That’s why you over seed. The rye grass grows in the cooler weather and the Bahia/Bermuda grows in the warm season
So everyone else is out there, but you. You are the wisest one of all.
Your posts are juvenile and make little sense. I don’t think you know the real world of business at all, horse or otherwise.
There are many knowledgeable people with decades of experience on either and both sides of boarding, as well as business careers, posting in this thread. This thread is an opportunity to learn from their experience.
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Got it! Well now I do want to move - hay is expensive! And we live in an area where the grass is nutritionally worthless in summer (fried and needs irrigation) and nonexistent in winter.
I have to feed it year round. Makes for very expensive horsekeeping.
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we just have a small retirement only barn, pasture but no arena.
Bedding is $6.00 day (plus the delivery charge once evey two months) = 180
Quality hay is $465/ton = 155
Other general maintenance and supplies for boarders = 30
Utilities = 20
so $385/month without labor
insurance is about $60/month
daily blanketing/fly mask/feeding/clean stalls easily 45 min/horse so monthly 22.5 hours @15/hr = 337
total: $782. Now we don’t pay ourselves and do all the work. The rare times we go on vacation we pay $100/day for a house/farm sitter.
That’s not taking into consideration the cost to build the barn and put in all the fencing etc.
I like another poster have a regular job that pays the bills. We really make no money in profit off the boarding. It does help us write off the cost of the barn where we will retire our competition horses when the time comes (which is why we built it in the first place).
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I certainly don’t expect barn owners to never raise their prices and just eat the additional cost as everything in the world gets more expensive. I just get tired of the assumption that’s constantly thrown around, that anyone trying to find the best care they can at the lowest overall cost is greedy and doesn’t understand or appreciate what goes into caring for horses.
It’s totally unreasonable to expect a barn owner to give you board at a rate that makes little to no money for them, but it’s not unreasonable or greedy to want to find a place that does its best to keep costs down and prices affordable without compromising horse care.
I’m incredibly appreciative of how the barn I board at keeps prices fairly affordable and yet my horses are impeccably cared for and happy, so it’s proof that it can be done!
I’m sure it’s frustrating for barn owners if they have boarders that complain no end about a $25/mo price increase but dump hundreds of dollars every month into supplements/magical cures/big name clinicians/matchy-matchy-saddle-pad-and-bonnet combos and go on lavish vacations every couple month, but it’s also frustrating for those of us sticking it out in small apartments eating ramen noodles so we can afford to own horses to have the horse world assume that we are unappreciative, have no concept of working on a farm, and want something for nothing.
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Have you ever asked them how they do it?
I only know of one barn who was affordable without issue or additional income. She owned the property outright after her husband passed away and she got a hefty life insurance policy. She fed basic grain (whole oats), nothing fancy, and hay that she was able to put up from her fields. We all helped her stack it when it came in. She had plenty of grazing land. She was 3 hours from a major city, which helped.
Some boarders got discounts on their rates for helping feed/clean stalls and she had an extra apartment that she rented out.
Other than her, boarding has been a loss leader for every other barn owner I’ve met.
Edited to add: I’m not being snarky - I’m genuinely curious!
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The seed and the fertilizer aren’t cheap either. Neither is the tractor and the implements. Nor the extra acreage needed to have enough grazing year round.
Horses are expensive everywhere!
ETA: hay is spendy! here bc we have to truck it in if we want O/T/A it’s a bit extra. My supplier hasn’t mentioned any rate increases yet, but I just ordered another couple tons so guess I’ll know for certain shortly. I have grazing year round but not enough to completely eliminate hay. I’m hoping for just a fuel surcharge on delivery as this load is still last year’s hay.
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This discussion reminds me why I’m glad I called off my search for a second horse… I don’t think I’d have a place to board it. To some degree my old mare is “holding a stall” at a fancy barn that happens to have great trails access, but it’s expensive. People keep asking me why I don’t send her out of state for cheap retirement, but she’s got enough needs that I wouldn’t, even if I wanted to. I have another thread going about “emergency planning” for bringing her home if the barn closes. But the likelihood of me getting another horse, even if she dies, is very small now.
