Thought experiment - boarders....would you pay by the service?

[Alterration]

@dmveventer

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.

Oh - I never said it was a consumer-driven problem. I was simply saying that maybe there are tweaks to help consumers make choices that work better for them. I just went significantly more granular than packages, which people did not like, which is fine.

Around here there aren’t packages - it’s “field board or stall board” and you get what you get, with the exception of some extras like daily grooming, use of the vibrating plate thing, etc. There’s not an option for more feed, bedding or turnout. It was “you get a stall or you don’t get one at all and you only get a few hours of turnout at the barn owners discretion”. I wasn’t big on that, coming from a region where it was significantly more common to have at least 12/12.

So I was looking for solutions to help barn owners and horse owners to come onto the same page. To design a package up front that better meets their needs, and pay accordingly, not according to “my way or the highway”.

[Alterration]

@endlessclimb

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.

Appreciate the input. People do like packages in “normal” life as it does reduce decision fatigue. I was proposing putting a custom package together at the beginning of the boarding time, tweakable when the horse needs or horse owner preferences change, but perhaps that was a step too far.

I found it interesting that the larger barns in CA and Canada had this approach (FL too, I did some more research last night) considering that it seems like it would be worse of a nightmare to manage at a larger barn than a smaller barn, but maybe I’m missing some economy of scale that makes it more possible.

If I do reopen, I’m likely to differentiate by going boutique anyway, so it’s a moot point, I really was just musing - you know how it goes when you’re cleaning stalls and you get thinking!

[mmeqcenter]

@Alterration

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.

Ahhhh, I see, I did not understand that until this post.

I think still not ideal. I know barns that have tried it in the past. It definitely absolutely opened the door and created a bunch of picky boarders that nitpicked every single item and argued on what they thought the horses needed. It’s just not worth it. Also, it requires labor-intensive practices, such as having to feed all hay and grain in stalls to ensure the horse is not eating more than its owner paid for. Which means nothing can be fed outside, so if you don’t have thick lush pasture 24/7, now you’re going to have horses outside making bad decisions because they have nothing to graze or snack on. Hurting each other, damaging fences, etc. So now you have more labor and maintenance. Or, as a lot of h/j barns do, just stop turning out. No group turnout. One hour a day of solo turnout in a small lot, and with no food or anything outside, they’re running the fence soon enough so now the owner thinks “my horse loves his stall!” I’m being a bit pessimistic here but, the snowball effect is real.

[mmeqcenter]

@clanter

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

Really good points here. Yet more reasons why BOs are shutting down. I totally see how having to constantly battle complaints from the neighborhoods building up around you would wear down ones desire to have livestock. SMH. Sad.

[dags]

I think when you start discounting Neat Nellie and Air Fern Annie’s board you’re actually cutting into what little profit padding there is. Like a breeder selling foals; not every one is going to be The Winner. Some are going to straight up lose you money, and you rely on the nice ones that actually sell at a fair profit to offset that.

I also don’t think most boarders, who are onsite maybe 2 hours a day, know whether they have a Neat Nellie or Messy Marvin. To the barn owner, that’s Just Horses. Average time for average stall: 10 minutes. Marvin’s takes 12 minutes, but Nellie’s just 8. It evens itself out without any fancy book keeping.

And then there’s the owner that insists their 15.2h horse could not possibly eat as much as the 17h horse, then sees that Less Food is an option, and demands that option. And now a potential new boarder comes to view the property, and Miss 15.2h is looking a little dull and drawn up, and sweeping generalizations about overall care are made. You can’t really force a boarder to pay more when clearly there is an option to pay less.

One reason Full Service came about is because BOs often could not trust boarders to maintain a standard of care that is up to a professional standard, and then the whole program gets judged by the half-ass care one horse is getting.

[Alterration]

@mmeqcenter

Ahhhh, I see, I did not understand that until this post.
I’m being a bit pessimistic here but, the snowball effect is real.

All good - I definitely did NOT explain it well. Which is an issue.

In my area horses are fed in stalls anyway or in separate dry lots. Almost no one has big pastures, except the barns with scary fencing That was definitely part of my frustration when I bought my barn. It was a choice between 2 hours of turnout on a dry lot with no water or 24/7 turnout with scary fencing and nothing in between.

So I bought my barn and did a more typical 12/12 (typical for where I’m from), but it’s a really expensive way to manage horses here as we don’t have the acres of lush pasture.

Now that it’s just my horses, I have them on a track system and while I do put them up to feed (I’ve got a senior horse myself), the track system is pretty easy to maintain. But I have ALL this fencing that I’ll have to take out, which is annoying.

[dags]

@mmeqcenter

Really good points here. Yet more reasons why BOs are shutting down. I totally see how having to constantly battle complaints from the neighborhoods building up around you would wear down ones desire to have livestock. SMH. Sad.

I think this + the insane value of land are the real reasons seemingly full barns are closing. Barn Owners are an aging population, and most probably have not set aside enough to retire comfortably. Selling the land is the retirement plan, but unfortunately young, up & coming pros can’t afford to buy it and keep it in our industry.

[Alterration]

@dags

One reason Full Service came about is because BOs often could not trust boarders to maintain a standard of care that is up to a professional standard, and then the whole program gets judged by the half-ass care one horse is getting.

