Is it normal for teenagers (like 15!) young to work in barns?? My younger sister wants to do it and I don’t know what to think. She would have to get dropped off after school.
(I recently got hired for a show barn and she is talking about wanting to work there. It is not a small barn, very reputable which may change who they want in their barn… I know people have working students so I just wanted people’s opinion.)
depends upon the State’s youth labor laws regarding agriculture workers
usually the default is Age 14 and 15: may work outside school hours in jobs not declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor , unless the farm/ranch is owned by the youth’s parents or legal guardian
usually Age 16 and older: may work in any farm job any time.
At the barn where I have my horses the trainers won’t hire anyone under the age of 18. Not worth the potential liability risk if say a male adult trainer were to be alone in the barn with an underage teenage girl.
It probably depends on the state you live in. The Federal Department of Labor guide on youth employment is here
and covers what @clanter mentioned above. The only related hazardous job I see is
- Working in a yard, pen, or stall occupied by a bull, boar, or
stud horse maintained for breeding purposes; …
So as long as there are no stallions involved (and your state doesn’t otherwise prohibit it) then it seems to be allowed.
As a farm owner, I’d be reading my insurance policy carefully to make sure young employees are actually covered. If a kid gets hurt, parents of the “would never sue anybody!” variety can change their tune in a flash, not to mention the medical insurance company may come looking to recover costs.
I hire teenagers. Youngest was 14 -most are 16. But all the kiddos (boys and girls over the past 30 years) have been farm kids --background in hard work and livestock. All knew how to drive a tractor. Some have been better than others, but all were good kids who stayed working for me until high school graduation.
It’s been traditional in North America for riding stables to hire teenage girls, at least in part because the minimum wage for children is lower than for adults, and because horse crazy girls may self exploit and agree to terrible pay. Or because the barn owner genuinely wants to give kids a start in horsemanship. Or because no one else will do the job.
Whether any given stable today thinks its worth while hiring children is going to be very individual. If there are other young teens working there your sister could try applying.
But do you want her working there? Will it be distracting for you? Will your parents or the barn expect you to be supervising her? Will her performance reflect on you? What’s her experience and competence level? Why does she suddenly want to follow you to your new job? Is this something your parents are foisting on you?
From your other post it sounds like this is your first grooming job and maybe your first job. My advice would be to give yourself a month or two to learn the job before you decide whether having your younger sister at the barn is a good idea. It may turn out there’s no position for her.
If she does get a job there make it clear to everyone including your mom, your boss, and your sister that you are not going to be the primary person babysitting or mentoring or cleaning up after your sister. She needs to be supervised and mentored by a staff member or barn manager, and she can’t take this as fun time to hang out with you. Also if she gets fired, will you be blamed?
15 is an age where kids can be all over the map with maturity. Some 15 year olds can do a horse or labor or retail job with the focus and competency of young adults. Other 15 year olds are still children and are not really employable yet, they can be distracted, socially anxious, addicted to their phones, etc.
In other words there might or might not be a job for her at this barn. She might or might not be capable of doing and keeping that job. But also, do you want her there and how will that impact you doing your own work?
If it’s going to potentially lead to drama at work, at home, if your parents are going to blame you if things don’t work out for her, then just figure out how to politely discourage all this.
Our barn will have teens work but they are kids that take lessons/board at the barn. I don’t think they would hire some one outside of the barn at 15 - unless like in your case it was a relative of some one they know well.
My kid is a teen and works as needed at the barn. For years she helped out as a volunteer and now she gets paid. Lots of the lesson kids will stick around to help turn out horses or fill hay bags- stuff like that- but they don’t get paid.
we owned our barn which was operated as C Corporation, my kids did work some for the barn but the youngest could not be employees however they could take care of their horse …then paid an allowance from the home bank account.
Youngest daughter at age 15 wanted “a job” like her high school friends were working (she was a year younger than most of her classmates) …could not find a job.
So she started giving riding lessons which expanded into a summer riding program business that she created and ran herself. She developed the curriculum, designed camp logos, met with tee-shirt companies to print her camp tee-shirts, met with local news papers to be interviewed about her summer camp. She was successful even hiring some of her school friends as assistants (all after college went into education teaching primary and secondary)
all of four our kids have had their own businesses
Teens do most of the weekend cleaning and turn horses in/out where I board. I don’t know how old the current set is, but an adult drops them off, so I’m guessing under 16? Like someone else said, maturity can vary. There have been a couple more mature girls with horse experience working there who also took the odd shift of feeding, and one on her way to being a professional trainer who rides client horses as well.
When I was 14 I cleaned stalls and exercised horses, but that was just a few decades ago.
Theres some Safe Sport guidelines (if the BO/trainer are USEF members) regarding unchaperoned minors working alone with Adults. Afraid the days of minors being dropped off to hang at the barn have been ruined more then a few perverts and nasty, humiliating lawsuits.
15 is a little young and you are brand new here, may not know these people that well. Might not be a good idea right now.
In my experience, one place I boarded seemed to have a revolving door of teens who were responsible for feeding in the evening. Nine times out of ten, my horse wasn’t getting the amount of hay that I was paying extra for and they couldn’t manage to scoop out 1/2 a scoop of grain, put it in his feeder and add water. It wasn’t rocket science but I was tired of having to constantly be monitoring it and couldn’t trust it was being done. One of the reasons I left.
the way around this is parents carpool and bring the kids. one brings the kids and hangs out for a hour or so and then the other comes in to stick around for a another hour or so and takes the kids home. This way there is a chaperone.
Helps to have wifi at the barn for the parents.
Helps if barn parents live close enough to each other to even consider car pooling let alone staying at the barn longer then their own child’s lesson. Good luck with that… 
Fewer barns means greater distances and a wider range of where clients live.
I started working at barns when I was 13. I’ll say that employers tried to exploit me a LOT more before I turned 16.
Just giving an example of what has worked for the past 5 years at the barn where we lesson for a number of families.
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