at-time. We get them on sale for about $4.00 each
OP, you might want to talk with the local feed store, the one we use (and we are in the city) every year has a 20% off sale good for anything except hay… we buy a years worth of feed and bedding then, we pick up as needed. The advantage to the store is they have cash in hand to negotiate deals on everything thing.
but really if you want an income producing boarding operation board dogs, you can get more dollars per day per dog and could put a pile of dogs in the space required for one horse
I have 5 critters in my barn - 3 horses, 1 pony, and a huge Holstein Ox. I buy my hay locally by the bale ($2.50 a 40 lb bale), and I buy my bedding by the pickup truck load - $40 for 3 yards. In the middle of winter when my costs are highest it is about $100 per animal per month for hay, grain, and bedding.
Mine are in at least 12 hours a day on average as I don’t have any shelters outside yet and currently my turnouts are mud. Costs go down as things dry out and the pastures come in.
And this is what I’m saying about pricing.
Clanter thinks 4.95 is a lot, buying in bulk, whereas you wouldn’t see that price within 2$ in the mid Atlantic.
Gumtree thinks you can extrapolate hay from 6$ a bale because that’s what he pays in PA. It’s also what I generally paid when my hay came from PA. But not all the time. Sometimes it was 9$.
But that sure as heck isn’t even close to what we pay out in Washington state or down in Florida.
And some years are good, and some years are bad. I have had periods where I had to do bagged bedding because it was too wet to cut (short term) or the saw mill burned down (long term).
I just think the reality is it’s hard to really extrapolate anything much beyond your mortgage and tractor and maybe electricity. So much can be so variable beyond that.
It’s just one more reason why if you are literally trying to run boarding as a business you are better off renting your stalls out to people with these horses
http://horsenetwork.com/2017/03/welcome-world-competitive-hobbyhorse/
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Thank you very much everyone! I just was looking for an around about idea of what different people were paying for more than one horse and for bulk and their boarding facilities. I am no “newbie” to horses or taking care of them, boarding them, paying for their expenses, etc. I am when it comes to owning a boarding facility so I’m looking for non judgemental advice to help me out with this idea as a prospect. I love the profession and working in it but don’t want to get swamped way over my head which is why I am researching everything as much as I possibly can. I have lived on the east coast where horses get all day turn out and now I am on the west coast where board is completely itemized and turnout is additional. Shavings and hay are where I am stuck so I appreciate ya’lls input!
I wouldn’t say the entire east coast has horses on all day turn out I don’t even know that this is “generally” true. It is not my experience having lived in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, Florida for…18 years?
I wouldn’t say that the entire west coast itemizes or that turn out isn’t a thing or is extra. I don’t even know that this is “generally” true. I have actually never experienced this, being from Western Washington, but certainly horse keeping practices are very very different from local barns to show barns, from Seattle to San Diego.
I think that all of this sounds really really specific to your particular location and/or places you have boarded.
So I think the best that you can do is really focus in on your particular area, which is to say those businesses you would be directly competing against. Are you boarding your horses now? If you are friendly with your barn owner, that would be a great place to start.
Thanks ladyj79. I’m not saying every single barn on the east coast does all day turnout out. You are right. I preferred barns that turned out horses for the day if there were pastures for my horse…so that is what I sought out. Different barns have different ways of being managed, run, etc. I am not saying they are all the same. I get it.
Clanter – yes, “all in” each bag of pellets runs around $4.95 when purchased by the tractor-trailer load. The pellets themselves are about $3.70 a bag. Freight adds another $1.25 per bag. We don’t have a mill near us so they are shipped down from Canada or another locale.
I live in E TN near Knoxville, where there are few very high quality boarding establishments. Few people seem able or willing to support that kind of boarding around here, beyond a very few high quality show barns.
Nashville has surprisingly few high quality barns, too.
I am aware of some very nice dressage barns in Memphis, but don’t know about the overall scene.
My general comment would be that land is so cheap and plentiful in Tennessee that many people tend to keep horses at home rather than board—especially for any significant fees. Much of Tennessee, outside of very specific metro areas, is also quite poor. You should consider whether you are planning on being a basic pleasure/family boarding barn (which will not be able to charge much) or whether you will have an in-house trainer who can attract a higher dollar client.
As others have said, boarding is not a way to afford a country property. You would be better off leasing land for cattle or hay for the investment and labor costs.
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Our costs, roughly speaking:
Each horse eats a half a bale per day, roughly. So 15 bales / month at, say , $7/bale delivered. We feed high quality hay, generously. There is opportunity to save money with larger bales bought by the ton or finding cheaper hay.
Each horse consumes one full bag of mini-flake shavings per week. So 4-5 bags/month at $5.50/bag delivered.
That totals a bit less than 1/3 of our boarding fee.
We use a stall sifter. Without it our shavings use goes up a bit.
Running the numbers in my area, boarders can supplant your barn dollars a bit, but only if you consider the entire facility (including mortgage) and maintenance a sunk cost. Then the boarding fee is roughly covers the feed, hay, shavings, with some money to pay for your time handling the boarded horses and cleaning the stalls. We have limited acreage and fragile soil that grows lush pasture grass. This means the turnout is limited to all-day or all-night in good weather and there are always stalls to clean. There are many days of the year where turnout cannot happen. (This is the one major limitation to our property.)
If you have plenty of pasture with run-ins, your time spent cleaning stalls and moving horses goes down and might net you more money.
Another question to reckon is your manure production. There will be plenty of it, and adding boarders can make a molehill into a mountain.
One other cost with growing is your driveway. Our property came with a long, relatively new asphalt driveway. Once we signed up for a porta-john with weekly cleaning, semi-weekly dumpster service, and occasional deliveries of stone dust and driveway gravel, that driveway is quickly headed toward obliteration. Residential paved driveways do not handle commercial trucks.
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