Dealing w/ boarders VENT - Boarder won't stop using baby oil in her feed can lid...

[mountainhorse]

This sort of thing really gets to me-having had a self-care barn, and being a self-care boarder in the very distant past,…:mad:

I would write up a letter, with a new board contract for everyone to sign.
Letter explaining changes and why, and board contract outlining feeding policy additions (with a “needs to be signed and returned by” date clearly outlined on both letter and contract ), and send out to all boarders ASAP.

Changes need to be made per what suits YOU best, but the following did round out what your thoughts were:

Changes outlined (bolded, even) on your contract.

Generally speaking:

Whether it is $20/day ( I would do at least $20. ) for every day your horse is out of either feed or hay, or whatever you come up with that suits your schedule. I guarantee you the ‘hassle’ of bookkeeping for the days they run out will diminish as they realize $20/day adds up…

However, there is no need to put MORE work on yourself than you need to. Let me say that again-
there is no need to put MORE work on yourself than you need to to cater to others’ irresponsibility. That just FEEDS it, instead of correcting it.

Self-care, means, self. care.

Within all of these changes, remember, you do not need to or have to:

A) text or call to REMIND someone that they are almost out of feed. Not your responsibility-as a self-care boarder, they are responsible for putting feed in the bin and maintaining how much. Do you reallllyy need to waste your own time to text or call someone to monitor their feed for them? Short answer: NO. Long(er) answer: If they understand YOU monitor feed FOR them, where is the incentive to bring feed out, per themselves? Again, that is not something for your shoulders to bear as a self-care barn owner/manager. If you are not there, someone else in charge has to take that on, or if you slip up and a text doesn’t go through, etc. they blame YOU instead of just having owners take care of their horses. Easy as that.

Solution:
Add another change in the contract, stating owners MUST have feed for the FOLLOWING MONTH stacked, poured, bagged,…whatever your storage is, by the 25th (or whatever day suits your fancy) of the prior month. If feed is not
taken care of for the following month, $40 flat fee. Then, if they run out, $20/day.
That way, some owners who don’t care to bring feed out that early or be that organized have the option of either bring feed out as outlined, or pay a $40/fee every month that doesn’t happen. They may bring it out a day later,…too bad. $40. Two days later? Sucks for them. $40.

Seems ‘harsh’, but it is not. It’s business and outlining practices to make everyone’s life simpler and more straightforward for their horses-something you will want to outline in your letter, stating ‘why’.

That will not ‘add’ any stress to you, other than peeking around the storage 1x/month on the 26th (the day after deadline to bring feed, in case someone brings feed later in the PM on the 25th), and note in your ‘budget notebook’ (make one to doc fees ) who is late. Just add $40 to that month’s board.

No need to call or text them ‘why isn’t your feed here’ and get into a long drawn out drama over it, just do it and let the $ speak once they get their bill. If they are there, you could mention it, but I would not make it a habit to notify them every time they get charged…not your responsibility.
Again, something to outline in the contract.

B). (…re: not your responsibility list from wayy up there ) It is also not your responsibility to buy their feed if they are out and hassle with that. End of story. Whether you charge them 3x as much, or whatever you like, personally that is just not something that sticks,…too much hassle on your end. Again, leave it to the owner. You stick with your responsibility of owning the barn and charging board and any necessary fees that come along with that, and let them have their responsibility of providing feed.

Otherwise, it will continue, and it is a fairly easy ‘boarder problem’ to solve, or at the very least, make it worth your aggregation in $$ they can pay in return.

Good Luck! I know it’s a vent, so know you have my sympathies, but I did want to let you know my thoughts, seeing as how it is something that completely irks the heck out of me and I can certainly sympathize with you on it.

[QUOTE=RegentLion;7719256]
I’d rephrase it:

"Dear Boarders,

Recently we’ve had a problem with horses running out of grain/hay and it not being replaced for several days. In order to rectify this problem, I will be texting/emailing you when your horse’s grain or hay is low. If at any time a horse is out of grain or hay, each day the horse is out of feed will incur a charge of $10 per day. i know you are all busy and hopefully this will help you all plan better."

