What would you consider a fair hourly wage for mucking stalls, turning out, feeding and watering? aprox 20 to 25 horses at any given time with Two people doing the job. Having a hard time finding reliable help , just want to see what you all think is a fair wage for this kind of work.
Around here (PA) you see minimum wage to $10 offered.
One summer I was paid $100 cash for every three days I helped a woman with overall barn chores like those and grooming/tacking her Saddlebreds. It was about 3 hours per day, so I was actually making a bit more than $10/hr.
For what it’s worth-this is not meant to sound snarky-- but it depends on a lot of things. Depending on level of care for these horses, that could be a 10+ hour day for these people each day. Are we talking WEF quality care/well bedded stalls? Because in that case, 10-12+ stalls per person is a lot if you want them done well. Same with turnout, are these horses getting fully booted all around, turnouts/flysheets/flymasks, and then undressed/redressed when they come in? Because that takes a lot of time also.
I think it’s generally better to give a flat rate for work given- then it’s less about how long something takes. I know people who pay their private Monday help (regular persons day off) $100/day for 1 person to do 6-8 horses (no grooming/riding- basically exactly what you said- stalls, feed, turnout or hand walking, watering, cleaning buckets). The barn and horses are immaculate. When they need extra help, they’ve paid $12-15/hour depending on what’s being done. This would be high end WEF quality care. But their help sticks around.
Why not ask people when you interview what they’re looking to earn?
Yes I agree about $10/hour…although if you want someone dependable, knowledgeable, etc, you may have to dish out more. It will be hard to find an adult who is trying to make a decent living willing to work full/part time on that wage, and to find a reliable one at that…people simply can’t make ends meet and probably want more $$$/hour. I wonder if you could find an ambitious teenager who could work some after school hours to earn money. I know a teenager who would LOVE a situation like you are offering.
OP asked for mucking, feeding, watering and turn out/ bring in. I assume that is basic service only? Minimum wage to $10 an hour. If you add blanket swaps, grooming/ clean up after turn out , add $2 an hour.
It’s semi skilled entry level work that pays less then unemployment/public assistance in many states so good luck.
Have you tried contacting high schools or community colleges with vocational programs in agriculture? My barn has found outstanding and motivated young people that way eager to learn and put in the time…and you can provide opportunity.
Check with other barns as well. IME, there are more people wanting to do barn work at bigger barns than there is work to be done. I mean working off board. But could be a source of knowledgeable workers for you.
I would pay about $10/hr for regular help, and let them know there is longevity pay (ie you actually stay and continue with quality work beyond six months (or a winter season), you get a raise…). Three to six months has been, from my experience, when people start to fade away. And I don’t mean a quarter, I mean like $.75 to $1. Twenty to 25 horses, feeding, turnout, stalls, bringing in and feeding again? That’s going to be FT. I did 21 inside horses and about an additional 30 outside horses, feeding x2, mucking, sweeping, etc, by myself, and I was starting at or before 8am. If I finished before 7pm then I was busting my ass, didn’t need to rebed stalls, no one was hurt, nothing broke, and I was leading two or three horses at a time in and out. If you find someone who does good work, is reliable, that raise is so, so worth it. To you and the worker.
Agreed, $10 is about right, but dont be suprised if you cant even find that. I worked as a full time groom my last two years in highschool for a top hunter trainer… turnout, med, boots, groomed, cleaned tack, had 10-15 horses at a time, lunged at shows, took them to the ring, cleaned stalls at the shows, cleaned the aisle, etc. I got $75 a day for horse show days (usualy 4am - 8pm) and $35 a day non show… still usually 7am - 4 pm… pretty horrible actually. Granted this was 2006, but still. burnt me out REAL quick.
House keepers/cleaning charge $25 - $30.00 an hour. Why is stable help sucked into a very low min wage? Barn staff is skilled, works in all kinds of weather ( at least where I live) and has to drive to get here. Impossible to live, maintain a car and have suitable clothing on any kind of min wage. Good help should be well paid and taken care of.
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When I groomed in Ontario the going rate was $85/day to start at most “A” barns. Good staff quickly got raises to approx. $100/day to keep them around. On top of that I also had an apartment at the farm in Ontario and the one in Florida with the condition that I did night check 5-6 nights/wk, along with access to a vehicle so I didn’t have to bring mine to FL for the winter.
