How do you make sure the full care extras are taken care of? Or do you just not do that?
I’m finding that really curious - not bad - it’s just interesting to me!
I would rather boarding barns go the other direction and define what the boundaries are for care that they can offer at the rate that makes sense to keep the facility running smoothly and that accommodates what most clients actually need (e.g. supplements, and we all need meds eventually), and then really limit the extras they are willing to provide beyond that, or properly apply a surcharge that compensates for the fact that every individual thing done for one horse, even if it “just takes 5 minutes” impacts a system that is already subject to random extra time sinks (eg maintenance). Custom turnout schedules could just be insanity, medical requirements excepted. I really think all boarders should shadow a barn worker or manager for a day and see what really is involved in making a large facility run. There is hard work that goes well and is satisfying, and there’s unnecessarily hard work that takes 3x as long to do half as good a job because someone broke a wheelbarrow again and the ground is all mud because we never clean our paddocks and oh by the way the runoff management was not set up correctly at the facility.
I know land cost is a problem but it would be great if more places offered well-managed field board to cut down on total number of stalls used daily and related care items (and I say that currently owning a snowflake, so get that those that need things need them). Make sure pasture/paddocks are in good condition and water troughs are pristine. Clean stalls that are used thoroughly and maintain good manure management practices. Keep the barn dust free. Keep a few medical stalls available. Depending on location, maybe offer blanket service included or at extra cost or have owners do it. Take care of staff by making sure equipment and facilities are always in good working order.
It is a hard business and my impression is that over my lifetime more adult reriders or first time owners joining the sport drove a lot of the changes in how barns operated, but they did not get the barn rat education to see what good basic care that is not custom service in a pretty facility looks like. I have seen plenty of bad care in non-fancy facilities to be sure too. The industry just has to reset its baseline for what is offered standard for the cost of board.
I would advocate setting up operations to minimize the time/labor cost to achieve smoothly running quality care and maintenance first and for that to be the standard clients learn to look for first. Then we can worry about what to charge for extras and special care.
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In my experience, too many BOs don’t know who their clients are, and attempt to be the barn for everyone. The OP is demonstrating this flaw well, and speaking of the consequences.
Best run barns have defined services included in the board rates (many here have both indoor with 10-12hr turnout, and outdoor), and a price list for the unusual defined services they’re willing to do. If your horse or you need something that is not offered, then you are not the client for this barn and you go elsewhere.
Often the BOs have an idea of what client they want, but want to be full and end up trying (often succeeding) to convince potential clients that this is the right barn. Price is only a part of this. BOs think if the BO down the road charges X, I will lose boarders to them if I charge more.
If you want the knowledgeable horse owner who is willing to pay for good care, well kept facilities, and a BO with experience, then set your prices, define your services, and don’t try to persuade everyone who calls about boarding that your barn is the place for them.
That’s the industry change that’s really needed for mid level barns.
…
BTW one of the local barns does rent DIY stalls and sells them hay and shavings.
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Many barns do think this, I’m sure. I was full and had a waiting list before I closed - definitely wasn’t a concern for me. In my case, the only thing that stopped me from continuing to hike prices more was the fact that I had doubled board prices and then 60% increased the following year. Felt like I should give folks a break before I moved it again. Then I really wanted to redo the aisle to concrete it for easier care, we had to move temporarily to a different state and I didn’t want the liability of boarders when I wasn’t on property so I closed while we were gone and it became an opportunity to do more to my property.
But thanks! I’m really curious as to what drives a belief - so it’s been really enlightening to see the responses!
So your postulation is that barn owners aren’t currently saying no or setting up operations efficiently? And once they do, then they can change business models?
Why do you think that is? Do they just not know how to be efficient?
Your comment about the lack of barn rats (my quoting function is colliding with my phone) is interesting. I think that is affecting costs as well. This is purely anecdotal but when I was a kid I did a significant amount of unpaid labor for the privilege of riding more. I don’t see that happening as much - not the kids fault, they are often highly scheduled so that they are competitive for college and with the issues of abuse in barns I am sure parents aren’t as willing to allow kids to barn rat - but that was a bonus for boarders and barn owners - that was free labor.
But you are correct - many many people have no concept of the amount of work it takes to maintain a property with horses well, and it shows. Horses are so incredibly hard on facilities. Almost daily something large needs to be repaired here because one of my horses did something goofy. Yesterday the whole feed pan came off of one of my stalls, wood brackets and all, because of my old guy scratching himself on it. That part is hard for people to picture if they haven’t seen it for themselves just how much of a day is spent repairing stupid things 
Maintenance of mud is definitely hard. Thankfully that was the one thing that was done right on our property - we never have a mud issue. But I have definitely boarded at some places where the mud in the pastures makes it impossible to even get your horse in winter without losing boots. We have mostly dry lots and only a few pastures which we close off in wet weather - not as pretty and customers did sometimes not fully understand the grass/no grass thing but the lack of mud and the control over nutrition make them so worth it.
