At $25.00 per hour in a 10 horse barn at 30 min per horse per day( Stall, feeding, turnout , bringing in , fly spray, blankets ) that would come to about $375.00 per month in Care per horse ,( that assumes this is a trade and no work comp or taxes ect… are being paid by the barn owner on her workers) average $200.00 per month in bedding , grain , hay, and another 100.00 per month in asplit for utilities, Insurance , taxes and your at $675.00 for a medium facility For board with no training or lessons and that would be a break even situation for the barn owner.
[QUOTE=spotteddrafter;7257696]
Good thoughts! I work off my board at a rate of $25/hour and we are a 10-stall facility. We are a really NICE facility, but the BOs go above and beyond in taking care of me.[/QUOTE]
I actually agree with you as long as the business is making enough of a profit in order to do that . However most barns around here break even on board , they make there money on lessons shows and training… Most boarders would not be able to afford board around here if their barns didn’t have a school horse programs and shows to generate income. The taxes alone on some barns can be 20,000.00 , 30,000 40,000 per year and higher, I was at one Farm where the taxes were $38,000.00 per year , it was a 30 horse barn , that meant each stall cost over $100.00 per month in Property taxes ( This did not have a House on it it was strictly a farm)
I am in Ontario and I work at a high end private farm. I get 15/hour for all the usual farm stuff. Feeding turnout/in blanketing/booting mucking and misc things like dusting jump setting cold hose wrapping medication or whatever needs to be done…this is for about 10 stalls and we use a gator to muck. I love working there…I get to bring my dogs, everyone is nice, the work is easy as everything is set up to flow smoothly and the barn is heated in the winter…
the low end barns I have worked for paid 10-12 and hour for the same duties but it was usually more work as we had more stalls and used wheelbarrows ect…plus I couldn’t bring my dogs so I had to pay a dog sitter. Needless to say I don’t work there anymore.
If I clean about 6 stalls for my trainer (usually just picking/cleaning, sometimes stripping a stall and adding more bedding) I get a $40/hour lesson for free.
[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7257826]
Wow!! Don’t mean to de-rail this thread, but where do you live that house cleaners get those sort of rates?
Granted, I live in a (relatively) low-income area, but around here your basic (not specialized) registered nurse barely gets this wage, and certainly not housekeepers. I’ve seen ads posted and the going rate is usually between $10-12 per hr.[/QUOTE]
Erm, definitely in DC. Haven’t found an independent one who is going to take $10-12 an hour.
Wow. I get $8/hr to clean 10 stalls, 2 paddocks, and one run-in barn. There are 20 horses on the property at any given time. I feed, dump & scrub water troughs/buckets, sweep, clean tack, pull manes, groom/tack horses for the BO/clients, longe, and ride occasionally. Six days per week; one of her students takes the seventh day.
I’ve been working at this barn for going on 3 years, and worked at another barn for 3 before that BO retired and sold her facility (paid $25/day for feeding, mucking, and tidying up barn). I obviously don’t make a living from this job.
[QUOTE=mvp;7252662]
To answer this question: Because working part time doesn’t mean you get to do a half-a$$ed job for the, say, 4 hours you are there.
IMO, a job is a job no matter how long it takes. It should be paid the same whether the person is working 40 hours a week or 20.
And the employee having another source of income (like a bread-winning spouse) is none of the employer’s business… unless you think the SO should be underwriting your labor costs.
In addition, I don’t think having 2 or 3 part time jobs is a joy. So while each part time employer can imagine that she’s not responsible for providing much-- say, some pocket money and a way to get out of the house-- the reality might be that the money earned is necessary to paying for the basics like food and fuel.
Come to think of it, this “hey, it’s a part time job so the same job should be paid less” reeks a little bit of the arguments that used to be made about paying women less. Somehow a woman doing a job wasn’t about work and fair pay because she was presumed to have a husband doing that.[/QUOTE]
Whhaaaattt?
At the barn I manage two people can get the whole shebang done between the hours of 7 and 10. I am one of the two people and work along side, we HAUL @$$ and have all the fancy toys to whip through it.
That said no matter how sympathetic I am to the cause I am not going to demand or pay someone else an 8 hour wage for three hours of work. I have held multiple jobs for eons, at times was basically two full time jobs at once, the great majority of my friends have multiple jobs/businesses, whether they are a full time CFO if an entertainment company also having a full time high end CPA gig on the side, or work for the Dept of Homeland Security and also have a wedding planning business on the side, or if they do stalls/go to school/wait tables all in one day.
