Starting small boarding stable?

[Raejewel]

My family is considering purchasing a small property (10 stall barn, 9 acres of pasture to live at and potentially run a small boarding operation.
I have 18 years experience with horses and have always had to board elsewhere. The property came up for sale a few months ago that we have had our eye on for three years. My parents intend to live in the main home on it, and I plan to live in the guest house. My family is interested in having our two personal horses on site, and possibly board 6 horses for others.
We have been thinking of this for many years, have made offers on previous properties, but nothing ever worked out.

My grandmother is interested in investing in it, and is willing to allow us to purchase the two homes and start a small business there. We are taking her to see it tomorrow.

The current owners are not using the stable or land, and over two years has allowed the majority of the property to go to waste. The horse stable will need the most work, but we have a background in renovation and construction.

i have knowledge in managing a barn, as I have done so in the past for someone else, and I have always wanted to have my own place to provide a haven for other people who have difficulty finding affordable boarding in a private setting.
it is perfectly located ten minutes from a major highway, the local fairgrounds and only 15 minutes from a major interstate.

We are not looking to make a huge profit off it, but rather be able to keeo our own horses home and provide for others who are in our situation (difficult to find local boarding that is affordable, secure, proper amenities, and easily accesible).

I have spent two evenings prepping the business portion for my grandmother to show everything from mortgage, property taxes, farm insurance, renovation estimates, and potential profit from boarding. Six boarded horses would cover the mortgage, taxes, insurance and utilities with a profit of $896. I would get a certain percentage TBD for running the facility and providing the care for all horses.
I have also estimated it will take approximately 3 months after purchase to complete the renovation of the stable, partial fence installation and repairs
I have done a lot of research and lots of math. ,
If you have started a small center for boarding what advice could you give me? If you did and you ended up deciding not to continue, what made you decide on that? How long did it take you to begin filling stalls?
thanks alll

[Sansena]

There’s a big leap between being a barn manager and being a business owner. I’d love to know your location and see your numbers. I’m having a hard time guessing what your actual costs are that leave you with nearly $900 profit after paying your mortgage, taxes, insurance AND utilities. Most folks operating boarding businesses barely cover their costs, much less make a profit. Have you figured out what you are paying yourself hourly? THAT can be a sobering calculation…

Oh, and what are the barn’s hours of operation? Are you closed one day a week for property maintenance and routine horse care? THAT is a tight walk to balance since most customers want near 24/7 access but B.O.s understand late night visits mean lights left on, and having to barn check even later to be sure things are locked up correctly.

My advice? Go into it expecting to lose money. Unless you are supplementing your income by also offering training, you’ll be lucky to break even on a boarding operation.

Do you want this to be a full service barn? That is one way to make more money at boarding, but you have to know your area and target demographic. You can do layup/ semi-retirement… find out what type of boarding you’d like to offer and go after that customer base.

Do you have a wash stall with hot water? Covered arena? Heated tack room? Those things enable you to charge more for board.

Also, you need to research who your back up help is. They need to be reliable, physically strong, and invested emotionally in the work. Trust me, simply paying someone the average/ low going rate will get you a bunch of no-shows, wanna be horse kids, and people who’s idea of working with horses is standing around petting them all day. Not helpful.

Insofar as filling stalls, you’ll have to be patient— and selective. In the intimate type of boarding environment I envision, you don’t want just anyone keeping their horse there. After all, it is your house. Don’t be surprised if it takes up to and/ or over a year to fill every stall. You can network through your farrier, feed store, local barns, tack shops, etc. Don’t expect your vet to help you network because that may very well be a conflict of interest. Good luck.

[Tory]

I’m not sure how you arrived at your figures. The cost of hay and bedding eats up a majority of the monthly board being paid.

I have run a few different boarding operations and most were not profitable at all. There are a lot of hidden costs like manure removal, repairs to fencing, arena footing maintenance, etc… Depending on the type of boarder you attract, their needs and wants can greatly out spend your budget. It’s also very tempting with a small number of horses to offer extra services (without charging) to attract boarders, but the time involved can be very counter productive. Your budget must also include being able to cover all expenses with an empty barn (unfortunately this has caused a few people I have known to lose their farm).

I wouldn’t want to discourage you from doing something you want to do. But it’s hard work. I personally have a 10 acre farm and would never board a horse again. Even doing a favor for a friend caused a lot of stress because no one will ever take care of your stuff and property the way you would.

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[zakkandtoto]

May I ask what you’re expecting to charge for board and how that compares to your local boarding stables, both large (show/lesson barns) and small?

[ToTheNines]

Good advice above, but my observation from having my own farm and a few boarders through the years is this. Do not get sucked into “pasture board”. Horse owners think pasture board should be cheap, but then they add on all kinds of needs and wants. Things like special feeding requirements that require horses to be separated to eat. Or blanketing, fly masks, etc. These horses take every bit as much time as stalled horses.