Will you have a line item for the horse that is messy in their stall versus the horse that is tidy in their stall?
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Will I? No - I actually think if I do reopen I’m going a completely different route that may not involve any stall time or extras at all. It has become obvious from this conversation that there really isn’t much of an appetite for this type of change in the industry from customers and that’s ok! That’s what the original question was all about - market research.
It also proves to me yet again that if you are going to offer something new or different that you really have to tighten the communication - which I didn’t realize I was so bad at (no snark - I just thought I was much clearer than I was, obviously).
But as to your question - conceptually, that was what the extra bedding + extra cleanings were for. If your horse was a messy Marvin, that’s what you would get charged for. If you happened to have a neat Nancy who could get away with less bedding/cleaning then great, you’d be charged commensurately. I would have thought boarders would have liked that idea (well, if they had Nancies) but maybe not.
It appears that the perception of nickeling and diming is more important than the actual cost - which is interesting! And I mean that genuinely and positively as I did think when challenged people might rethink that, but it appears that perception runs so deep that it’s an “immovable wall”. The notion that if billed for it (g)you’ll check it but if it’s hidden into the costs, (g)you won’t, is really a fascinating quirk of human psychology.
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what is funny to me is that offer is the same amount my father in law sold the property he had bought to keep his daughter’s horses on. In 1984 he sold what had become a central piece of open ground in what was then Far North Dallas (it was north of LBJ Freeway by about 3/4 mile)
So given that due to inflation the offer a more reasonable offer would have been at $15 per square foot. However I know that FIL’s property had been assembled into a combined track very similar to what ours sets in the middle of his that was flipped within months to a developer at $10 per square foot. (today that $10 would be $30.30 which would make an acre worth $1.3 million dollars to a developer). The increased land value around here is primary reason it makes little sense to keep horses to a reasonable person but few horses owners that I know are reasonable so we just keep our horses and goats.
A side note to this distracting post is also yesterday we had Animal Control and Zoning enforcement officers visit since some one complained about my neighbor’s goats. Once I heard of his problem (the city was going to fine him $200 per day until he removed his 21 goats) I had been on the citizens advisory committee that rewrote our city’s animal control ordinances just a few years ago so knew just who in the police department that was in charge of oversight of animal control here at least animal control falls under the police department so that laws can be enforced. I knew the letter of our city’s laws regarding animals since I help craft the laws to ensure we were not going to be written into none compliance.
The city officials who told my neighbor he was out of compliance and would be fined were not going to listen to reason. (And I understand it was not really their job to negotiate but were working under orders to enforce what their department head told them to do so I contacted the person who could set all them straight) My neighbor was completely within the letter of the law and the expected standards of care. The officer in charge (police Capt Russel) was very apologetic that this whole incident occurred. I asked him to to talk with the person who complained about my neighbor’s goats to make them understand that he was within the boundary of the laws, (Capt Russel remembered me as I took a pony and horse to one of these meeting to use as a demonstration as then the ordinance had working of Pony/Horse included, I asked them does any one in animal control know the difference between the two. they all said they did, so I proved them wrong as I took an officially measured “pony” with her pony card (pony was 14.1+ but never ever 14.2h) and a real horse to the meeting, all of them identified the pony as a horse and horse as a pony so I got the wording pony/horse removed and a measurement entered with a pretty clear way to measure the animals to take ambiguity out of the ordinances.
Dealing with the problems that others bring down upon us who do keep livestock within a major city where the land value is at $1.32 million per acre value makes keeping horses become basically unreasonable
So back to how to charge for care while running a boarding operation
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My postulation is that when barns had to compete for clients based on the client’s opinion of what entailed “good care”, they had to sacrifice basics to provide “extras” and custom services.
My standard for “efficient” may be too high given that my barn rat days were the most efficient facility I have ever seen, but nonetheless I have heard a lot of complaints from BMs about not being able to keep staff and having pitched in at those places here and there, the jobs were basically impossible to do well on a daily basis because of the setup, mud, broken equipment, extra care, etc.
I think you are very wrong there. Those who I know who have gotten out of horses say they were priced out. Some had to choose between medical bills or board. Some are getting too close to retirement to commit that much discretionary income to a hobby, still beloved but just not financially justifiable. Some incomes have not kept up with rising costs for everything let alone a hobby. Even with cheap board and minimal vet/farriers costs it’s going to be 10k+ a year. In low cost areas, people don’t have that.
