I know but I thought the OP was trying to find a way to make the new set up work?
That is basically paying a basic lump sum to cover those 2 needs. Not all horses need grain, especially if they get adequate hay. So the owners would be on their own for that.
I originally figured we would all split costs but after some suggestions in this thread I decided that it would work better just to make everyone be responsible for their own supplies and just tell the person doing the labour how much hay to throw (from their own pile), etc. Luckily itās a pretty cohesive and respectful group of people or else I wouldnāt even be trying to make this work for the short term haha.
Iāve been self care boarding for the last 7 years. There are 5 of us at the farm. Two ladies have a co-op between themselves but the rest of us are 100% every man for themselves. The barn owner only provides space- they are not horse people at all. I go twice a day, provide my own feed, own bedding, mow my own field, etc. Occasionally I split a load of hay with my very good friend who also boards there but in no way would I want to agree to a shared type arrangement. That sounds like itās just itchin for issues
For our do it yourself agistment, no snow and each horse is in their own paddock with a shelter, so no turn out was needed. Every agistee is responsible for their own horses feed, tack and shavings, they can be kept on site for free on an honour system.
Each agistee has to feed their horse twice a day, fill waters daily and clean paddocks at least once a week. The manure could be taken home or put on the manure pile. If it was put on the manure pile it now belonged to us and we would bag it and sell it at the front gate.
Agistees could arrange with themselves to feed each otherās horses, rug, etc or we would do it for a set price. That worked for us for over 20 years until we sold.
OK I have to ask. People actually took their manure home? Why would someone do this?
I do this occasionally to put it in my garden.
I pick differently when Iām doing this though, as I donāt want ANY nitrogen-leaching shavings in it.
Itās good organic matter to use in the garden, provided it has a chance to rot down first and that is isnāt contaminated by aminopyralid herbicide.
This makes me simultaneously sad and extremely grateful. I managed to land in a barn with the perfect combination of self-care/BO does some things with a bunch of great fellow self-care folks who just wouldnāt even.
I think if works so well because the BO is in the barn at least twice a day to throw feed (left outside stall for each horse by horse owner), water, and turn out/in. They will also help with handling of hay deliveries to get them stored for us. Everyone keeps their bedding, feed, and hay in their own spots. Nobody borrows. I have had a grand total of 1 flake of a large square go missing when (2 different occasions) a new person mistook my bales for ones they had purchased from the BO and grabbed half a flake. Problem instantly fixed with a quick word. Problem permanently fixed with folks putting name tags on their bales.
Itās too bad that it canāt work this way in more places. For me, itās the perfect happy medium.
Iām in a self board situation thatās set up for that, everyone has their own loft with a locked door that fits up to 2 tons of hay and is responsible for their own horse. You can obviously share jobs with a friend or pay someone to clean your stall. We have 59 horses in 3 barns and it works really well. But everyone has the space to keep their own hay.
I was keeping a friendās young horse here and the deal was she was supposed to provide hay and grain and I would feed it. Invariably, she would run out and say āoh can you just feed her yours and Iāll buy you a bale next time.ā Next time never came. We made her move her horse because our friendship was suffering.
100% agree with buying your own hay, shavings, grain. You can go in on it with the others to share a delivery fee/hassle of meeting someone etc BUT you each buy the number of bales/bags you want and keep them separated. In my barn each boarder gets the section of hay loft above their stall to store these things. So we might all buy 100 bales but we split them 30/30/40 and one person writes the check to the hay guy and the others write the check to the boarder. You can even use a big piece of cardboard or plywood between stacks of hay to delineate whose is whose. Then thereās no bitterness if someone feeds a lot more hay or uses lots of shavings, everyone uses their allotment as they see fit.
Iāve rough boarded for many years and always cooped feeding shifts, with everyone doing their own stalls and waters, but my situation with the past 2 years has a slacker/snowflake/drama/inexperienced boarder in the mix so I just do all my own work and am much happier for it.
Get a Rubbermaid bin and out the hay you want your horse to have in it, on/in front of your hay or your stall. Then thereās never any confusion over ātwo flakesā - Iāve had well meaning people feed my pony half a bale and when questioned they said āI cut open a new bale and there were only 5 flakes in it so I gave her 2ā¦ā (facepalm for wasted hay). Or do nets, and leave the next net set up for the person feeding. Just my $.02.
Iāve done self-care board for years. When I first started, a friend of mine who had her horses on partial board (she bought her own hay, but the barn feeder fed it to her horses) set up a hay co-op group and Iāve inherited it over the years. Right now, itās just 3 of us in self-care and one lady in partial care as the original group has dwindled since people have had horses pass/moved,etc. The way it works, I get a list of what people want and collect their monies. Most of us pay cash, one person writes a check to the hay guy (which heās ok with) and the partial care lady writes me a check which I convert to cash to pay for her hay. We all order varying different amounts of hay, and for 2 of us, have separate areas to store it. Two of the self-care people have to share a really big shed, I have my own.
Iām kinda trying to set up a more concise schedule along with a GoogleForm for filling out orders, but so far, just texting has worked out.
