Florida board/buy farmette?

[Laurierace]

Posting in h/j since the area we are considering is near WEF, not necessarily because we will ever show there. For those of you who winter in the Wellington/Loxahatchee area can you help me walk through the pros and cons of buying a small farm vs. boarding please? Is there such a thing as relatively affordable seasonable board for horses that may not ever show here? I don’t need full service board and want my horses outside more than inside. Don’t want the requirement to be in full training. Is this even possible or do we need to buy our own place to make that happen in your experience?

We are starting our search next week when our agent shows us a few houses with and without horse facilities so hopefully that will clear things up a bit in our minds. We are not in any hurry and are hoping this will be our last ever home so need to search carefully. Thank you in advance for sharing your experience.

[Laurierace]

I guess you all are as confused about the equation as I am! I will let you know if I figure out how to answer my own question as we work our way through this process.

[Laurierace]

I guess I am talking to myself but wanted to update that we are looking at our first two Wellington area farms today, hopefully this will help create some clarity as to which option is better for us.

[mmeqcenter]

Woo! Fingers crossed!

Year-round board without training requirements does exist, I think it’s often in the $900+ range.

[Against_All_Odds2]

@Laurierace

pros and cons of buying a small farm vs. buying please

I think it may be the question. Do you mean renting vs buying?

[Laurierace]

Thanks for the correction. I meant buying a farm vs boarding.

[Against_All_Odds2]

I would try at least boarding for a few months, personally.

While I am confident in my ability to keep my own where I live, one thing this board has taught me is Florida boarding is an entirely different animal. It would be nice to see whats what and what works while boarding. Especially sourcing good hay suppliers

[weixiao]

If you aren’t going to be there year round, make sure you get some quotes for upkeep on the place when you are gone and think about things like having to go down and board up for hurricanes, etc. Those kinds of things really added up financially and stress wise when my dad owned a small farm in Wellington and we were there part of the year. That and FL property taxes…

[TheDBYC]

I can’t help with the number crunching but I’m really jealous as I sit here watching ice/rain pouring off the gutter.

[Laurierace]

Well today was very helpful. I loved the farm we looked at but think we are leaning towards boarding. We looked at some houses as well and they just made more sense for us.

[BostonHJ]

I would agree the Florida farmette is a different animal - drainage and or irrigation, manure removal & pest management are on a whole different level. The grass also tends to be not loved by horses and what does get eaten/tromped can quickly turn into a sandpit you will have an extremely hard time getting back to turf.

Boarding or at home, the best grooming tool you can have is a vacuum to get that sand off!

[Laurierace]

The main reason we decided to look for houses without a barn in part is all the things you guys mentioned that make horse keeping more difficult in your area but the main reason was social. We were looking for a barn with 6 stalls or less so it would be something manageable to keep just my horses as opposed to having to board other people’s horses or rent out part of it to help pay the mortgage. But having a small barn at home just for ourselves meant that I would be at home taking care of them all by myself. We would be moving to an area where we knew no one and spending all our time alone in our private barn. I figured if we boarded at least we would see other human beings. So as beautiful as the places with the small barn was, it felt very lonely and isolated as there weren’t even any neighbors nearby. Honestly that wasn’t something that even came to mind until I was standing in the barn looking around so I am glad we got to look so we could get some clarity. Thanks for your help with this decision

[soloudinhere]

I have relatively reasonable seasonal board just south of Wellington, but your turnout requirement is going to be a major kicker for any boarding facility especially in season when they are all full. My place will turn out overnight if you want, but the paddocks that are available for it are not a place I’d want to leave a horse unsupervised. That said, they exist. You can PM me if you want information.

Unless you rent a portion of a farm for yourself, getting access to turnouts for more than a few hours per horse per day is going to be very difficult to find.