Far as barns, did you know that in an increasing number of places you can’t have a manure pile where ever you find convenient? Or at all? If you submit plans for a new barn or substantial improvements, you must indicate where waste will be stored and avoid it being in a designated “ watershed”? Some places it must be hauled away $$$$.
Far as breaking out costs, going back to the restaurant model, when they raise prices due to rising costs they don’t tell you how much they pay per pound for ground beef ir a case of tomatoes
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If it’s “hidden”, which really means “stalls will have shavings added as required to keep the bedding at X depth is included in the board price” people are going to notice, “check”, if that depth is maintained and will complain if it’s not.
Just as I noticed the pristine snow around the paddock gate after my horses had supposedly been fed their morning grain, and one given his very expensive medication.
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I didn’t read all the responses but I have several examples of this (sort of) working, and not working.
- One barn used to charge $2 per turn out. That blew up when the person turning them out did a poor job tracking, and tried to charge someone for days they were off the property at a show.
- One barn had 3 turnout packages. 2 days a week, 3 days a week, and 5 days a week. Turned into a logistical nightmare on days stalls were getting picked (this barn only 2 days a week). Barn mandated 5 day/week turnout so the poor staff could actually get a routine going.
- One barn bills for hay and bedding, but only for when the horse is inside as it’s shared in the group turnout. I’m not sure exactly how this is tracked for the hay (flake? pound?) but it would be pretty easy on the shavings.
The only things I would be willing to pay for a la carte would be therapeutic treatments that I don’t want to stand around and do. Cold hosing, icing, etc. I’d also pay more if I had a horse that needed some sort of obnoxious feed type or schedule, and if meds needed to be administered (syringe). Everything else I strongly prefer it’s in some sort of package deal.
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This is a very common model in my area. There’s typically the standard board which includes all the necessities, and then a premium board option that includes things like extra meals, special hay, specialized turnout arrangements, extra blanket changes, etc. Sometimes field board is also offered as a basic option. This helps even out the cost differences between easy and hard keepers without overcomplicating billing. True extras (layup/rehab, clipping, etc) are still charged separately.
I think you’re wrong in characterizing this as a consumer-driven problem though. There are plenty of boarders willing to pay what it costs for good care, but they can’t force barn owners to raise prices. If Barn A and Barn B offer identical care, but Barn A either can afford to or is willing to offer those services at a lower price, then I’d need a pretty good reason to choose Barn B instead. It’s the same reason I check my invoices carefully and would avoid the degree of itemizing you’re proposing - I will happily pay a fair price to keep my horse well-cared for, but I’m also not here to be taken advantage of or martyr myself in the name of “saving the industry.” Businesses have to act like businesses and let consumers decide what they want to do. Your problem in this scenario is not boarders, it’s the other businesses artificially messing with the market. Barns don’t all have the same costs either so it’s not as simple as having one market rate as the standard. Land costs are a big one here - if Barn A has a paid off property they will be able to charge a lot less than Barn B and still turn a profit. A fancy training and sales program can eat some costs on board and still come out ahead in a way that a boarding-only facility can’t. Boarders have options that aren’t directly equivalent so it’s hard to make sweeping comparisons about what board “should” look like.
The real problem, as others on this thread have pointed out, is that there aren’t enough people who can afford horses in general to support the industry on the scale they have in the past. None of us can fix the fact that wages haven’t kept up with cost of living. Barns are going to close, it’s unfortunately inevitable barring larger economic changes that the horse industry can’t fix. Barns will have to decide whether to close down or lower costs to bring in customers on the margins, and as long as one place is willing to operate at a loss it holds the market back.
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This is becoming more common here, I think of the big event barn that I have been involved in for ~20 years. When I worked there certain things were just included in the board price - cold-hosing a client horse, mane pulls (if requested), poultice or wrapping, etc. Now, with how stretched thin everyone is, it’s billed. I don’t have a problem with this la carte approach, personally – but some boarders do.
Personally, if my horse needed any of those therapeutic modalities, I’d prefer to do it myself. I actually had a well-meaning teen give one of my horses a bandage bow once - now I’m that OCD crazy lady that only lets certain people touch my horse. 
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In my area, the biggest problem that I see is the increasing horsekeeping costs clashing with the reduced discretionary income of the working class. Boarding is now just more expensive as a percentage of owner income than it used to be.
The smaller barns are generally horsewomen (sometimes men) who have their own horses and the facilities for their own riding. They may choose to take in a few boarders for the company and maybe some money, since their fixed costs for the property are the same. It works when they do their homework and charge what is appropriate for the facilities and what they need financially. Unfortunately many do not know what to charge and do not do board contracts so misunderstandings abound. Generally the owner offers one program and the boarder decides beforehand if it fits. Extras (such as caring for an injury ) would be discussed. Here is another place where small barn owners make mistakes. They become friends with the boarders and dont mark the business line clearly so they end up soaking and medicating for free!