When I retire from my day job, and if I decide to board horses at that time, I will require every horse to have a stall. Best of both worlds, pasture and stall.There will be plenty of turn out. One base rate for every horse. I might give a discount for non riding horses that do not use riding facilities.

[Bluey]

Also consider those times when payments will be late, some times for several months.
At times the horse owner will disappear and you will have to keep feeding and caring for it’s horses until you can gain ownership as abandoned horses and sell them, generally at a loss after the time you had to carry them.

Having your business at home and living there, you are risking way more than a business in a warehouse or office building somewhere else you can close up and let the rent go if it doesn’t work.

You may make boarding be profitable, just be ready up front so if it doesn’t you won’t get in trouble financially.

[clanter]

along Bluey’s comment find an attorney who is versed in ranch/farm law and also understands taxation. We had a similar setup and for us it was best to incorporate the farm for the boarding operation, the corporation then leased the barns and grounds from us personally. (and actually the horses were owned by another corporation) NONE of this relieves the need for liability insurance but does shield income and allows for clear cut separation of assets

You could just do as planned but in the long run there may be complications and maybe not.

Also since this would be a three generation mix, make sure every one has a will that clearly defines how their estate would be handled regarding this asset.

[IronwoodFarm]

Cash flow is another thing to consider. There is stuff you will want to buy to run the farm – at minimum of decent lawn mower, possibly a tractor, plus other sundry pieces of equipment. You also have to buy your supplies in advance. I just got a $2600 hay bill – the hay will last all winter, but I have to pay it in full now. Ditto feed, bedding if you offer stall board, and various expenses.

I would be concerned if the board income had to cover the mortgage, taxes, insurance and utilities. Really, board offsets the cost of keeping your own horses and that’s about it. Is there some reason why there is no other income, like outside employment income, coming in? Having run a small boarding operation for nearly 20 years, I don’t know how anyone makes a small boarding barn work without at least some outside income.

[js]

Should also consider that you may not always have a full barn of boarders, so will need a contingency plan for covering that cost if you are using boarding profit to pay your mortgage and bills. Agree with other’s that you need to consider what happens if boarders don’t pay on time or fall behind on board payments.

I suggest you go back thru your numbers and be very honest about costs and crunch your numbers as a worst case scenario. To expect your boarding profit to cover all your horse costs, mortgage etc. is overly hopeful. Try searching back thru the many threads here that show boarding horses doesn’t produce a huge income or profit margin. Most will say it barely covers the costs of boarding your boarders horses.

[Minxitbabe]

I recently did the numbers on a small at home boarding operation that was reasonably priced and it wasn’t worth it. Oh sure if I was a stay at home that just wanted to make enough money to pay for my horse hobby it would likely pay for reasonable horse upkeep on a horse maybe two depending on if showing was going to be covered. In the end the numbers didn’t make it worthwhile, how much is your time worth elsewhere? Because you might come to resent freezing temp stall cleaning if you are making less than minimum wage. When you are sick/injured or want to go on vacation is there enough money in it to pay someone without going in the hole? 200 a week isn’t worth the headache to me.

[BeeHoney]

If you want to buy the property to keep your horses at home, that’s one thing. Many people do this and enjoy it.

However, I would strongly advise you against purchasing a property with the idea that you are going to make some kind of a profit from running a boarding business. It’s not going to happen.

I’m glad that you have done a lot of math, but I would love to see your numbers–I’m pretty sure they are not accurate. No one makes $900 per month off the boarding of 6 horses. Running a farm is insanely expensive, and many of those expenses are hidden.

Running a boarding barn is also very high risk in terms of unexpected monthly expenses–machinery repairs, fence repairs, plumbing repairs, etc. I just spent $800 to fix a manure spreader. Those things often run $500-1000 a pop. It also gets very costly very quickly should a client fail to pay you or abandon a horse with you. Those situations are very stressful and time consuming to resolve, let along the $$$ cost. There are also things like theft. I lost over $2500 one year due to theft. It was via multiple smaller thefts, so nothing that I could file an insurance claim over. These were thefts that I would not have had if I didn’t have clients and employees and their guests coming and going from my property.

After all that, running a boarding barn on a private property results in a total loss of privacy. I’m NOT talking about people looking in the windows of your house privacy (although that certainly is an issue). I’m talking more about control over what happens on your own property. You can make all the rules you want, but you are still going to have people doing annoying or flat out crazy things on your property. Bringing guests, leaving gates open, leaving garbage in the grass, bringing badly behaved dogs out with them, etc. You may even suffer personal losses due to clients and employees–your dogs and cats getting hit by the vehicles of clients who drive too fast, your horses injured when clients leave gates open or the feed room open.

