I think we can all empathize with this post. I am feeling like I’ve hit a dead end in my current job but very scared of losing the flexibility I have now. Can’t really offer any advice or even thoughts but just know so many can relate.
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I’ll add my mini rant here: 5 days of stall rest - 9 more to go. Between changing bandages, enrichment for the 2 stuck in, 50 hr work week, 2 kids activities… managing vet visits, rescheduling farrier appts, hay delivery……it’s tough.
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I’ve already worked this out with my hay guy - if I can’t be there for delivery he will let me take the trailer with the hay on it on my time, as long as it’s returned in 24 hours. Not fun to buck off the trailer AND into the barn solo, but if I have to I will
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Will you be able to pull the trailer into your barn, next to your hay storage area? We can’t pull into our hay shed, but get as close as possible alongside the open double doors. Then my husband throws bales down to me (he aims to toss them just inside the doors), I stack as high as I feel comfortable (don’t like lifting bales over my head), then we switch places.
This is definitely a job that goes better and faster with two people. But, if it’s just gonna be you on your own, if you can at least get the trailer inside, next to the storage area, you can throw the bales off, return the trailer, and stack at your relative leisure. With two horses, are you getting 100 bale loads?
When I built my barn I included a door on the side wall right next to the hay storage. I can back my truck down the aisle, back a truck to the side door, or pull a trailer up to the side door. It has made unloading hay much easier.
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Last load was 150 bales, if it wasn’t 90 degrees outside and bucking 5 high was a hell no I could have gotten 50 more.
There’s no door from the main barn into the hay storage, so while I could do what you suggested it would be mega double work to move it from the main barn over.
If it was impossible for us make a trip when our former hay producer was baling, offered to let us drop off our flatbed trailer, and he’d have it loaded and store it under cover for us. We would pick the loaded trailer up later.
A flatbed trailer is a good investment for one’s own place, IME.
I completely agree about the bucking five high!
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Am I the only one reading this and thinking, what a fantastic idea for a side hustle for a university student or someone a bit flexi: You meet the farrier / vet / hay man for your clients, who pay you to do so. For those who keep their horses at home (so no stablehands) and work Mon - Fri, you organise for this “horse holderer” to meet, greet, and hold the horses for appointments.
$20/hr to catch and hold horses for the farrier sounds a lot better than working at Maccas, and I’m sure (from this thread) that there would be plenty of people in OP’s boat.
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Tell you what, I have the Rover app and greatly appreciate being able to easily book someone to let out the dog on a moments notice if needed.
It would be fabulous if they had something similar for horses. I just don’t know if the pool of users is large enough to sustain it? Plus horses need so much more experience to handle.
But your idea is a very cool one and I hope someone works out the details.
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Because they are service providers. They are in the service business, and so they have to be accommodating to their customers. I agree with you that they can have the same desire as people in other industries for 9-5 M-F jobs. But the service industry doesn’t work that way, and service providers can’t either.
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Brilliant idea. Could you talk with university/college dean of students, etc., offices to see if they would be interested in starting something like this on campus? For instance, a college business school might be interested in helping its students coordinate an entrepreneurial/small business program for its students. Might look good on a resume, as well as get the students out of the classroom and into the fresh air.
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I said it above but I would do that in a heartbeat to earn some horse $$ 
There must be plenty like me out there in that respect.
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Oh yes they can work that way. If you are a good, skilled, competent sought after vet or farrier you are turning clients away. You can absolutely work Mon-Friday.
I have never had a farrier work weekends regularly.
So many vets no longer do emergency/ after hours or farm calls and that is because they would have no time off. Service jobs that employ multiple employees is one thing but a single person doing it all just can’t be all things to all clients.
You accommodate them and their schedule-- not the other way around.
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As someone who is a freelancer herself, I have to say, thank you for saying this!
Just for context: I’m not in the horse industry, but as a self-employed person I get all the time people who demand that I accommodate them by meeting at 9pm at night or 4:30am in the morning. And I’m not a vet or someone for whom this might be a medical necessity at times. It’s not worth risking my health and sleep schedule to be on this schedule constantly. I’m not a physician and frankly don’t make enjoy to justify that type of topsy-turvy life. Also, as freelancers, accommodating what to one client is a once-monthly 10pm appointment can make normal life impossible, since your 10pm on Thursday is another person’s 2:30am on Wednesday, all spaced out throughout the day.
Service providers are not under a moral obligation to make themselves miserable. I hate to say it too, but I even understand this more so for horse trainers and farriers. Working very late at night in the winter is a special kind of misery. If I was a farrier, hypothetically, if I have the option of serving a client who can meet me in daylight in the winter sunshine at 3pm versus a client who only can at 10pm, you bet I’m going to go with the 3pm.
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I live in Far North Australia, so probably not the best placed to do so!
I used to farm-sit for my horse friends (for free) when I was a student. I could have made a fortune charging even a nominal free considering what I now pay for dog/cat/horse holiday care. I would definitely have done horse-holding as a side hustle.
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How?
I think my thought is more along the lines of - why don’t some businesses simply adjust their operating hours? Instead of 8 - 5, why not have a practice that operates from 11 - 7? If you’re a farrier, especially in the heat of the summer, why not offer to start at 5 or 6 am and cut out before the heat of the day? Like most training facilities, instead of Monday - Friday, why not just make a practice that’s open Tuesday - Saturday?
I don’t think a lot of people are asking for EXTRA operating hours, just a shift in what the existing hours are. I’m self-employed and do a lot of consulting work for an Australian business - which means that there are a couple days a week where I am on calls through 10 - 11 PM EST in order to be able to meet with that team. The days after, I generally sleep until 8 am, instead of my usual 6 am. As a service provider, I can’t imagine not offering them those late hours.
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Ha, well, as a morning person, I’m definitely up for early summer hours, and some doctor’s offices and banks do exactly that. But I can also understand how sometimes service providers have other obligations/ commitments that prevent this like kids/horses at home/ spouses (or an in-demand farrier might not want to get up at 4am and drive to service a client at 5am).
My post was more against the idea that people in the service industry have some moral obligation to meet client’s needs for regular services, regardless of the hour (which is how we end up with corporate industries forcing minimum wage workers who can’t dictate their schedules to work, starting 12am on black Friday).
I also wonder if the lack of accommodation (again speaking personally) is that when you do, some clients will push the envelope (i.e., 7pm becomes 8pm “just this once,” and so if people can, they stick to 9-to-5).
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I feel for you guys. We live in the city with a few others that have horses here. Our farrier we have used for decades comes on the weekend as he has us and two other clients that he can do at one time, about 20 head total.
Hay, we use two feed stores but have many who want to sell to us and deliver since we are about four miles from the regional Purina feed mill that is used only for horse feeds.
Bedding we pickup ourselves
Vets/deliveries all of gates have combination locks that we can program, we can just give them the code and they can get in…
The reason I sold my business was being called out in the middle of the nights for emergency repairs which I understand but that one January night when it was 10 degrees with a 25M{H north wind to repair the access gate on an oil terminal was the end of it for me. Changed over to a cushy job working for the manufacturers.
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I’m another who would sign up for that for extra cash. But I have a flexible schedule and also live in an area where an app like that could probably work and I have several friends who pet and farm sit. I’m not so interested in farm sitting, but occasional horse catching and holding? As long as the horses aren’t rank, sure!
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