We have our own individual locked lofts but we order hay as a group. Many different groups usually. One person will take on coordinating a delivery and then payment happens as hay guy desires whether thatās phone in a credit card or leave a cheque or cash. Most of the hay guys have a minimum order for a load and our lofts fit 2 tons maximum so we need a number of people on an order.
Then the hay is all.kept seperate and doled out by the owners. If they are getting a friend to feed they premeasuee into a tire bag or hay net.
When I do orders I deal with a hay guy that wants 7.5 tons to deliver so I typically have about 5 people on an order and they are allowed half ton increments. He does Timothy and Alfalafa. I just do the math on a scrap of paper and collect cheques.
The big things are, get all the orders confirmed at your end before putting into the hay guy. Unless he prices per bail, make folks order in half ton or ton increments or you will lose your mind. Also avoid problem owners who are always complaining about perfectly good hay and wrangling for refunds with the hay guy. You can lose suppliers fast if you annoy them.
If not everyone is able to come out for their own self care (as it sounds like may be the case, at least in regards to morning feed/turnout) it sounds like a co-op model is needed. I was at a barn that was on a quasi co-op type management- one āmanagerā came in M-F to drop morning feed and do stalls. PM shifts, and both AM and PM shifts on weekends, were divided among the boarders, with a dollar value assigned to each shift (AM feeding and the stalls/barn chores were technically separate but usually done by the same person). How much you paid was dependent on how much you worked, and shifts could be easily swapped for scheduling issues. We had two boarders who just paid full board and never worked; others were happy to pick up their shifts for the extra break in price. The schedule was posted publicly in the barn for accountability. This worked very well for us, and we almost never had issues getting shifts covered in emergencies. Perhaps something like this would work, particularly if you can hire someone to take on the shifts that are not covered (weekday mornings, for example).
I just wrote about how our barn works on another thread, so I apologize if you read it already. We do a modified co-op. 9 boarders plus 2horses of mine. I buy a yearās worth of hay for the barn based on a budget developed over 30 years. Each horse gets a 16ā stack of hay at night and in winter will get about 6ā of hay out in the paddock in the morning and another flake of hay at lunch. Not needed in summer as thereās plenty of grass. I buy a years worth of shavings based on 3 bales of shavings per stall per week. Standard feed provided is a ration balancer plus a cup of black oil sunflower seeds. (Sunflower seeds are good for horses and wild turkeys and other birds pick apart manure piles looking for seeds so we donāt have to drag the paddocks much )
If a boarder wants different feed, they buy it. If they want additional hay, ditto. I donāt change the base charge however.
Iām reasonably good at inventory control: I count all of the string from hay bales once a week and note it. Shavings use gets noted on a whiteboard by horse by week, and I aggregate the info. Iāll randomly count the empty bags to be sure everything is getting counted. Boarders are very, very good at complying with hay and shavings rules because they know thatās how Iāll build the budget for next year. If they āunder reportā usage, weāll run short and there will be surcharges.
Boarders provide all the horse related labor although I feed lunch hay in winter. They clean stalls, throw down hay and shavings for the next shift, feed, turn out/ bring in, water, scrub tubs, blanket/ un blanket etc. We are all in agreement that there are 2 shifts per day: one am one pm and half the stalls are cleaned per shift.* In an average month thatās 60 shifts to be divided among the number of boarders. So if there are 10 boarders, thatās 6 shifts per month. We have a meeting once a month with a big old calendar and people take shifts. They know every shift has to be covered and they do it. Iām the backstop if weather makes roads impassable or, God forbid, someone is a no show for a shift. As to that, one forgotten shift will get them an earful from me. Two missed shifts and theyāre out. Over the 30 plus years Iāve been doing this, Iāve only had to boot one boarder for no show. There have been others that either didnāt suit the remaining boarders or found that the arrangement didnāt suit them. But only a handful. Mostly weāve had a terrific group of (generally) women who are true horsemen and good friends. Pre Covid, scheduling meeting was a potluck dinner. We hope to get back to that soon!
Happy to try to answer any questions. I think the most important thing is to be crystal clear about expectations, details and consequences.
*. Any stall bedded 6 inches or more has to be cleaned by that boarder every day in addition to their regular shifts. Itās just too hard on a persons body otherwise and shavings get very dusty as they break down.
Edited to add: we have a substantial waiting list to get into our barn because itās doable, itās a great group and the horses are happy and healthy.
I love this. We have boarders who add tons of shaving to their stalls every week and they are the worst to pick - easily double the time as a āproperlyā bedded stall.
Properly bedded stalls can take longer to pick than those with insufficient bedding. Bedding is not toilet paper. Itās additional cushion to make lying on the floor comfortable, and to provide additional cushioning for feet and legs.
There you go, fixed it for you 
Not when itās so deep theyāre smashing it up against the stall walls because they have to walk like a hackney to avoid doing so. In the end, the part of the stall theyāre actually standing in ends up 6" deep anyways, with all their piss and poop mixed up in the 2ā tall wall banks they made for themselves.
Itās not toilet paper, but its also not an immovable mattress. Good intentions, poor execution, and garbage result.
Maybe we nee a separate topic on property bedded stalls? (not that there arenāt lots somewhere on this forum already).
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