Asking the question and getting some clarification is the first step to making different choices, with the electric company I got some mistakes fixed ( they hadn’t processed my previous payment) and got me tips on how to save money the next time.
1 Like
Your anecdote is not relevant to a board increase.
If you would try and tell the electric company that you’re not paying the transmission fee because of XYZ, they would laugh you off the call, right before they shut off your service.
7 Likes
Your electric company is not a small, privately owned business trying to make ends meet. Your electric company is one of the reasons boarding facilities are struggling; electricity, like everything else, is exponentially more expensive
Not a good comparison
2 Likes
And you just explained why a boarding is not profitable because barn owners refuse to charge what they need to. If I was inclined to board horses I would charge what was required.
You all seem to make excuses why you run yourself into debt so that your boarders pay a fraction of what it costs you to keep their horses. It makes no sense. These same people who pay board willingly pay the increases in their taxes, food bill, gas bill ,cable bill, continue to eat out, etc… because those are priority items.
Why would paying for the horse be any different. You will lose some, but you may find new boarders willing to pay what it really costs .
1 Like
I have asked my electric company to explain why my bill was significantly higher and they gladly provided an explanation.
if you live in an apartment find “your” meter base then turn off the power to your unit,then check to see if the power is actually turned off.
My daughter rented an apartment in a large complex…the meter that was supposed be hers (at least that is the one she was paying the electric bill for) was not her apartment’s. When the complex was built the electricians miss wired the meter bases
If you have never run a boarding facility, how is it that you are an expert in the field? You. Have. No. Idea. What. You. Are. Talking. About.
In my area, that would run about $3000 a month, NOT including lessons or training. There are simply not that many people who can pay what would run to over $4000 a month for a horse. You would greatly limit your pool of people who could board.
Board money keeps the lights on. What is the good of pricing people out of horse ownership?
The barn owners of my facility own it outright, and don’t have to make money on it, thank God. They keep it open, for now, because they love the sport, and because they can
8 Likes
You have now gone from telling barn owners to “budget better” and “live within their means” (so board can be $800/mth) to “well dummy if you just knew how to business”. What exactly are you trying to achieve here? Because around every corner there’s another You’re Just Doing It Wrong from candyappy and it is extremely frustrating. Several barn owners have graciously broke down costs for you, maybe just sit back & learn something? From people that are actually neck deep in this mess?
19 Likes
But I’m sure it wouldn’t be more than $800/mo because that’s all that’s required to run the barn and turn a decent profit. 
15 Likes
She clearly considers herself to be an expert
1 Like
Ok, I do understand to a degree what @candyappy is saying and I don’t necessarily disagree with the premise, although the figures are a little off.
Should this be a business? Yes. But boarding hasn’t kept up with inflation for a longgggg time. So, even if we were all somehow able to raise prices simultaneously, we’d price a whole lot of horse owners right out of the market.
Which means these horses that we care for like our very own, and the people we care about like family, would be in a very bad spot. Many might find themselves at auction. Some would likely be abandoned with us.
Many of us started boarding with an already established clientele, and if we didn’t, we started with friends who “just wanted a place to keep their horse”…so it starts out a little wonky from the get go.
I think the collective we care about our sport, our charges, and our clients, so much that we sacrifice greatly in order to enable the sport to continue on. So these latest increases in price sock it to a group that is already doing everything we can to keep it alive.
16 Likes
Anybody still living/keeping horses, as an adult, on family owned property has an enormous advantage over BOs who must buy or lease and cover those mortgage, lease or private loan expenses on top of barn operation costs. Thats whats not reflected in that $800 a month figure.
8 Likes
Not necessarily, I have asked for and gotten fees and other charges off my electric bill for various reasons.
What floors me about this tread is at large is majority of people are telling the OP not to even have the conversation with the barn owner about it.
I 100% agree that the OP needs to think long and hard about how to go about it and should reconsider making it about being “fair”. But she should be able to go and ask for some clarification and or more information from the BO.
How can she make a decision if this is the right situation for her if she does not have all the information? What the BO discloses to her clients is up to the BO, but at least with the information the OP can be in a better spot to decide if she is in the right situation for her animals and her finances ( and she might not be).
I just don’t understand what is wrong with two adults in a BUSINESS relationship having this type of conversation?
10 Likes
Nothing wrong with a BUSINESS type conversation. But those generally are not confrontational or demanding. Between boarders realizing they are creeping towards not being able to afford a horse in the fashion they prefer and BOs with no formal training in running a business realizing they cannot continue as they have been? Emotions run high.
IMO and IME, its land costs that sink barns and boarders focus on feed and bedding and don’t understand why the increases. BO is probably not eager to share their monthly mortgage, rent/lease or loan payments, often well into the thousands, too often in arrears. Maybe they should so boarders can see the bigger picture.
Just a thought.
10 Likes
I can share what my mortgage is. My monthly mortgage is $2700… In my area, that is not even an outrageously high monthly mortgage. Average rent in my town is $2600/mo for a 1000sf apartment. Average board in my area climbed up to $1000/mo back in 2015 and is now inching close to $1500 for a full care facility with an indoor.
Average real estate tax bill in my town is getting close to $14,000/yr. Mine is $12k but I expect it will only go up as we are seeing record high assessment increases. For several reasons, but the key driving factor seems to be that my town has been discovered by those in the Boston Bubble as one of the few remaining ‘affordable’ towns within reasonable commuting distance of the city. Our population was ~8000 two years ago and is now almost ~11000 with almost no proportional increase in housing available.