Then if it continues to be a problem, give boarders individually a written warning… “Susie, this is the second time your horse has run out of feed. Please be aware if it happens again I will need to ask you to leave.”[/QUOTE]

[vxf111]

And easy way to keep track AND shame at the same time is to post a giant calendar in the feed room. If someone runs out, put their name and what they’re out of. It takes a minute or two, at most. At the end of the month, take it down and add it to the board bill. It was there for them to see all month so they should hardly be surprised!

[BeeHoney]

I agree, don’t communicate with your boarders via group emails/notes. Call up offenders when there is an incident. You don’t need to be rude or confrontational, just direct. I guarantee it will save you time and energy in the long run. Also, if someone doesn’t respond to a direct request, then you know where you stand and that person might not be a good fit for your barn.

Also, if you are feeding horses twice a day and doing turnout, you aren’t really doing partial care. Partial care is typically something more like caring for the horse 1x per day–for example feeding the horse its breakfast and turning it out and then the owner is responsible for the evening feed, bringing it back in, stall cleaning, etc. Just as an aside, $150/mo per horse is not very much for you to get paid for what you are providing/doing, and this is a personal decision, but I wonder if your time/energy might be better spent in another direction unless you really enjoy doing the boarding?

Ok, and one more thing–based on my personal experience running a boarding barn, I think it is a really difficult set up to be relying on boarders to be buying and delivering small amounts of hay (and feed) once or twice a week. People are just way too flaky. I don’t think there is any good way to fix people’s flakiness. It’s much more efficient to have a hay shed and have a larger amount delivered, or to use round bales in the pasture. You don’t want to go there and I think that’s fine, but I just think that there are very few people out there that you could really count on to be reliable about delivering feed and hay for their horse every week.

[brightskyfarm]

I self care, always have,always will – Like ChocoMare, Im quite determined about my horses care each day – hes also in heavy training, so there are little things…however, that being said – as humans are, many arent reliable, or conscientious, or even concerned how their world revolves (unless it directly impacts their drama).
I boarded, but it was full board, with the sign posted quite large and in bold letters, …“my barn, my rules, we play nice” … but then, to know me is to know one needs to behave.
Co-ops can work, quite nicely too-- people have a tendancy to keep things fair, like kids on the playground and their rules –
Managing people? …I rate that right up with herding cats –
I think its good you came here to vent vs blowing up at your clients… we all need to voice once in a while – and … you have been given , um, some, good suggestions –
Id like to suggest you go to the barn with your crazy on and just scare the crap out of them – like you’ve taken a nose-dive into insanity --folks rarely choose to cross over That line, plus you can have some fun with it too.
Im sure, a few quiet words expressing your heartfelt concerns will get just as good results
Thank you for your thread as it reminds me why I will only board horses and riders in training the rest, those pampered pasture puffs can stay with you . !

[atr]

At some point, you have to decide if this is a viable business model.

It’s not sounding so good to me at the moment.

Personally, I’d either charge them until I liked them, or if they persisted in their bad habits, I’d boot them out.

(And the hay thing would drive me bananas as either a boarder or a barn owner–really, just order it in bulk, even just once a month or something, get it delivered and stacked and split the cost–I don’t do that kind of heavy labor any more either, so I pay through the nose for the delivery service at my own place for my own horses, but at least I know it’s there and I don’t have to worry about it.)

Grain, well, it’s not the Staff of Life, so if they can’t get it together on that, it’s their own problem. For my one boarded horse, in the unlikely event that he runs out of his pre-packed baggies, he gets just hay and I get a text to find out if I’ve died or something…

If they don’t like it, they can leave… it’s not like you are actually making any money on them if they aren’t at least co-operating with the program.

[Punkie]

I have a facility roughly your size. One less stall and 10 more acres, but the same general set-up. I offer co-oped care and full board though I don’t currently have any clients on the full board option. I charge $200 per dry stall and my clients are responsible for everything else. However, I do things a bit differently than you do, but this may be because of my location (Ocala area) and access to a wide variety of hay and grain distributors. I purchase the hay for my whole farm and I am happy to customize feed programs and order whatever the client wishes to feed. I am unfortunately quite sick at the moment and on medical leave from school and work so I can make my orders during the week, but when I was a full time grad student and had a research project on my hands, I simply did my ordering on the first Saturday or the last Saturday of each month, whichever is closer to billing. No sweat; it takes about 10 minutes of my day and I do it while I’m having my tea.

