Getting our own place vs boarding - with specifics

[starrunner]

I feel like maybe I have the best of both worlds or maybe the worst of both?

I have four horses at home (two boarders, two are mine). One of my personal horses is my elderly 30 year old that needs soaked feed but doesn’t like to be stalled which started to prevent issues in a traditional boarding situation. She can no longer hold her own in an outdoor board scenario, even being grained but she paces nonstop if stalled.

So she was one of the original reasons we purchased our farmette. This place is and has been a fixer upper but everything we’ve set up is to create ease of handling for horse chores and we keep improving and doing most of the work ourselves. The stalls are dutch doors/in and out. I have automatic waterers inside and out to cut down on time doing waters.

All pastures and drylots are connected via gates so we don’t have to handle horses to move them around.

We built an attached haybarn so I can bring in more hay and we now can store bulk shavings in a gravity box which has cut down our shavings costs by $200/month.

My old lady is happy and doing fabulous.

But I also have my show horse boarded because I don’t have an arena at home. The plus side is she’s boarded just a couple houses down on the same road with my coach. This has been a built in support with helping network for hay, helping lend equipment, covering in case of emergencies etc. It of course goes both ways!

I also have one of her employees clean my stalls a couple times a week and pick out the dry lot as well. The money had been worth it as it means I cut down the time and often go ride on those evenings instead and I’ll often so some of the other chores like scrubbing out waterers or dusting instead of picking stalls so I still am trying to use my time effectively.

The cost of our farmette is definitely about the cost of a home anywhere near the city in which I work. I have about a half hour commute each way but I do try and bundle going to the store, running errands, etc all in while I’m in town.

But I’m very thankful to so far have a pretty comfortable setup at this point in my life. I imagine as we age and want to travel more, we will reconsider but for now we enjoy the work and sweat equity.

[fourfillies]

Considering some of these blended situations can be the best of both worlds. I board one of my horses at a place with an indoor. Aside from the payoff period a personal indoor being close to never, the companionship of fellow riders and a built-in support network to source hay, bemoan the weather, find a house sitter etc and basically not be isolated as I could easily become, if all of mine were at home is well worth the savings differential of having that one at home. I also bundle trips when I go ride like to the feed store, that’s on that part of town. I also like the peace of mind of knowing I can bring my horse home if finances or other situations would dictate it. I (briefly) tried trailering in for lessons.

[JesseG]

My close friend has 45 to 50 horses on their property right now and it’s so much labor. Definitely a full-time job, even just to do a few of the tasks. you’re definitely getting what you pay for. They hate that the waterers get so gross/are difficult to clean and they break a lot. It’s great that you guys clean the waterers instead of leaving it for clients to have to do themselves. So many places don’t seem to care about the water getting dirty and leave it up to the horse owner.
Do you happen to know any specifics of how long it takes to clean the waterers? Also, which waterers are you guys using? I saw that Horseproof claims the EasyClean takes 1/5 of the time for cleaning on average. Being a technical person, I do want to see those claims put to the test, so I’m SUPER curious if you had ever measured the time or calculated labor for that.
Has anyone else seen these? https://www.instagram.com/horseproofmfg/
I gotta say I do like the design though, and a friend of mine loves them.

[2DogsFarm]

@JesseG

So many places don’t seem to care about the water getting dirty

IME - 20yrs of horses at home - horses’ idea of “clean” water is different than most humans.
The 5gal heated buckets in my stalls get topped off daily. Sometimes 3X a day, so I know they’re drinking from them.
Buckets get dumped & scrubbed maybe once a month.
I have a 50gal foodgrade plastic barrel serving as a trough in front of the barn. Also topped off when level looks like the 34" mini might not be able to reach it.
He has a bucket in his stall, all 3 have free access to stalls, but his rear entrance is only 4’ high.
Trough gets dumped & scrubbed even less often. Maybe 4 or 5 times a year.

In nice weather, when I dump the barrel & scrub out the accumulated yuck at the bottom & sides, 9 times out of 10 my horses will come over & drink the water I dumped.

When I’ve scrubbed stall buckets or trough, added a splash of bleach & refilled with pristine, clear water, not a one rushes over to drink it.
In fact, if stall buckets get the scrub&refill & trough doesn’t, they’ll still drink from the trough over the buckets.
Horses!

[Boomer]

I have done both. The math I did on board vs home depends on number of horses for me. When I owned farms, I had 3-4 horses. When I got down to 1, it made sense for me to board.

Say the farm mortgage is $1800 and cost to board & have a small house is $1800.

If I have the farm, I still have to buy hay, grain and shavings. If I go out of town I need a farm sitter. I still have to buy a tractor and do all the maintenance, plus work a full time/non horsey job. I’m single and not getting younger, so the physical aspect could be an issue sooner or later.

I like boarding as it has a tad more social component than if I was at the farm alone. I work and nearly all the boarders at the barn are retired, so a lot of the time I have the place to myself. There isn’t a trainer at the boarding barn, but have an awesome one that travels to me. I have a trailer so still independent and can get out and about.

When I had the farm, I loved it but I was a Farm Nun. My life revolved around the place. The upside to the farm is I feel like I had a better relationship with my horses, I saw them all the time (this is a good/bad feature depending on the day and weather, lol). Things got done (or not done) how I wanted and when.

So it’s really about what you want/willing to do and in your case, what hubby is willing to do/not do. He may never touch a horse or bag of feed but then he might find it enjoyable.

The farm I had in Mississippi was 22 acres. The farm in SC was 10 acres.

[Boomer]

We don’t have an indoor where I board but the barn manager does a great job getting the right boarders - right now everyone is pretty enjoyable to be around. And yeah, who doesn’t need another horse person to bemoan the weather and horse ownership woes with, lol.