just this morning I was offered $222.000 an acre for our place which was easy to turn down as we have the key particle of open land that is in the center of the last remaining developable land in our city
just told them my grand daughters goats and horses are kept here
There’s just such an incredible amount of resentment in your posts.
Boarders are too stupid to understand how much you do for their horse
Boarders are too stupid to understand the difference in boarding barns at different price points
Boarders are too stupid to understand inflation impacts horse stuff
Boarders are too stupid to understand maintenance & upgrades cost money
Boarders say they can’t afford horse stuff but dare to take vacations or spend money in other aspects of their life
“People” pay $500/mo for their dog to go to daycare so horse people should be fine paying whatever for horse care
And let’s not forget: barn owners are too stupid to run a business
It sounds like you should definitely forgo getting back into it.
Nah - You’re reading into my posts tone that plain and simply isn’t there.
I had an awesome group of boarders, and I miss them. But I’ll tell you what, it’s SUPER clear as I have read COTH through the years that people don’t generally understand how boarding works and what costs are. Did you not read the other barn owners posts? How they are closing because people don’t get it?
But as far as you go - Is it that I’m too blunt? Or too nice. I’m not sure which it is. Do I have a boundary problem? Or is it that I don’t understand business. Or maybe marketing. All of which you have said to me has been pretty offensive and I’ve laughed it all off. Sure, I’ve responded with some sarcastic comments but I’m fairly sure no one ELSE has read them that way.
I really appreciate what the helpful people have said about the actual perception of the concept - it was really useful. There’s been some great conversation and I really appreciate it.
Also - how does me calling attention to a dying industry and looking for alternatives remotely read like resentment? I’m just utterly baffled.
I’m worried about the loss of barns and about the industry at large. I asked a perception question of consumers to see if I could get some different ideas. Repeatedly I asked different questions and probed more deeply. I made comparisons to better understand the value and for some reason that was interpreted as snark?
Must be a full moon because I just don’t get it.
It’s high cost of living + lack of land, with the caviot that my experience is limited to SoCal. Lack of land = no turnout is standard. If no turnout is standard, than anyone who wants turnout is going to HAVE to pay extra. There just isn’t the land to have horses out in fields or lots; that space can be used for more stalls or arenas or condos. Also, just for whatever reason, grain isn’t a standard part of board. I’ve only ever seen that when I’ve been on the east coast.
But, as to things being itemized, this also varies who people were paying.
Barn A: stall + some feed + automatic water + stall cleaning/shavings were standard. Anything above that, boarder was going to have to pay someone (not the BO/BM or standard barn works, it be other boarders, trainers, or people making some moeny doing jobs around the barn).
Barn B: same property as above, but with a specific trainer. They made sure all the extras were done, then presented an itemized list of what those extras were (consistant the entire month). Training fee included handling the horse, blanket/mask/boot changes, grooming, turnout, water buckets, etc. Extras were feed, misc. products, therapy products, extra lessons, extra turnout, etc.
Barn C: stall + feed + stall cleaning. You could pay the barn to feed more/different hay (extra feed) and you were responsible for supplying shavings if you wanted them. No major trainer on property (couple people doing some lessons), so if you wanted extras then it was time to barter or pay your fellow boarders or friends.
Only one place (B) provided an itemized list; that trainer was fantastic at record keeping. Barn A (which includes Barn B) had 300+ horses on property. They did not have the staff for the barn to be in charge of lots of little things (ex. Horse 86 getting handwalked and Horse 103 needing boots on). That was left up to the owners and/or trainers to work out. Barn B was a trainer and was in charge of only ~20 horses. Barn C was probably about 100 horses? Again, making sure the basics took up so much time they couldn’t be bothered to deal with extras.
Thank you!! I’m on my way to a ballgame but I really appreciate all of your comments and don’t want to lose this! California is a foreign market to me so I’d like to understand it!
I think you are giving lots of barn owners too much credit.
Having done stall cleaning at more than one barn where I boarded (sometimes just my stall, sometimes lots of stalls), I have yet to have a barn owner that managed to properly track what was done.
I would not want to worry about having to debate my monthly bill with the barn owner every month.
If it’s land, you’d expect that might work anywhere where it is restricted? I wonder if that is the same in areas around NYC or Chicago.
Are barns with more land really far? If so - how far?
Why do you think that is?
My experience has been many want “custom things” not on the barn menu or modifications of things that are.
True. I was trying to think about everything that could possibly be offered to account for that but customers (in any industry) always find ways!
DId you mean two hundred and twenty two dollars?
Or two hundred thousand + per acre?