I call the 2-4 feed stores that we get our grain and hay from and there is a line of delivery trucks loading up the hay storage room on Monday morning. I get enough hay/grain/supplements/supplies to get us through a month. And then I bill the exact amount of each client’s portion to my clients. I keep a google docs spreadsheet and scan in my receipts to a shared folder so that my clients know EXACTLY what they are paying for; not a cent more or less. I do not charge a fee for this service because a) it ultimately makes my life MUCH easier and my farm run MUCH more smoothly and b) it’s coming out of a cash account, so I am not incurring interest charges on a credit card for each day the money is out. Each client is charged for their feed/hay (either their particular order or their portion of the larger order based on what we feed each horse per day. I’m fortunate everyone that eats the same hay gets the exact same amount; a flake per 2 hours inside and 2 flakes AM and PM outside in the dormant season) and then an even split of the supplies (fly spray, laundry detergent, shavings, sweet PDZ, shampoo, showsheen, etc.). By keeping everything communal and all of the bills accessible, no one is being cheated out of anything and there is no issues of people accidentally (or purposefully) using other clients things for their horse.

The barn is co-oped and we each have X number of days based on the number of horses per boarder. Currently, I gave my boarders a discount and they have taken over my days because I am unable to do barn work at this time, but I am still able to oversee the feed and supplies and make sure that no one is out of anything they need. I also keep a farm card on file with our most frequented feed stores and my boarders are able to charge the account for supplies in a pinch. They always call or text me beforehand, but I understand that I am extremely fortunate to have the group of clients that I have. I am immediately notified by my banking app on my phone and I get an email of the receipts so I can keep track. I have never had a misappropriation of funds and because the feed stores know me and are good about keeping tabs on our typical transactions, they have called me if they thought a charge was “off” before running the account.

It may not be possible or feasible for you to do this, particularly if you don’t have delivery services in your area, but I shared this only as an example of an alternative way to run a partial care/co-op/self care boarding barn and still maintain a tight rein on feed and supplies. It may not work for everyone, but I am very fortunate it has worked for us. This place essentially runs itself with about an hour of non-barn work a month (phone calls, billing, payments, and accounting). I have a couple of lovely local high school kids that do all of the farm maintenance (paying them each $10/hr once every 2-3 weeks to mow/weed wack/spray, do simple tractor and mower maintenance, light clearing, and keep the trees trimmed up was a much better investment for me than trying to do all of that on my own. It would have taken me 3 times as long and looked half as good). Even though this place is mine, I can be gone for a month - leaving it under the care of clients - and it runs as smoothly as if I were here. Aside from care, everything critical can be managed remotely, and with a good surveillance system, it’s easy to make sure that everything is being done the way it’s supposed to. I never thought I’d say this, but this farm is the absolute least stressful thing in my life because it’s under such tight control.

[AKB]

Can you buy a couple of sheds for hay storage? If each boarder chipped in $100, there would be money to buy sheds with room to store more hay. I would find it hard to buy hay more often than once a week if I were one of your boarders. I would have a $50 or $100 fine if a boarder runs out of hay or grain. There is no excuse for running out. I believe that if you have children or horses, you feed them every day. If you chose to fast for a day, that is your decision. Horses and children don’t do well with fasting.

[NorthwoodsRider]

Punkie – your place truly does sound like heaven. I’d love to be a boarder there!

[Paks]

I go with mountainhorse. $20/day when they run out of feed. I remember attending a seminar for small businesses. They said if you aren’t thrilled when someone calls up with more work, you aren’t charging enough. In your case if you aren’t thrilled when your clients are causing you extra work you aren’t charging enough for the extra work.

[brody]

Op was venting. Lots of great thoughts in the thread. But she clearly stated venting! So

The baby oil would drive me nuts. Id have to say if you insist on baby oil how about you feed your horse when you are out cause I can’t deal with it

Running out of whatever. So annoying. Ive never had self supplied hay so that would worry me. But grain happened all the time at the barn I was managing. Grrrr.

I felled for you and totally get it. Days like that I have to just go pat ao horse and remind myself why I do it. Not for the money or glory that’s for sure.

