Starting small boarding stable?

[mroades]

@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.

THIS THIS THIS!!!

[PeteyPie]

Are you sure your boarding operation will be attractive to prospective clients? Is it well located, not too far from town? Are you in a horsey area where there is a pool of prospective boarders?

Are you offering the facilities to boarders which are in line with the price you will charge for that board? People who pay top dollar to board their horses will want a lot of goodies, such as an arena with a professional base/surface which is groomed regularly, top notch fences, a nice barn with a bathroom for people and plumbed grooming areas for clipping and bathing their horses, maybe a washer and dryer, a coffee pot/lounge area, probably a round pen or two, and most importantly, access to a trainer. These are just things that occur to me off the top of my head.

If you are not charging top prices I’m not too sure how you can make the profit you are expecting, but for sure, you will make something. Will it be enough to make it worthwhile? If it isn’t enough because you’ve underestimated expenses or you have to charge less board than you expected or you can’t keep the barn full, what will happen?

[Bluey]

Add to your business plan how far you are willing to go into the hole if things don’t work out and how will you, if you close it up, manage the business assets as you sell out?

In other words, how will you pay back all your investors, what percentage on the dollar to each, if land and housing now being used by some will be part of that, how to protect those assets so they don’t fall if the boarding business fails?

That should be part of any business plan involving more than sole proprietorship.
It can save you a big headache and many bad feelings if you have to go there.

[Guilherme]

First Rule of Investing: Never invest in anything that eats.

Second Rule of Investing: Never invest with a family member or let them invest with you.

How does the first rule apply? If you accept care, custody, and control of an animal you have to care for it. You likely have that duty even if somebody doesn’t pay their board. That means you need to screen your clients and ensure you get enough up front money to cover you if you have to foreclose on your agister’s lien. So you’re obligating yourself for care even if your client defaults.

Money does more to ruin family relations than anything save adultery or child molestation. Lots of professional experience, here.

So, what’s your goal? You haven’t really clearly stated one. Once you have an idea of what you want to do there’s a bunch of good advice from others, above.

G.

P.S. Virtually every boarding facility I’ve ever known or known of loses money on straight boarding. They make a profit in training, transporting, show advising, etc.

[zakkandtoto]

@BeeHoney

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.

I don’t think they were talking about making $900/month off of boarding 6 horses; they were talking about covering the mortgage, insurance, taxes and utilities, the care of two personal horses, plus making an additional $900 off of six stalls. Even if they’re in a part of the country where such a farm could be had for $300k, they’re looking at making a net profit of at least $500 off of each stall.

That’s one magic loogie.

[BeeHoney]

Oh, no, I get it, I was just trying to be polite. When people talk about numbers like that they haven’t factored in something huge like the labor or the mortgage, and probably a bunch of other stuff, large and small.

Usually people leave out the labor, because they will be doing it themselves so it doesn’t “cost anything” right? Well, as it happens, running a boarding farm is grueling work and it’s 365 days per year. No matter how much you enjoy it, it can be a real drag on holidays, when you have a family event (or other obligations) or would like to take a vacation. Or when the weather is bitterly cold and you have the flu but you have to figure out how to get water to a bunch of horses because the water line froze. Or when your clients are off on lovely tropical vacations, but you are trudging into the wind through ankle deep mud to catch a horse that is playing “catch me if you can.”

There’s a point, about 1-2 years in where new BOs figure out that running a barn is a lot more work and responsibility and inconvenience than they bargained for. Suddenly they realize that the time they are spending running the farm is taking the place of more gainful employment opportunities that might come with higher pay and valuable benefits like insurance and retirement. They realize that barn work can be a lot of wear and tear on your body–both aches and pains as well as injuries both minor and major. Suddenly they realize the sacrifices they are making but when they count the numbers they see that they are getting paid less than minimum wage to care for other people’s luxury pets, and see that they are left with little time, energy and money for their own horses.

[Color_of_Light]

The first step in starting any new business is to establish if there is a need for this business. Have you done full market research and analysis that concludes that your market and location can support this type of business?

Second, make sure you fully understand that this is NOT an “investment”. A tiny operation of this size is not much more than a hobby farm. It will require A LOT of overhead (money to create the thing, money to run it every month), plus a lot of sweat equity (manual labor by you and others involved, working for free, to make the place happen). At best, you will have tax write off’s and you will be able to fund your personal hobby.

If the answer is yes to the opening question, and you fully understand and agree about the points made in the second paragraph, then seriously consider what is said by each and every person who has replied to this post. There is a lot of wisdom and great advice here!

[Sweetums_Mom]

I own a 6 stall barn, 19 acres. DH and I built everything because 1. we like the farm lifestyle and 2. provide a place for my horse. After that, we added a few boarders but it was really only to cover my horse’s expenses and whatever was left over we used for maintenance and additions. We used a lot of our own money. When I had as many as 3-10 boarded horses, I was able to use that “extra” money for building sheds, tack room, etc., and for those never ending fixit projects.

So my advice to you, in addition to what’s already been posted, is to think hard about how you feel having people coming to “your” place at all times of the day/evening/weekends/holidays, what you will do if you are sick or want to take a vacation as this lifestyle is 24/7 365 days a year. The hardest thing for me when I first started getting boarders was the overwhelming responsibility I felt having other people’s horses and the lack of privacy.