Then there’s insurance and the seemingly endless amounts of costs associated with property maintenance, utilities like electricity and water, disposal costs for waste, septic costs, etc. My utilities are in the hundreds depending on season, disposal cost is $89/mo.
I believe there are only two boarding barns remaining in my town. 10 years ago there were at least five, and 10 years before that dozens. This town used to be a huge agricultural town and now there are only 2 farms left.
I find boarders tend to focus on the micro and not the macro - like you said, they think about things like hay, feed, and bedding. They don’t think about things like land or real estate costs, monthly payments or leases on things needed to run a boarding farm like tractors and equipment, any monthly debt or CC bills that are paid off over 10-30 years (example: that indoor made 20 years ago is probably still being paid off), etc. Honestly, for me, what it costs to feed an average horse my costs is almost negligible (~$250/mo) compared to what it costs to own the land and keep the property maintained.
15 Likes
well that is a fixed known cost each month/year (unless they have a variable rate mortgage)
It is the consumables (hay/grain/bedding/ and stuff) whose prices are largely unknown until being needed. With the current run on inflation wholesale prices rose over 11% last Month alone…pretty hard to budget for increases like that.
Even then if there is a cost increase it might need to be verified… this last load of hay I got earlier this week at first it appeared the cost increased 10% but the bales weighed 11% more (145# vs 130#). Also I have arranged an “agreement” with the feed store to make my delivery when they would be coming down Empty to make a pickup at the Purina Mills plant which is about four miles from my place… which earned me a 1/3rd reduction in their delivery charge.
Then there’s insurance
with the runaway building values my property insurance has had to be increased over 100% in the last three years… a building needs to be insured for at least 80% of its replacement cost to be fully insured
2 Likes
I run 2 businesses aside from my boarding business. The boarding business is inherently different.
In my SaaS businesses (I have two), if someone leaves, I wish them well. I do get a bit irritated if they are rude and ask me to justify cost increases, as they don’t hesitate to pass their cost increases on to others. But I’m also not personally invested in them. I’m not expected to be on call 24/7. They aren’t at my home. I can walk away from the email or nastygram that I get.
In my boarding business, I risk my bodily safety for horses I don’t even own every day. I worry about them when their owners aren’t out, or don’t call the vet, or use a crappy farrier, or don’t give them the pain meds that I know they need because I see the horse way more often than they do. I’m in the barn 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week, rain, shine, or freezing weather when the owners don’t bother to come out because it’s “too cold” or “too hot” or “they can’t ride today so why bother coming”. I field the complaints that they don’t like their horse’s turnout, or stall, or whatever when I’m the one trying to manage a whole herd of horses so that no one gets hurt or too bonded or whatever. When they spoil their horse by shoving treats in it’s face all day in order to get anything accomplished and the horse becomes a biter, I’m the one who is dodging the teeth, and trying to gently counsel that they might need a different approach.
I see why trainers want someone to be in their program and control it tightly because horse owners, on the whole, are a remarkably ignorant bunch about what their horses actually need, while simultaneously having the most opinions of any group I’ve ever met.
I would imagine that doggy daycares, schools, and human daycares are similar in this, except the first one charges an arm and a leg, and the second two are subsidized. Childcare costs are $612/week or $2448/mo (on average) for part time care near where I am, and children don’t eat as much, destroy as much, or injure people as much as horses do. Doggy daycare costs $40/day on average which is $1200/mo for part time care and they don’t feed them, bed them, and again, though dogs can be tremendously destructive (and I raised Dobermans so I know how destructive they can be) they are nowhere near as destructive as horses. And neither group requires as much land, large equipment, or expense. Plus you can get rid of their poop in the average trash can.
So yes, ask away, but be KIND. That’s all most of us were saying.
29 Likes
I agree with you 100% and I also agree that the OP should really reconsider the way she would go about having the conversation if she chooses to have one.
2 Likes
I have seriously considered doggy daycare rather than a horse business on our property. I’m sure I would make way more money and the animals go home every night.
8 Likes
I agree that running a boarding business is unique due to due to the emotional, time and financial commitment you make to owners and their horses. I also think that the OP should reconsider the way she should go about having that conversation with her BO. I personally think that she will get further if she changed her tone and gave herself sometime to cool down.
Having said that as a business owner you should be prepared to have difficult and sometimes heated conversation with people, it is an unfortunate part of doing customer service, not everyone is going to calm and cool at all times.
No I am not talking about you getting verbally abused ( cursing and yelling should not be tolerated) but if someone comes to you upset about the bill and asks for an explanation you should be able to navigate that conversation like you would in any other customer service situation. How you navigate the conversation and what information you give is up to you, but you should be able to have the conversation.
It has been shown in many different threads that BO and Boarders fall back on the emotional and friendship based relationships in these situations and that can lead to problems for people on both sides. But if you run a barn as business you should be prepared for unhappy clients from time to time
5 Likes
Yes, and usually I show them the door if approached poorly. I just worry about their horses. Because it’s the innocent that suffer, not the person renovating a second home that is questioning me on a $50/mo increase.
The nice ones I have absolutely ZERO problem with.
6 Likes