[js]

Why not require your boarders to store grain in a type of container that will not attract ants? While I occassionally get ants in the barn none have ever gotten on the grain or containers because they are the type that are sealed (and mouse proof). Something like this http://www.chewy.com/dog/gamma2-vittles-vault-plus-pet-food/dp/101386?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=hg&utm_content=none&utm_term=&gclid=CMT8m8Gqn8ACFaTm7AoduTMAfw I use something similar bought at Petsmart. Agree too, that you need to provide more space available to store hay, if you only allow storage for a few bales per boarder then it’s not surprising that they are constantly running out.

Otherwise, I’d say if boarding is more headache than worth and making your life miserable perhaps it’s time to shut down the business. Doesn’t sound like you get any pleasure out of it and probably not much money either.

[Plainandtall]

I don’t know if this is an even worse option that baby oil- but I thought I’d mention that there is a product called “Tangle Trap” that is like the stuff that fly paper strips are made with- it comes in a can with a brush in the lid.

I was thinking if the garbage can sat in it’s own pan (like a giant house plant drip pan) and the tangle trap was inside the sides of the lower pan- that would leave the whole lid on/off area clean.

This is made by the Tanglefoot company, but it’s not the same stuff as their tanglefoot product. I’ve been looking into it as a fly trap product for bloodsucking flies. I can’t find it in stores though- I think it needs to be mail ordered.

[Chachie]

Ok, I may have misread your original post, but I’m not usually one to do that. I had originally quoted your OP that had it in there that you don’t give anything if they run out and the way it read to me then (and I reread it too) was that if they run out, you don’t give anything. Not your problem in so many words. FWIW, the way that you did write it does lead someone to believe what I wrote. I’m not the only one who picked up on it. Still, I never said that you were starving anyone’s horses, just warning you to be careful about saying that you aren’t feeding them anything. And to stress that you need to be more aware that the horses on your property are still your responsibility. It is the risk that we take offering boarding on our own properties. So regardless of what your contract states, in the end, if something does indeed happen, you can be held just as accountable, if not more so, than the owner.
That being said, I still stand by most of what I said, and what the others have said on here too. Even though you were venting, it does sound like you need to change your ways a bit because you’re getting the rough end of the stick.
Your boarders are taking advantage of you, even if it happens only every so often, it is still happening and the problem is that you are the one letting it happen. This is your barn so your rules must be enforced and since you put them in place, you can’t really complain too much if you are letting it happen more than once.
I also run a boarding facility that is about your size but I do full care only, even when I had a full time job, it was still full care only. And I’m 40 years old, and even though I am married, I still run the barn myself, even when I was working full time. So I know how hectic it can be, especially when you have boarders who don’t want to follow the rules.
One thing I did when I had another place that had more local boarders (mine here are all long distance boarders) is I held meetings when I needed to change a policy or discuss something that affected everyone. This way I could address issues openly across the board without singling anyone out. I handed out meeting notes, just like I did at my practices and made it informally formal. I bought pizza, had a small cookout etc but was able to get my points across so everyone knew what was expected, gave everyone a chance to discuss it openly, and at times had to be the b*tchy BM when I had to put down my foot.
This might be good for you in your situation, too, along with the public shame calendar.
The reality is that from what you wrote and expressed, you are doing an awful lot of work for a minimal amount of money and getting a lot of stress added on top that you really don’t need.
I know how self-care is supposed to work. I’ve done self-care before and luckily, the other boarders in the barn were awesome and it was more of a un-official co-op at times. But as others have said, self-care only works when you have good boarders, the main reason that I chose to stay full care now while I am pregnant instead of moving to self-care.
You need to change your policies and make this worth your time and its aggravation, right now it doesn’t seem like it is worth it for you. So maybe you need to take a step back, take a deep breath and take a good hard look at where you are now as opposed to where you were 10 years ago when you started. Then ask yourself if this headache is really worth it. Will you still want it to be this way in 5 years? 10 years? Next month? If the answer is no, now is the time to change it.
You have your setup set up to be problematic. If you don’t have much hay storage space, you need to come up with a better solution. When we self boarded we stored our hay outside (we used round bales at the time) on tarps with pallets on them and covered by even more tarps. We never had an issue with them getting wet, snowed on or anything because of the way we had them done up. One boarder had to do it that way too when the roof collapsed over her part of the hay loft. She never had a problem either. So doing something like this may be an option for your boarders if you have the space or can’t put in more storage areas, via a hay loft or hay shed.
You do have to make sure that what you are going through is worth your while. Even though the market in your area may dictate a certain rate, the services you offer don’t have to follow that. It seems like you are undercutting your time and effort (something I do as well) so you have gotten some very good suggestions from everyone on here and hopefully you can see something that will benefit you and make things easier.
Good luck

