What is the average amount of space you give someone in your barn for a tack room, feed, and hay? Do you let them keep their trailer parked there too?
Self-care board at our farm is $100 per horse per month: That includes 7 acres, run-in shed, and space in the barn to store their equipment and feed.The owner is responsible for feed, feeding, vet care, repairing broken fences the horses have leaned on / ripped off, clean-up horse manure in the field.
There are currently 4 horses at the farm.
If I were doing self care as a boarder, I would need a minimum of a 4āx6ā area for feed and tack storage plus room for at least 15 large bales of hay. The space for tack and feed could be in two separate areas too to separate feed storage from tack storage.
I donāt have a trailer, but if I did, I would like the option to keep it at the barn, and would be willing to pay additional for that.
How much space you get depends on how much space they have they are willing to include. That varies.
We have a nice setup where every stall has a loft right above the same size as stall, 11 by 11. Stalls also have runouts.
The lofts have doors and padlocks. You can fit about a ton and a half max hay in there and have room for tack and grain. Thereās a trap door in loft and many people have rigged up electronic timed hay drops.
That IMHO is the best possible setup 
but you really do need to be able to store a couple months of hay securely and dry and convenient.
The current place I rough board at (& live) along with two previous places all had enough room to store a years worth of hay for two horses. This is over close to 20 years of rough boarding. Its great because i can stock in summer when prices are cheaper. Totally not the norm for majority of barns but these were/are all backyard type places - nothing fancy. I have also parked my horse trailer on-site for no extra fee ]- all places have plenty of space to park trailers. All places have runouts and pasture/dry lot turnouts.
Not having enough hay storage is kind of a deal breaker for me.
i do repair fences as needed, pick the paddock daily and do all the care myself. Iāve paid between $150-$175/month for these boarding situations.
I had self care board for 3 yrs, and we were each given an extra stall for feed, hay and tack. For a while I shared the
stall storage area with another boarder who eventually left. Be careful of your tack and feed as we had some theft
problems and I had to install a chain and padlock on my storage stall.
Thank you everyone! This is extremely helpful. We have a barn (horses do not stay in there) in which the boarder gets a tack room (10x17 ft), another area for feed and a 20x20 ft area at the top of the barn for hay. I am not from the horse world (ha!) so I wanted to see what is āenoughā space because ā¦
I started noticing more items appearā in the main space of the barn (3 large storage trunks, 3 large plastic bins, a bike, a utility trailer, and a few boxes that had christmas decor!). Keep in mind, she has a 10x17 tack room of equipment and was now spreading out into more areas. I walked into her tack room and there was a dirt bike! Iām fine with her using the tackroom for her equipment and personal items (if absolute need be), but we are not a storage unit. I asked her to move (or remove) everything into the tack room (all the items that were appearing) because we canāt even fit our own tractor attachments we just purchased because she has the 3 huge trunks in the main entrance of the barn! I just want to make sure this isnāt a ānormalā thing people do. Also, she only pays $100 per month! Considering we have fixed most of the fences her horses have busted (a lot) since we have moved to this farm. Otherwise she jerry rigs it with rope (a cracked fence board).
Sounds like you hit a boarder that, given an inch, takes a mile.
I expect you canāt help such people without personal boundaries, they are who they are.
May ought to consider if you really want that kind of boarder around?
Do you have good insurance to cover any trouble a boarder may cause?
Iāll second this. And, personal pet peeve, it gives those of us who are great self care boarders, a very bad name and a lot less options.
If it were my barn sheād get notice that these items are to be removed within one week, if not theyāll be hauled to the local landfill - or better yet to auction to try to make back $$ you spent repairing fences that were boarders responsibility.
Period. No excuses. :mad::mad::mad:
And no, this is not ānormal.ā
Oh, and raise your board. $100/mo is not enough to discourage folks like this.
Sounds like she is using you both as a barn and as a storage locker/shed.
I would definitely set limits to storage in your contract. I would also not allow motorized vehicles or any other extra flammable items to be stored in the barn. Perhaps outlining that only items related to horse care and riding may be stored in the designated areas?
Over all though, why on earth would you want to keep this boarder for only $100 a month?
That has been our saying since we moved to the area! lol. We did set more boundaries recently and everything else, you have to get on her. Itās tough, because she is nice. But stillā¦
A common way to do it around here, was that the boarders rented one stall for their horse, and one stall for their stuff. Or they could rent more if they want (ie sometimes 2 boarders would share a 3rd stall, so they each had 1 horse stall, 1 hay stall, 1/2 tack storage stall).
Sounds like you just need to tell your boarder that she has to keep her stuff in her assigned spot.
The storage area you have available seems fair. I would definitely limit her to that and charge for trailer storage. Charging for trailer parking is very regional, but $100/month isnāt enough to include that regardless of where you are.
Fair? I would say āgenerousā I donāt think you can even rent a storage unit for $100/month. I have been at 3 sorta-self-care barns. The first allowed me to have an 8x8 Tuff Shed for hay/tack/everything. The second offered the hay I wanted and I was given the space in a community tack room of one high mountted saddle rack and the space below it, plus two trash cans for feed. The third gives me a 3x4x5 foot locker in the 24x24 stall, and room for 4 bales of hay in the barn. No room for grain/feed. This is in SoCal
Does this boarder feel like your farm is her home-away-from-home? has she kept her horses there longer than youāve lived there (did you inherit her when you bought the farm?) I ask because while I certainly agree that the dirt bike and Christmas stuff are way out of line, some people think storage is storage and a big barn just sitting there empty is just begging to be filled with their stuff! And horse people accumulate a LOT of stuff. There are people in this world who see your empty space as something they could use ājust for a while.ā When you ask them to move their stuff, theyāll take it someone elseās empty space!
All joking aside, there are also people who live in apartments who formerly lived in houses and had places for their lifelong accumulation of horse stuff (extra blankets, the expensive saddle that fit the horse they just sold, etc). People who need to keep all their horse stuff at the barn have very different space needs from the person whose basement is full and whose retired horse has a grooming tote and a first aid kit at the barn. Sounds like itās time to have a conversation with your boarder.
You mention a trailer - is hers full, or empty? Suggest she offload the miscellaneous stuff into her trailer.
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