I would never expect a schooling or lower level barn to pay that much, but that’s also why I wouldn’t work there full-time…
As they say, you pay for what you get or want, your choice
I work at my trainer’s barn during the summer and on weekends throughout the year. I get paid $35 for half the barn, and half the paddocks. If I’m quick, I can get the work done in 3 hours… But sometimes it takes me longer. I agree that who ever does the work should be paid a certain amount for the work being done, not by hour.
Another idea…set it up so the workers run their own business (in a sense).
Figure out how long it takes to clean a stall properly, and tell the workers they will be paid per stall cleaned. Provide the tools (forks, rakes, wheelbarrow, etc.) and after that, if they need to replace a tool, they pay for it. Once they have a vested interest in what they’re doing, efficiency and quality of work improves. This system was done at a large training farm in California and worked beautifully.
Just a thought…
The last time I worked in a barn I had 20 horses to feed, turnout, muck and bring in. The rate was $70/day and it usually took 3 hours tops depending on how lazy I was. Stalls all had auto water bowls, and matted level flooring with a decent amount of bedding. If the stalls had non level floors with buckets that needed to be cleaned I would have never done it for $70/day.
Around here, it is $15/hr for really, really reliable help. That is feeding, mucking, turning in/out.
[QUOTE=Mardi;7250796]
Another idea…set it up so the workers run their own business (in a sense).
Figure out how long it takes to clean a stall properly, and tell the workers they will be paid per stall cleaned. Provide the tools (forks, rakes, wheelbarrow, etc.) and after that, if they need to replace a tool, they pay for it. Once they have a vested interest in what they’re doing, efficiency and quality of work improves. This system was done at a large training farm in California and worked beautifully.
Just a thought…[/QUOTE]
The second I’m informed that I have to replace the wheels on a 15 year old wheelbarrow, or replace a fork when the tines undoubtedly break after a few winters is the second I decline that job. 
OP: you have to make it worth doing more than an easy retail job. Around here, any non-corporate job (and even some of the corporate ones) start at $9.00/hour, even though minimum wage is only $8. Most “minimal education” jobs start at $10/hour, really…things like helping around an office, doing some easy yardwork, etc.
So you have to make slogging around in the mud, in the freezing cold, knocking ice out of buckets “worth” it to someone who could easily go and stand in a climate-controlled area and organize files. The advice on threads of a similar nature has been to “find a teenager who’ll do it for cheap” and “find someone who really just loves being around horses.” Those people are great, but those are the people who burn out and leave after three months, or right before winter.
Additionally, it’s fine to pay by the task, but make it reasonable. I started cleaning stalls at one place, for $2.50 a stall, mucked and bedded. I could do about 5 an hour (I’m not slow, the standards were high!), which worked out to a decent wage…that is until the owner informed me that multiple water and feed buckets per stall would need to be scrubbed daily and refilled (and the barn was not set up with hoses…buckets had to be lugged), hay would need to be fetched and set out, and oh yeah, the whole aisle in the area I was working would need to be swept. All of a sudden what had been taking me two hours was taking me three, for the same amount of money, and I had gone from making above minimum wage to below minimum wage…well below, once you factored gas in.
I also arrived at that barn more than once to find that the owner had already done half the stalls I was supposed to do. Yes, I was on time, she just felt like saving money that day. That was fine, but at that point it was basically pointless for me to have driven out there, with gas the way it is.
I have worked at many barns, including at a breeding farm with studs and babies (the best job, where I was paid a sizeable hourly wage and guaranteed a certain number of hours a day), and at this point I know half-way through a barn job walk-through if the owner is paying reasonably, whether they say they are or not.
I make $10 hr doing this. I do it twice a week, and it takes me roughly 2 hours. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But I love doing it, it is good exercise, and it makes a dent in my board bill.
I’ve seen it paid by the job. That way it’s on the worker to be efficient. There’s a reasonable amount given, and the time estimated, so that it works out to about $10/ hr.
The horse person in me says a mucking job is much nicer than a mcdonalds job, but I’m sure your average teen doesn’t see it like that.
On the flip side of this, how many board out and know what the barn staff is paid? How much more are you willing to pay to bring it up to what some have suggested?
BTW I always did know and paid more for better adult professional staff. Many can’t or won’t pay more.
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I know the staff at my barn starts at $12.50 an hour and the head person makes $14.00 plus a very nice apartment. ( I happened to overhear the owner discussing this with someone else). This is above average for this area. They do great work, have a great attitude and the farm has very low turnover. The owner frequently brings them lunch and otherwise treats them like valued staff, which they are. I have boarded at many places all around the country and this staff ranks right up there with the best farm I was ever at which was a thoroughbred breeding farm.