[Bogie]

[QUOTE=Mango20;7718363]
I think it would be easier if you just provided the hay for everyone (with the appropriate increase in board fees). That way, you’ll never run out, and you’ll know that all the horses will at least have something to eat every day. If they run out of grain, they’ll be fine and you can just let it go until the owner gets around to noticing. I also think you need to charge them significantly more than a dollar when you have to inform them. For most, $1 is probably no big deal, so they just wait for their reminder to buy more stuff.[/QUOTE]

I agree. If a horse doesn’t get grain for a couple of days, it’s not a catastrophe as long as there is hay.

OR, tell the boarders they need to buy hay as a co-op and delegate the task to one person. I don’t know how much storage you have, but we buy about a ton, or a ton and a half at a time. The hay is delivered and stacked for us, so no extra work. FWIW, depending on the amount each bale weighs, that’s roughly 100 bales for 5 horses. We feed more like #22/day/horse. All boarders pay their share. Are you saying you can’t store even 100 bales? It would make life so much easier for everyone!

I’m in a coop barn. I buy the hay for the whole barn and bill it back to everyone else. When I buy hay, I know we will never run out. In our barn, people are welcome to buy/feed whatever grain and/or supplements they like, but everyone gets the same hay.

[vxf111]

I am with those who say the hay storage sounds really, really limiting to me and is a huge part of your problem. That amount of storage would never work for me. If all your boarders chip in and buy hay from the same supplier, he might even deliver it in a shipping container and leave the container. My trainer did that this winter. Voila-- loads of hay and free temporary storage. It worked grest!

[kathy_s]

[QUOTE=cyriz’s mom;7718681]
Change your fee to $10/day. Put a dry erase board up in the feed room. Everytime someone incurs a fee, put it on the board. Make it THEIR responsibility to see if and how much they owe before the next board is due. If they don’t, then charge them a late fee for that.

Make them responsible and quit enabling their behavior.[/QUOTE]

You guys are too nice. Charge $10/day for the first 2 days and $25/day after that until the boarder stocks up. I agree with everyone else-$1 day is nothing. You have to make running out of feed/hay hurt their pocket book. I bet they will quickly learn to keep supplies and it’s much less hassle for you.

[SpottedTApps]

Having lived with horses in various parts of the country, one thing I found was that boarding is handled differently in different areas. Some areas have never even HEARD of a self care facility and it seems ridiculous. Other areas, it’s the main and common practice. Obviously, it can work.

In FL it’s the most common practice. Most live within 10 miles of their barn. Most barn owners charge $150/mo and they will toss feed in the morning and turn out. It is owner’s responsibility to bring in and clean/night feed. Most facilities provide space only for a small amount of hay. (makes sense anyway as hay molds easily here with all the moisture in air)

Partial board prices can go up with more care (all feeding/turn out/bring in/stalls etc.).

Your complaints are logical, and full care barn owners also get boarder complaints. No worries.

The only thing I’d do differently is charge boarders $10 per feeding that they are out of either hay/grain. That will very quickly get their attention. I’d keep track of this on a white board AND in writing.

Good luck! Boarders can be a head ache, but they can also help pay for your own passion.

[Tif_Ann]

[QUOTE=Seeker_11;7718597]
trubandloki - If a boarder runs out of feed I don’t feed that horse anything. Much better in my opinion to not suddenly change feeds like that, so I’ll throw them more of their hay. If they run out of hay I don’t do anything, they just get their grain. I used to throw a horse hay but over the years my boarders like this have trained me that if they don’t care, why should I? By throwing their horse hay it actually made them lazier about going to get hay before they ran out. :-\ [/QUOTE]

Do be careful with this policy, and check your local laws. The grain isn’t a big deal - missing a meal or two of grain doesn’t typically hurt, but the hay could be. Many states will hold the landowner just as responsible for the condition of the horse as the caretaker, and providing food is mandatory. Not to mention that if the horse should colic or something because there was no food you are in for a nightmare. You are much better off charging a large fee, like $10/feeding than just not feeding a horse because there is no hay. I imagine most horses miss at least 2 meals when this happens and go probably at least 24 hours with no forage at all? (clarifying because I later read they are on grass pastures as well - probably should have mentioned that in the first place. We don’t feed any hay when they are on pasture, so obviously the pasture months it wouldn’t matter)

I also agree with the people who say 6 bales/2 weeks of storage is probably just not enough room. Even if you could provide them with room for a month’s worth you’d probably do better. Also, being more proactive - like a text message/alert system when you are down to two bales or something, would greatly reduce stress.