Lastly, opening a boarding business is rough. Clients who are attracted to new boarding businesses are often either a) running away from all the other places they have burned bridges at or b) dissatisfied with boarding facilities that make them pay their bill on time or follow the rules and looking for someone to take advantage of or c) looking for a place where they can do everything “their way” instead of some annoying barn manager’s way. Good clients–the kind that pay their bills and have reasonable expectations and who are willing to pay well for good care aren’t going to even approach you until after you’ve been in business 2-3 years. This is because most good clients understand that new boarding businesses are likely to fail or suffer instability in the first few years. You know, after the barn owner who thought they were going to make a profit realizes that they are actually paying for the privilege of providing 24/7 care for other people’s expensive pets.

[cherham]

In addition to everything said above. Remember once your operate your farm as a “business” you are required to carry proper liability insurance for your boarding business. That can be upwards of $2,000.00 plus per year regardless of how many boarders you have. Add on a riding school lesson program or offering training (even outside trainers coming in) that cost goes up! Divide that cost by the number of boarder horses you will have and you can easily find over $100.00 month per horse is being spent just for insurance. Right off the top of your boarding income. Boarding does NOT make money but it will offset the costs of your own horses at home. If you like the 24/7 lifestyle and can do without vacations, weekends off etc. it might work for you just fine. This is not a business for the faint of heart that’s for sure.

[luvmyhackney]

I’m actually looking for a small place in NoVa after the school year ends and so far my numbers don’t add up to make it worth boarding other horses unless I charge 700-800 a month just for the board. I feed too much high-quality hay and grain, don’t skimp on shavings and want competent well-paid help without charging extras and add-ons. If I could get away with charging 800.00 a month I would do it for a 2-3 horses max. Plus I’m a newbie in the area and don’t have enough connections.

But I am excited to be able to bring my one home, cause that means I get to buy a couple of Craigslist cutie projects.

[Foxglove]

Everyone echoed what I would say. Husband is a CPA and actually did the numbers for me (us) to run a boarding operation (our 2, board 4) a number of years ago --two big things hung us up and would still be a factor today–no indoor arena and high labor costs (and yes,I could do the work myself, but as a licensed teacher, I could make 3 x as much working at the school from 8-4 nine months a year than I would cleaning stalls and feeding horses --basically, I couldn’t afford ME). The lack of an indoor was problematic in attracting boarders. Not many will board where there is no place to ride between Nov - April. Only option was " Retirement Farm" where people would send old, lame, or otherwise unrideable horses to live out their years. Again, problem was the amount it would cost v what people are willing to pay for such a horse. And then I really didn’t want place where people send their horses to grow old and die. I wanted a vibrant atmosphere --so it never happened for us --instead, we filled the stalls with horses for me and the kids, hired help when we needed it, and never looked back. I honestly think I personally ride more (and enjoy my horses more) as a teacher (now retired) than I would have as the owner/manager of a boarding facility.

[clanter]

@Minxitbabe

I recently did the numbers on a small at home boarding operation that was reasonably priced and it wasn’t worth it…

We also ran the numbers on boarding dogs rather than horses with a pickup and delivery service … the numbers were much better, overhead was less… just didn’t do it because the high season for pet boarding is all holidays

current rates around here for a dog is about $32/day, a cat is $22/day without pickup.delivery

[Lmabernathy]

Lessons are the bread and butter at most stables, boarders help when the weather is cold and rainy and lessons cancel. Keep in mind farms don’t look like magazines and make sure your parents realize that. With only 9 acres you will probably have to have some dirt paddocks or keep the horses stalled the majority of the winter. The more they are stalled the more work and barn maintenance for you. Check out your counties farm tax exemption rules, if you qualify for that and plan on staying for a long time it can be quite the cost saver!

[trubandloki]

I must be doing something wrong because every time I have ever run the numbers they just do not work for me.

If your mortgage is $1000/month and you say your actual profit is $900, those two numbers alone, nothing else added in (no feed, bedding, insurance, electric, telephone) would have board for six horses at $317/horse/month.

[costco_muffins]

Repeat after me: I do not need to subsidize someone else’s hobby.

My business is profitable because of a few things:

1. I do a modified co-op where kids are cleaning paddocks every time they ride, saving me on labor and hassle
2. I do free choice hay, saving me on labor, hassle, and counter intuitively, on hay costs
3. I do not stall horses. They live in drylots with shelters.
4. I have a strong lesson program with a wait list

This is the most important, by far:

5. I am the only game in town. My location is 10 miles from any other barn, and I am directly adjacent to a subdivision. I am a public school teacher, so I am well known.

[Rackonteur]

@Raejewel

My family is considering purchasing a small property (10 stall barn, 9 acres of pasture to live at and potentially run a small boarding operation.
l

9 acres is not enough pasture for 10 horses.

What is the acreage of the rest of the property? (Arena, hay storage building, parking for boarders, farriers, vets, access for delivery trucks, etc.)? Does the barn have plumbing for h/c water and a rest room for the boarders?

[NoSuchPerson]

Can you afford this place without boarding other horses? Would you buy this place even if you were never able to board any horses, just for the pleasure of keeping your own horses at home? If the answer to these two questions isn’t “Yes,” then forget it.