not sure how I missed that epic thread. I suspect it is / was the somewhat amazing assertions of the one poster over their well paid well educated happy workers.
But it was interesting, particularly the info about personal liability insurance and the trap a “contractor” could fall in to if they should cause some kind of damage event while on the job.
for a private farm situation, our barn person is classified as a household employee. legally, we only have to deduct federal taxes (medicare and soc sec-- i think. i forget the details). they are responsible for the state and local stuff. this has to do with household employee classification, and since we are not a business.
Legally, an employer can not dictate the schedule of an independent contractor. so most grooms are truly employees and not IC. some exceptions might be stall cleaner who can pick what time they come etc.
employers have to pay an employer tax around 7%. between that and needing worker’s compensation insurance that is why many skirt the rules and classify as IC.
And to take it one step further - they were paying $75 an hour and COULDN’T keep help? Goodness gracious! Where are these folks located - I’LL go work for them!!!
Sorry, this is in reference to my last response………still not great with the “Quote” feature………
We are looking for a Sunday person now and we were paying $2.50 per stall (clean, add bedding, clean up after yourself). I have now bumped it to $2.75 per stall and been told it’s not enough. Another local barn owner I know is paying $3.50 per stall on Sundays for the above plus dumping and refilling buckets.
How many stalls? If you only have 5 stalls that 100% wouldn’t be worth it imo. Heck, even 20 stalls at $3.50 isn’t worth it (I factor things in like time involved and gas/travel) unless it is just a quick walk up the road. I could mow two lawns in give or take the same amount of time or even less and make more money… so, just something to keep in mind.
It would also depend on how the stalls were maintained. If I had a mucking business, I’d probably charge a flat fee plus a per stall fee.
@Midge is there such a thing as a mucking business? I suppose if you have multiple barns you can go to in a day then yes, flat fee would be a good idea. Maybe that is a thing elsewhere… here farms are decently spread out or pretty large, but if you can work quickly at a bunch of smaller places could be a great side business!
20 stalls at $2.75 is $55. The manure pile is right beside the barn and you dump into a pit and the bedding shed is right behind the barn, It takes my M-Sat guy 3 hours to do 20 stalls. That comes out to $18.33 an hour!
Outside of concentrated horsey areas, I see it mainly as something farm sitters offer on an occasional basis, which might be another source @skyy could look into. Lots of mucking services at WEF of course.
I board my retired horse at a private farm with 6 senior horses on it in Ohio. The owner lives on the property and has help that comes to do stalls, feeding, turn out. They alternate who comes AM/PM and honestly the work is really like 30-45 minutes of work at a time, max. She uses local teens and college students that ride at area barns and usually has them for a year or so and they move on as life moves on with one that has remained consistent. She pays $10/hour for that. It’s an incredibly easy $10 because it’s not much work. The most complicated aspect of the work is the meds in the morning which is super well organized so it’s not an issue.
In my area there are “grooms” and I use that term loosely, who work a full day at a boarding barn, but also have some clients (mostly small backyard barns) that they visit daily, usually at the end of the day, where they just muck and sometimes feed. I guess that could be called a mucking business.
Going rate for barn work (stalls, feeding, turn in/out etc) is between $14-$20/hr. I only know of one local place that pays per stall for mucking and their rate is $4. The set up at that barn is really inefficient though and they struggle to keep staff.
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