Is it common practice to charge more for board if one horse eats more grain than the other horses?
lets add a bit more detail:
Barn is an upper scale barn (indoor, heated/AC lounge rooms & tack rooms).
Horse is fed 6lbs/day grain (older, upper level horse in heavy work)
Entirely depends on how the farm/contract is set up. I don’t board horses, but if I did there would absolutely be a limit to the feed provided and additional charge of more was required.
Where I am it is typical to have a contract that stipulates grain and hay up to a certain amount, with additional available at additional cost.
Agree. Well, the place I board includes hay not grain, and the base board fee covers up to a certain amount. If you require additional there is a fee. What the base covers is suitable for most horses.
Ditto everyone above. Most boarding contracts include a max amount of feed per day, and you can pay extra for more feed. Is your horse getting 6lbs per day or 6lbs per feeding? Paying extra for 12lbs a day seems justified, 6lbs, not so much.
Your boarding contract should specify the hay and grain quantities being fed and the charge for any additional. Some barns will suck it up and just feed the horse more. Some don’t have the wiggle room in their boarding charges to just absorb extra costs.
It is becoming so.
Long ago, board included all of the hay and grain the horse required to maintain his weight.
Then grains got much more varied and the profit simultaneously was dropping out of boarding, so as to create a price HOs wanted and to give them freedom to feed grain and supplements as they wished, grain became separate from board.
In the middle of any market I’ve been in (until just about now), hay was included in any quantity the horse needed. There were often some kind of limit or extra charge if the horse got extra or special hay life alfalfa in an area with grass hays.
But keep your eyes peeled: As HOs continue to want to pay less, BOs will accommodate them (so it would appear) but not eat the cost of the hard keeper/hard-working/large horse by charging for whatever amount of hay they consider extra.
And in some places, BOs let their boarder buy their own hay.
I think it is perfectly reasonable.
This.
And this.
Absolutely. I had a boarder with two horses that ran through grain and hay (not to mention bedding) like there was no tomorrow. I thought I was profiting a massive $5 per day per horse (LOL!), but when she left it was clear I had been subsidizing her horses the entire time. I would expect to pay more if I had a hard keeper.
This – but it really, really depends. Your contract will have the answer, and if it doesn’t have the answer, you need to bring that up with the manager and ask them why they are charging you XYZ when it is not written in the contract.
In the scheme of things, 6lb for an UL horse is not that much… Mine almost gets that and he isn’t even in work… Around here, in just about every eventing barn I’ve been in or worked out of, 6lb a day is not considered a lot of grain for an event horse in work… most UL eventers get north of 12lb a day, usually of oats, alfalfa + their preferred grain… 6lb is kind of pocket change in the theme of things…
But, if this is a western barn or a barn with stock horses, which by nature seem to need less to maintain good weight, 6lb seems like a hell of a lot when Daisy and Skipper, the two cow cutters in the stall across, only get a can full of oats…
However, I would look into trying a different grain before feeding more - if your horse is only barely keeping weight on, the barn is not doing their job; they should be increasing hay first before grain, and you should look into seeing that he has hay in front of him 24/7, especially if they are going to be charging you more $$ for grain.
I pay a $50 hay surcharge every month because I have hard-keeper TBs in a barn full of air fern QHs and ponies. It’s not in my contract, but I offered to pay extra since my girls consume so much more hay (it was a bad hay year and prices went way up when I offered). BO said “How about $50 a month?” I assumed it was per horse for my three girls, but he said “No, $50 total.” :eek:
I did emphasize that he should let me know when that $50 needed to be increased, but six years later I’m still paying that amount. Yet another reason I will never leave this barn, even though it lacks a few of my dream amenities. You can’t beat a great BO!
6 lbs per day is about what the average TB in light to moderate work needs to maintain decent weight. Depends on turn out time and the quality of available grazing grasses. The average 1000 lb stalled TB needs around 15 lbs of decent hay per day.
If the feed costs $20 per 50 lb bag that’s 40 cents per pound. And extra 6 lbs per day comes to 2,190 lbs per year, an extra 44, 50 lb bags. Which will cost the owner an extra $900 per horse. 5 horses, $4,500.
At $6 per 40 lb bale of hay is 15 cents a pound. 15 lbs $2.25. “Just” an extra couple of flakes that weight 5 lbs per day comes to $275 per year per horse. 5 horses $1,375.
So if the owner doesn’t factor this in, charge. They will have “subsidized” the owners close to $6,000 out of their pocket. That can be a year’s worth of car or truck payments.
So out of curiosity, what amount of grain would you feel is appropriate to include in the average full board scenario? In my experience it’s pretty common to include that amount of grain, but would incur extra fees if it were up around 10-12lbs per day.
Yes, it is common to charge for extra grain/hay.
My board is priced to accommodate up to 10 lbs grain/day/horse, and free choice hay. Additional grain is billed at cost.
What BOs price for will vary greatly. 6 lbs to me would be perfectly reasonable to include in the normal board fee, but maybe that BO only accounted for easy keepers and expects an average of 3 lbs per horse in their standard board.
I’ve had my horses require 12+lbs of grain per day (they’re now on alfalfa hay and that’s down to half or less) and not had BOs charge me extra, which was exceedingly nice of them. However, those same exceedingly nice BOs that didn’t charge extra were always looking for a cheaper grain and changing things up, or they’d simply not feed what they said they were. One ultimately ended up on a super cheap sweet feed. No thank you, so I started buying my own grain. One started cutting grain amounts without telling people, then boarders were wondering why their horses were losing weight. It’s great for BOs to be nice and all, but ultimately it puts a strain on their pocket books that you, as the boarder, end up feeling. It’s better to just charge appropriately from the very beginning.
Sorry for getting off topic but how common is it for grain to be included? In my 25 years of horse ownership (always in CA) I’ve never seen that.
The couple of barns I’ve boarded at had a set amount of 6 lbs of feed a day. Since my gelding requires more than that I had to pay extra. As I learned about the different feeds I required a better food than basic mill brand feed. My one OTTB gets 12 lbs of feed daily. I was paying extra at all 3 barns for his feed. At the last barn I provided all of his hay and still paid extra (he’s on straight Alfalfa). I have mine home now and for 50 lbs of mill brand sweet feed I paid $12. For 50 lbs of Tribute Kalm Ultra I pay $24. There’s a big difference in cost. When I switched my OTTB mare over from the Sweet Feed to the Tribute I was able to drop her feed down to 6 lbs a day (versus 12 lbs, but she doesn’t work like my gelding does)
Read the contract you have and see how much of what kind of feed and hay are provided. Then go from there. To charge extra for free above 6 lbs a day is very common practice.
Edit: To add to what others have said you may want to look in to the type/amount of hay your horse is getting. My gelding is in heavy work and I have to feed him 6 flakes of Alfalfa daily. This made the biggest difference for him. My mare doesn’t have his workload and is fine on basic grass hay. That and a lot of turnout on good pasture for both of them.
I think it’s very much area dependent.
In central Ohio where I used to be, grain was always included (full board), and almost no one offered partial board (you buy your own hay and grain). If you wanted a different grain, you paid for it out of pocket, with no discount from the barn for not using their grain.
Here in central Florida, I see a lot of partial board and dry stalls (self care) offered, but just as much full board (grain included) offered as well.
When I boarded the barn supplied the hay needed to maintain a healthy weight at no extra charge. If grain was needed in addition to feeding unlimited hay that was 100% on the owner. That seems fairest to me.
This is not unusual…as others have said an upper limit of feed should be specified in the contract and over that you should expect to pay.
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