Every self-care place I’ve ever boarded has required us to prepare our own feed and be responsible for it. They would feed one meal a day if we had it prepared in front of the stall waiting - but we also paid extra for one turnout or bring in service per day, and the feeding was part of that. One barn that repeatedly had problems with people running out of hay and self-care people leaving their horses out to pasture and forgetting to leave hay out for morning feed with the pasture horses eventually just raised the self-care price and included one feeding of hay per day in the cost.

Honestly, though, reading all your reasons for not wanting to make it easier just shows you really don’t want to solve the problem. What your boarders do on facebook and such isn’t really your concern. It sounds like you are feeling taken advantage of but unless you voice your expectations and treat it like a business, you’re going to just continue to resent and build up these frustrations. It’s a business, and you’ve chosen the terms. As long as there are no consequences such as fines, no one is going to take things seriously. You can resolve a lot of your own stress by setting expectations and having consequences.

[Heart_s_Journey]

Partial board places can work. I board at a place with 9 stalls (all have huge turnouts) and the BO knows nothing about horses. He does have a guy living on site that is available to fix fences, install gates, cut down trees, etc as needed which is great.
Everyone provides their own hay/grain/shavings and we have room to store about a month’s worth each if we want. We don’t have a Barn Manager, but I guess I have kinda stepped into the role as I have the most experience with owning horses. We have an am feeding schedule - each feeds at least 1 am and some of us feed 2. Nights you are responsible for your own feeding, but we often text each other to help out. One other girl and I take turns each night with our two, but she recently left for 4 months for Officer training and I am taking care of her horse.
We set up am feed in large plastic bins - hay & grain. It is very rare for anyone to run out of anything, though I have given some hay when one girl did. We all get along and help sweep, clean, etc I have boarded at many places and while there is nothing fancy about this one, I am very happy. It’s only 1/2 mile from my house and a county park across the street for riding. We only have 1 pasture, but we have several empty paddocks that are grassy and are great for turnout as well. It can work!

[Chief2]

We are in a barn that has offered full board, partial board and pasture board for a very long time, and runs like a well-oiled machine. It means clear rules, and clear costs. The barn will sell you hay be the bale, at a profit to make up for their time and labor loading it in. For an additional charge, they will then take flakes out of that bale and feed your horse daily. However, if they have to do this, you will be charged an additional fee for each feeding you need this service. To put an end to this problem at your end, I would suggest setting your per bale price at or just beneath retail at the grain store, and charge $5 per feeding for haying. Do not sell by the flake. It is too easy to take advantage of the management this way when their checkbook runs low. Don’t be their bank.

If the grain they use is supplied by your supplier, you will happily order in a bag for them and charge them for it, including the delivery charge. If they are using a different supplier, they are out of luck. That will also get them off of the dime. Either way, they are then responsible for bagging their food in dry clean baggies or dry clean tupperware-type containers and labeling it accordingly. Talk to the baby oil person and tell her to stop or you will not be graining her horse. The end.

Boarders require solid, clear rules that the management will stick to, and a contract to ram them into place. You sound so frustrated that it sounds to me that the boarders are running the staff and you, and not the other way around. With the end of summer coming, it is an excellent time to re-evaluate policies, make changes and stick to them. Let your boarders know of your changes, and then stick to your guns. If they don’t like living by your rules, tell them to go someplace else. Frankly, we usually experience feelings like yours 2/3 of the way through a hellacious winter because we are tired of dealing with snow, or midway through haying season because of fatigue from loading in the barn with a years supply of hay, which translates to 5000 (45-pound) bales. Toss in show season, and no one has the chops to deal with this type of idiocy. Get your boarders under control, or get them gone. Life isn’t worth dancing to everyone else’s tunes.