I absolutely agree that the long-time boarding model is going away. The only people I know who seem to be making it work were wealthy to start with, and don’t have a mortgage, usually. And people running high-end training barns where you can’t just board a horse; it has to be in training, too. They take boarders only if they want to, it seems. And I won’t argue with that. I only hope that the excess horses that will be around soon have soft landings, including putting them down.
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We’re fortunate in that hay and bedding (while the costs keep going up day) are cheaper here than in many other places. Hay is grown locally, and sawdust is available in bulk (although it’s not like the old days where they gave it away for free!). The barn doesn’t have a ton of (human) creature comforts, but there is an indoor and everything is very well maintained, and the horse care IMO is just as good as any show barn (probably better, because they get lots of turnout). It’s more of a training barn than a standard boarding stable, but only a few of the horses are in full training … most are either horses in partial training with owners that ride them as well, or boarders that take lessons.
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Ok, got it! Yes, so boarding is still probably a bit of a loss leader there too as the training and lesson programs pick up some of the “slack”.
Where I’m at, there are almost no “pure” boarding facilities left. At most of the barns you are required to be in a lesson program (4 lesson per month minimum) or their training program. Only one of these barns were what I would call fancy (GGT footing…which by the way I hate with a passion).
I think if the barn owners on this thread didn’t care about keeping it affordable there would be no discussion. We’d just jack up prices and be done with it. We all care, but are finding it harder and harder to figure out how to make it work.
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Maybe I missed some posts, but I don’t recall anyone quite saying that. Of course there’s nothing wrong with people shopping around for what they feel is the best deal on boarding. The OP is free to move to another barn if they don’t feel the price increase is appropriate for the service they’re getting. Assuming adequate notice is given, however, their BO is not required to justify the increase to them or any other boarder.
Random extra charges and fee changes with little to no notice, sure. Question those.
I once had a BO try to charge us all a $75 hay surcharge on the 25th of October, and said they were back-charging it for October, so basically everyone had five days notice that they had to pay an extra $150 on November 1. That’s pretty ridiculous. A price increase once in a year or more, with 30+ days notice? No.
But also, yeah, most boarders are completely clueless about what goes into running a farm. Most people are completely clueless about what goes into running any business, frankly. Yet somehow it’s most often barn owners that get crapped on for trying to pay themselves more than $4/hour for their labor, much less try to have a business that actually makes a profit. I can’t say I’ve ever seen such a fuss made when a local pizza shop raises their prices $2/pie.
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I have started using the GasBuddy app for this. The swing in prices from station to station make it worth driving an extra mile to save $.80 per gallon. I’m constantly debating - is it cheaper to add in a car payment for better MPG and regular fuel instead of a guzzler SUV that takes premium? So far - paying more for gas is winning.
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I noticed this with diesel prices before we got hit with the current price escalation. Within the city diesel prices could be 60 cents a gallon different between gas stations. Even stations that were only a couple of miles apart. And now I really see it on the interstate. I don’t drive my truck much but back last summer and beyond they were pretty much the same all over. Now the mega stations on the interstate like Pilot and Loves are a LOT higher for diesel than local off the interstate gas stations. I only have to drive the truck to occasionally haul and buy hay and I try to make sure I am filled up before I hit the road and higher prices. And don’t even get into inter state prices - Alabama is sure cheaper than Georgia and Tennessee.
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We sign new contracts with updated pricing since the price is listed on the contract.
I no longer board but I do take lessons on lesson horses owned by the stable.
Today I told my riding teacher that my husband and I had talked it over and I was going ahead and paying $5 US more for my 30 minute lesson. I told her I had been reading this topic on the Forum, and that she would have to make some hard decisions about her retired old horses and that I KNOW that I will have to pay more for my lessons in the future, and asked her to give me a little bit of time to adjust my finances to future increases.
