What is the going hourly rate for barn help? Feeding, cleaning stalls, turning out, etc.
I pay $10/hr. But, I hire Amish kids ages 14-7. My neighbor has 9âDad says I donât have to pay the kidsâthey like helping an elderly neighbor. I pay them anyway, and supervise them well. I try to make the work fun and tell them how much I appreciate their help. They love using my bows and arrows and target shooting with me (not paid time). They were over the moon when I traded them a (safe) old saddle and pad for 8 hours of work. They have a buggy horse trained to ride but had no saddle. I do mounted archery and expect they will be over here this summer to try shooting off their mare. Meanwhile, I am making a list of things I need done starting with oldest bringing over dadâs skid steer and smoothing my track. Good kids who work hard!!
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Northeast Ohio area, it used to be around $10/$12 but now its more like $12/$15 an hour. Some places will also pay a flat rate, i.e. $3/$4 per stall since some people are much slower than others.
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I am planning to pay $15/hr and wanted to make sure that was competitive.
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It depends on where you live. Where I am $15 an hour is below minimum wage
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Minimum wage where I am is $12/hr
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At the barn where my horse lives, I am one of the fill-in grooms and am basically a working student on those days. I groom and tack up horses in training for my coach, do turnouts, longe, and groom horses who donât have people nearby. This takes three hours. In return, I receive a 45-minute dressage lesson on my own horse. I figure itâs a minimum $20 per hour in value/barter.
My regular barn gig: four or five nights a week I load the cart, drive the gator and hay all 60 horses, as well as blanketing about 15-17 of them. For this, Iâm paid $18 all of which goes toward my horseâs feed and board. I could not afford to keep a horse in Southern California without some kind of barn work offset.
ETA: a boarder where I work has to be away for several months while her horse is on stall rest. Sheâs offering $200 per week for a groom and expects coordination and attendance of vet/farrier appointment, grooming, pen tidying, feed organization and daily eyes on her horse.
Slightly OT, I know some barns have grooms attached to each horse. In totally idle curiosity, Iâm interested in what that rate might be. Anyone know?
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$10-12 an hour will get people to answer your ad. It has to be $15+ an hour to find and keep reliable barn help around here.
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SE Massachusetts-I pay $18/hour.
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As a starting point to your last question: $18 an hour for a 40 hour work week is 36K.
A friend worked as groom for a family. She was responsible for the families 2 horses and her own. I have zero idea of what her pay was but it did include housing for her, fairly decent. She was also retired from a career in IT work so also had retirement income to tap into.
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Thanks for the multiplication help. 
I must not have been clear. Iâm interested in the per-horse rates and what kind of time commitment that requires. Guessing itâs basically piece work where speed equals more money. Factory, both crop and livestock, farming often works this way, encouraging workers to forego legally allowed paid rest breaks to get more done. Itâs exploitative at best, crippling at worst.
Weâve had horses arrive from barns where they had their own grooms. These grooms did not work for the barn; he or she worked for the horse owners, and their wages were opaque to say the least.
Wow odd to me to see so many hourly ratesâŠ
All the HJ barns Iâm familiar with start at $700/week +housing+tips+body clipping. Their hours are something like 7-4 at home, shows of course are different. I would say the average barn with knowledgeable staff that you trust are more in the $1,000-1,300 a week range, with head guys being in the $1,500+ ball park.
Theyâre doing stalls, feeding, cleaning auto waterers, tacking/untacking, bathing, icing, wrapping, blanketing, turning out, putting on the walker/vitafloor/whatever, treating minor cuts etc.
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Around my area (Edmonton, Alberta), the going rate is $18-25 an hour. Minimum wage here is $15. It is paid hourly because the staff need to be there for a set time to feed/turn out, and feed/turn in, so not a job where they can leave when done.
Although considered a low skill job, it requires a reliable vehicle, so it would be very hard to find anyone who would do barn work here for minimum wage.
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My trainer pays $15/hour starting, but she also does 90% of the work herself so that really only comes up when weâre away at shows and none of the boarders are around to pick up the work for the day. Minimum wage in PA is still $7.25 an hour, so. thatâs great. Weâre on the western side of the state so not dealing with the HCOL that comes with being in the Philly area.
The daily work for us is bring in for breakfast/dinner, kick back out when theyâre done eating (unless itâs too cold to throw them back out overnight), dump/fill/check waters (including in the fields but refilling out there usually isnât daily and thereâs a hose in reach where it is), fill hay nets or toss hay depending on time of year, hay in the paddocks that donât get round bales (in winter), change/pull blankets if needed, make sure everyone still has their shoes on/doesnât need the vet called for some reason, prep feed for the next meal, muck out, and sweep up afterward. Weâve got 23 stalls, usually around 18-21 horses at any given time, but sheâs got everything down to a science and laid out really well so one person can usually get through all the âbig stuffâ in under three hours.
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Yes, thank you. I get so tired of hearing barn people grumbling about how ânobody wants to workâ when they live in the middle of nowhere and offer barely minimum wage for a stall-cleaning job. Nobody seems to wonder how this hypothetical person is supposed to transport themselves to the farm, especially in crappy weather.
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Barn work also involves usually some level of risk, doing hard work in bad weather, has some level of skill (even if only not to throw out all of the clean shavings in a stall, more so to turn out horses), and unlike minimum wage jobs at, say, Starbucks, doesnât offer benefits or much potential to advance to becoming a manager or get raises. And like you say, you need a reliable person who wonât call out sick.
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I think it depends on whether full time or part time. Some full time places in my area pay 15.00 and up or 3.00 and up per stall.
I only need someone a couple hours a day with two horses and have to pay 50.00 a shift to get help when needed due to work commitments. 40.00 people are hesitant, 50.00 gets itâs of interest.
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Iâm curious, are the wages stated in this thread under the table, 1099 or W-2?
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Where is this?
Thatâs pleasantly higher than anything I see in my area.
I worked with Saddle horses in 1974 earning $300 per week (plus tips)⊠in todayâs money that would be $1,887 per week. We did do a LOT of showing, hours were long but the cash tips were fantastic
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