Maybe my group of friends is a self selecting group of enterpreneurial, motivated, and unusually hardworking people, but apparently we are doing it wrong if barn help should all be getting full time pay and a decently comfortable lifestyle for the sh*t we get done between the hours of 4:30am and 7:30, before the rest of the world has even gotten up out of bed.
Not how it works.
Thanks I started this thread because I wanted to know what people thought a REASONABlE Fair wage was for Mucking Stalls , I have come to the conclusion that it is as much as a barn can afford. If your in an area where board is around $400.00 per month than $10 to $12.00 seems reasonable for EXPERIENCED help ( No need for supervision) and minimum wage per hour for beginner help. If your in a high end barn that charges $1500 for board alone , then $12.00 To $17.00 per hour but even at that still minimum wage to start for un experienced help. This is mucking stalls with minimal horse handling duties involved. For the poster that is at $8.00 per hour , I agree that after the aount of time you have been there you should have gotten raises and if it meant raising baord to cover those increased costs then that’s what should be done, We raise our rates based on yearly increases in the price of feed , hay , bedding , utitities, Insurance rates, taxes ect… A barn owner needs to take the cost of good reliable help into that equation too. A 50 cent per hour raise in a barn with 20 boarders equates to about a $1 per week raise in board , not much for the boarder BUT an extra $1,000 per year for a full time 40 per hour per week worker.
Maybe my group of friends is a self selecting group of enterpreneurial, motivated, and unusually hardworking people, but apparently we are doing it wrong if barn help should all be getting full time pay and a decently comfortable lifestyle for the sh*t we get done between the hours of 4:30am and 7:30, before the rest of the world has even gotten up out of bed.
Or maybe you just have less responsibility at the barn and fancy toys to play with. Seems to me that not everyone can finish their barn chores by 7 a.m. and for a lot of people it actually is a long day.
I think what MVP was saying is that the hourly rate shouldn’t change because it’s part time staffer.
To the person who is making $8 hour, unless your area of the country is highly depressed, you’re getting screwed.
I boarded at a large barn where a crew came in a 5.00 am and mucked out and gone before rest of staff arrived. Awful situation. Horses were restless because they were waiting for food (8:00 am) and by noon stalls were a serious mess . I would never cope with that sort of barn routine again. BO did not like it but put up with as crew was reliable. Crew would not feed. Headed off to racetrack to muck out stalls as soon as stalls done.
[QUOTE=Trixie;7261784]
Or maybe you just have less responsibility at the barn and fancy toys to play with. Seems to me that not everyone can finish their barn chores by 7 a.m. and for a lot of people it actually is a long day.
I think what MVP was saying is that the hourly rate shouldn’t change because it’s part time staffer.
To the person who is making $8 hour, unless your area of the country is highly depressed, you’re getting screwed.[/QUOTE]
I don’t think the hourly rate should be different, but my interpretation of mvp’s post was that 40 hours should get the same pay (total, not hourly) as 20 hours because having multiple jobs is in itself difficult or “not fun.” If I misunderstood then carry on.
I also said absolutely nothing about how long it takes to get chores done at other people’s places. At our place two people can get it done in three hours. So they will get paid for three hours of work because that is how long it takes. Not eight because the whole job is done now and the rest of the day is open. If it takes someone else somewhere else with a different set up more or less time to do their barn that is a completely separate issue.
meupatdoes - how many stalls are there where you are?
I dunno – I take care of 12 horses. One lives out. I charge $5/stall. I do not charge hourly because of varying reasons I can be there longer some days than others. I feed, I turn out and I clean the stalls/barn. It takes me on average 2 hours at most as one person.
My body hurts. Every. Single. Day!
Wow that’s a lot of work for two people!Just doing that many stalls and turning out is plenty along with feeding and watering.It also depends if you are taking taxes out.I would pay at least $15 hr after taxes and I would have four people to do that many stalls and horses.
[QUOTE=jse;7262551]
meupatdoes - how many stalls are there where you are?[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure how it is relevant to the thread since the point is that it takes however long it takes, but at our place there are 27 horses.
There are 10 stalls in one barn and 6 in the other, plus 7 “lesson horse stalls” which the lesson horses don’t overnight in but they hang out in those stalls when they have been brought down from “the hill” and are waiting for their lessons.