I also told her I had $100.00 set aside for when she has to put the Arabian mare I rode for years down. This mare is almost 40 yrs. old and shows her age. Debbie said it would not be much longer before the vet got called for this mare, so I made sure to thank the mare for all our rides and for taking such good care of me when I had MS attacks. I think her mind is going, she acted like I was a stranger, but she is OLD.
I owe this mare a lot, she got me back to walking on my own two feet several times and I could trust her when my body started going completely haywire. I was sad saying goodbye, but it is time since she is starting to hurt again.
I already started adding $5 for my rides at the other stable. That lady was very appreciative, her farrier has already had to increase his charges.
Be prepared. If you take lessons prepare for the costs going up. Good lesson stables are worth supporting through hard times, and I just wish I could do more for them but I am not wealthy.
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As someone who bought her own place about a year and a half ago and is still working on the horse facilities, this has been a fascinating thread.
I’m lucky that I can afford to run it as my own private facility. About the only thing it won’t have when finished is an indoor. Or a bathroom in the barn, but the house is right there.
I’ve considered off and on whether I should take in a retired/mostly retired/rehabbing horse or two. I have stalls for at least two, if not three, horses that are not mine. (To maintain enough grass for 12 hour turnout, the place can only support 6 horses, which conveniently is the number of stalls that I have.) But if I do, it would have to be at a price to make it worth my while, which seems like it’s probably above market near where I live. My hay, grain, and bedding expenses alone are about $450 per horse per month because I like to feed good quality hay (second cut low NSC that I test), good grain, and I use a lot of bedding because that’s how I like to keep my horses.
If I add in labor, right now I pay a high schooler $18/hour to clean stalls, scrub buckets, pick paddocks, and stuff hay nets. All other work is done by me. But per horse labor costs, if charged to cover actual costs, would probably be around $500 per month.
So I’m at $950 and that’s not even counting a dime for the cost of the facility, property maintenance, equipment maintenance, mortgage, etc. And certainly no profit.
I’m somewhat new to my area, but my sense is that market price for what I have is no more than $900/month.
I’m not sure how people can afford to offer that. And I can’t say I’m interested in offering boarding if I don’t get SOMETHING out of it.
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And if you are offering board to outsiders, wouldn’t you also need to have additional liability insurance? Boarding doesn’t seem to offer any financial benefits plus you know boarders are always complaining about something. 
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My set up is smaller than yours and just retirement (less hassle and less insurance cost). I’m in Oregon, close to Portland so a place where people can stop by and see their horse. The barn is new (we built it and very nice with fans in each stall and a heater above the wash rack). We don’t charge nearly enough when considering labor to make a profit, but we do all the work ourselves with just 3 stalls. I charge $575, which I realize is way too low, I think I’ll raise rates next year and probably give my wonderful boarders a cost breakdown. I will say in 3 years we have never had an open stall. We have two that have been with us since the start and the third stall has been filled immediately the few times it’s been open. We have a waiting list. I guess I am saying this because if you live in a similar high demand area you can charge those high rates even if you are retirement only, but you aren’t going to make much money profit-wise. However, then its a business and you can depreciate your barn costs and run costs of your horses through your farm. I only provide hay, horse owners pay their own grain since they all want something different. Just my $.02
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I think for fairness, they should have raised prices equally for all by a percentage.
However, maybe it is an expense that is equal for all horses. Like water. So if the cost of water went up and all horses now are drinking $50 worth of water a month and they raised prices for everyone by $50. Or could be gas/diesel for farm vehicles. Which in theory could be equally shared with driving around feeding, dragging arenas, dragging fields your horse lives in.
There should be more detail explanation but there may be a point. There are ways to ask without pissing people off. Maybe the pasture board has been too low to begin with.
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Most boarders are clueless. I have my horses at home and it is only a little bit cheaper and I have to do all the work. One huge expense I was surprised with was the tractor. Not only is it the cost of a car or more to purchase but the maintenance. That alone is close to $1000/year for only 2 horses! If you have to irrigate out west $5000 for 5 acres a year, 2 horses on it and not 24/7. Those and hay are the big expenses. The smaller expenses probably add up pretty fast. Then there’s insurance. It’s never ending!
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