Two Hundred twenty two thousand one hundred fifty six dollars per acre…the offer was five dollars ten cents per square foot
I think lots of people have no idea of how much it costs to run a boarding stable. A local boarding place just closed a while back. It wasn’t making any money, they had storm damage and decided to just throw in the towel instead of continuing on. I live in rural Alabama where a lot of people have horses out in dry lots, pastures, with maybe a small barn that is ancient. They go buy a round bale and buy cheap feed at TSC and the horses do fine in the barbed wire fence. Mostly. And live outside so no bedding.
So my farrier that has horses at home in that situation was puzzled why it was not making money. “You can’t tell me why a barn that is charging $750 a month is not making money”. “Well I told him - they have a barn manager on salary that probably includes insurance and other benefits. She supervises workers that do the stall cleaning and maintenance on the property. They have miles of expensive PVC fencing, tractors, utilities, manure disposal. Then there is feed, hay that they are probably paying $7-10 a bale for. Which has to be unloaded and stacked. Shavings delivered. Footing for arenas. Insurance. The people running the barn rented the property so that had lease payments. Yes - they probably were not making any money.” I think if a boarder was thinking that the stable was making bank, they had no idea of how much was involved.
But itemizing everything on a bill??? Most people will think they are being nickeled and dimed to death. These costs can be explained to them but they do not have the right to examine the financials. That is not any of their business. I have been a boarder and it was not the happiest time in my life. But I would not expect to have everything itemized. If you do that the boarder might think “Well that 20 pounds of hay - my horse doesn’t need that much. You can clean the stall every other day.” As a barn owner you are under no obligation to subsidize somebody else’s expensive hobby. This is your new mantra. You run the barn the way you see fit - after all you are the one paying the mortgage. You do not have to spell out all the costs to your boarders. Now if you want to run the numbers to see if you are breaking even - that is good business.
If barns are closing it is a sign that people are unwilling to pay what it costs to maintain a horse. If it was subsidized in the past - yes they are not happy. Not your problem. If they think they are being ripped off they can buy property and keep the horse at home. Which might prove to be eye opening. I would never board because I like to do things my way and people have no concept of how much I pay for decent hay and enough shavings. And that is fine. No need for me to present audited financials with a deep dive into the costs of doing business. I can’t think of any other non-public company that provides that information. Either the price is worth it or it is not.
That’s not inconsequential. Holy shnikes.
Sure makes the need for many to become profitable more important. That is if people still want places to keep their horses.
The idea I had, which I didn’t articulate well, was more about offering a more customized experience up front.
You have a small horse that doesn’t eat much? Board is different for you than the giant super senior with all the needs.
Right now in most cases board is averaged across all of those horses so the super senior with a picky owner is being subsidized by the easy going easy keeper.
I don’t think it’s a case of people not affording it. Many many other businesses do well on consumption or consumption + types of models. When a business line or product isn’t proving viable, the solution is usually to change the product or the model before killing the service.
All that said - I appreciate the input! I was really just looking for boarder perceptions of value.
I think barn owners get around the hard keeper by having a set amount of hay, grain included in board. If you want more you have to provide for it or pay for it. I don’t think it is as easy to figure out bedding costs because if a horse is a real pig and the owner buys extra shavings sometimes the labor is worse because you have to strip and dispose of all the trashed bedding. In my case (4 horses here) I don’t measure. If you are a pig, you live outdoors more and you only get a small amount of shavings when you are in for a short time. And sometimes everything balances out. The easiest keeper that hardly eats anything is the biggest pig. I can juggle because I have a small amount of horses here. If I had to really keep track of a lot of horses -OY!!! And sometimes the neat horse gets stressed and trashes her stall. I can’t keep up with all that. I just shovel and go.
Well let me ask you - if you were paid adequately to mess with all that, would you?
I think the answer is yes - most people would. Barn owners (myself included) often get into the mindset that we have to do everything for the fixed cost that people are “willing to pay”. But what if that cost is more flexible than we assume? What if the current model is the problem, not the cost?
Just makes one think! That’s all. I hate to see all the suffering and everyone being miserable because “that’s the way we do it now”.
I’ve boarded at a place that charged like this.
Honestly: it never worked out. The help could not be relied on to execute the services that I paid for. I learned that it’s hard enough to run the barn at any given level, period. Never mind managing extras.
I would never try it again, unless I was able to be at the barn every day and keep an eye on stuff. At that rate, I’d do well to go to self-care and save myself the coordination.
If you have a big enough place, having different care levels can work. Barn A has services A-F. Barn B gets services A-B-C. Anything more complex than that: I haven’t seen work out.
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