The bigger barns with instructors and fancy facilities and lots of workers have very specific boarding contracts. There is also a list of extras and their costs.
As a boarder, I would feel like it was a bit of “bait and switch” if you advertised the basic price and then noted that things that are normally included are an extra charge. I think a detailed boarding contract would serve your needs. It outlines feed, bedding, turnout, cleaning etc. with extra charges for more grain or whatever may be offered.
As a boarder, I dont need to know much about the costs involved in determining board costs. The “rent” is what you state and I decide if I can afford it and if it is worth it to me.
I think you need to find a price that you feel makes it worth it to you to take boarders. At worst, your market cant support that price, and you do not get boarders. I do appreciate smaller barns as a boarder with just a couple of people handling my horse. You can also market the small barn atmosphere as well as any amenities that are particularly good (big, all day turnout, large riding ring with great footing, access to trails, etc) Good luck!
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Same. I have no problem paying extra for the random things that pop up, mostly because like you said I like to do most of those things myself when I can. But if I can’t get out to the barn I like having the option to pay our very knowledgeable barn manager to do it myself, and I absolutely pay more to board somewhere that I trust the staff and management to oversee my horse’s care to my standards. Whether the extra money I’m paying for this place vs others in the area actually covers my barn’s true costs isn’t something I can know, all I can do as a customer is pay my bills without complaint and continue to make it clear that I appreciate everything they do.
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I’ve had those problems at boarding facilities too - I have sympathy. I once put a brush in the feed bin my horse was supposed to be using (where it would have to be moved if it were used) and it was never used. Definitely feel your pain.
But the scenario here goes more like this - the barn provides 2 bags of shavings “included” per week and the boarder wants more - most barns right now just say no, that’s not how we do it. In this case there would be a conversation and a “if you want more, that’s 4 bags per week and it’s x dollars”. Boarder gets shavings in their stall, barn owner gets paid. Everyone can be happy because no one is grumbling about having to move over too little bedding in the stall.
The assertion was that if it was ‘hidden in the board bill’ no one would check to see that there was adequate bedding in the stall, but if it were obvious and billed for they would. That’s what I found odd. I’d check that my horse was getting what they were supposed to get regardless of whether it was up front or not, it’s just that if it wasn’t upfront, there would be more awkwardness about talking to the barn owner about how much bedding was in the stall, or whether they could have more grain (or whatever).
Sorry - when I first did this I was not wearing my glasses, waiting for horses to eat
Right - which is where I don’t think I explained things well up front.
The idea is - you’re an owner who is trying to save costs. You have an easy keeping horse. You talk to the barn owner ahead of time and put a plan together that includes the minimums set for hay, grain, and bedding. You get charged at the end of the month according to that plan.
Your friend, Suzie, has more discretionary income. Suzie has a larger horse that eats more. She wants more bedding in her stall. When she sets out her plan with the BO, she gets more of everything and is charged accordingly.
You don’t have to leave your barn family - you all can stay together. And you, and Suzie, both have a boarding rate that meets your needs in negotiation with the BO. The rate doesn’t fluctuate madly every month - it’s just different for you than it is for Suzie.
Right now, either the owners complain that they want more x or y and the barn owner has to say no, OR they move, leaving their best friends behind.
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I should have qualified.
In my area, which is a wealthy area near the city, the barns that are closing are not because people can’t afford horses. While yes, individuals get out of horses as they age and financial pressures fall on them, that’s not the driver for these barns closing, as most of them were full at the time of closure.
Hope that helps explain my position.
And yes - I don’t have a manure pile, I have a dumpster. I totally get that.
Again, the idea was not that you. necessarily to have an itemized reciept. The idea was that you put together a plan with the barn owner that allows for you to have the best care at the price you can afford and if certain things flex, for instance, you need more feed but you can get away with whatever the barn owner deems is the minimum for bedding, you get that and the barn owner gets paid.
Yes - and I definitely agree with that premise. I’ve seen that often - that good care gets sacrificed because people want fancier facilities and extras.
Got it on the latter. I’ve really tried hard to set up my facility as easy as possible to do chores because I’m in the same boat. And there’s literally nothing worse (ok, maybe not NOTHING worse, but it’s all up there) than trying to clean a stall with a broken muck fork or a wheelbarrow where the wheel comes off as you’re trying to wheel it out. My next purchase is a newer mule so that I can clean paddocks more easily, and even though that’s going to take awhile to pay back, it saves my back and precious minutes.