For sure - that’s one reason it would take tactful conversations up front and throughout the process. I was picturing the profit being built into the items and not necessarily distributed by “distributing the wealth”.

So it’s not so much discounting Neat Nellie and Air fern Annie as it is charging them commensurate to what they need. But - that could be accomplished with just minimums and saying anything extra has a cost too, which is kind of what I was proposing anyway. Minimums for feed/bedding and anything over that is $$.

But - it’s clear there’s a HUGE lack of trust between barn owners and boarders that may make all the situations untenable. I was hoping by making the conversation more clear that it might help. It is super unfortunate - and while I TOTALLY understand that people have had horrible situations on all sides, it’s just sad and reflective of why people say “screw this” and close their barns or are just perpetually unhappy with boarding situations as boarders.

[Alterration]

@dags

I think this + the insane value of land are the real reasons seemingly full barns are closing. Barn Owners are an aging population, and most probably have not set aside enough to retire comfortably. Selling the land is the retirement plan, but unfortunately young, up & coming pros can’t afford to buy it and keep it in our industry.

Yes - I do think that’s driving our issue here in this area. I live 15 minutes from downtown in a major US city. The city is sprawling rapidly and as prices go up, it’s hard to resist the pressure from developers, as the profit margins in boarding are so low to nonexistent. It’s why I was hoping to find ways of negotiating better to increase them. But - obviously - I explained things poorly

[Simkie]

@Alterration

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.

Lol no one said this. Again, with the stupid boarders.

If shavings are billed per bag, I will verify that the bag count on the bill aligns with the bag count actually provided. It’s not about “are there shavings in the stall” it’s verifying the accuracy of the BILLING.

If adequate bedding is rolled into board price, there’s nothing in billing to verify. If adequate bedding is supposed to be rolled into board price, and bedding isn’t adequate, that’s a conversation with the barn.

No one wants to have to verify that line item billing is correct every month, especially daily services. No one has said this is about verifying that services billed were provided.

[Alterration]

@Simkie

Lol no one said this. Again, with the stupid boarders.

If shavings are billed per bag, I will verify that the bag count on the bill aligns with the bag count actually provided. It’s not about “are there shavings in the stall” it’s verifying the accuracy of the BILLING.

If adequate bedding is rolled into board price, there’s nothing in billing to verify. If adequate bedding is supposed to be rolled into board price, and bedding isn’t adequate, that’s a conversation with the barn.

I didn’t say boarders were stupid. What I said was that I found the assertion interesting. Those are two VERY different things.

What I was trying to do was facilitate that last conversation. Because at every barn I’ve been to and in every thread on COTH it goes “I want more bedding in my stall” “we don’t do that” “ok, guess I have to move”.

So I thought perhaps it would be nice if the price list was more up front. But then it was asserted that if you paid for more you’d be checking to see that each bag was provided, which was a NEGATIVE against it, so I thought that was weird.

If that’s not what you meant - sorry I got it wrong!

[FjordBCRF]

Nickel and diming were mentioned a couple times. The only time I have ever felt nickel and dimed was at the holdover barn we are at for like a month and a half getting out of Danger Barn. It was by far the most expensive barn I had been at; base board being just over $1000/month for basic care and you could add from there with blanketing/fly stuff etc. Nice place, but nothing high end or above and beyond.

They additionally charged for trailer parking which at least in my area, most places don’t charge for providing they have space. This place had ample space and not a lot of people with trailers. I paid it, but that very much came off to me as a money grab since it didn’t require their time or supplies and isn’t the norm in our area,

[Alterration]

@FjordBCRF

They additionally charged for trailer parking which at least in my area, most places don’t charge for providing they have space. This place had ample space and not a lot of people with trailers. I paid it, but that very much came off to me as a money grab since it didn’t require their time or supplies and isn’t the norm in our area,

Super interesting. It’s common in our area because there isn’t as much space and it does create some insurance and mowing/maintenance overhead.

@FjordBCRF

Nickel and diming were mentioned a couple times

Yes - that was the perception, and I just thought it was interesting!

[MsM]

You seem to have a different boarding barn style around you. In my area IME, the barn owner specifies maximum of X amount of A or B grain and Y amount of hay daily. But in every barn there was the option to pay for a higher amount.

I have always had horses that had considerably less than the maximum amount of grain, but I was fine with that. They tended to eat more hay! And there was always the option for premeasured supplements once a day.

Somehow bedding was a bigger issue. When allowed to add themselves or pay for more bedding, some had shavings to their knees. The people cleaning had a harder time fishing though all that.

[mmeqcenter]

Just because they had enough space, doesn’t mean storing your trailer does not carry risk. If a tree or something falls on it and damages it, I assume you’re going to expect the BO to pay for the damages, yes? So they get liability insurance to be safe. Your fee for trailer storage likely just pays for insurance. This is a great example of costs that boarders just don’t consider, then get all resentful when they’re charged for something they think should be free or less expensive because to them it’s “not any more work.”

[Alterration]

@MsM

You seem to have a different boarding barn style around you. In my area IME, the barn owner specifies maximum of X amount of A or B grain and Y amount of hay daily. But in every barn there was the option to pay for a higher amount.

I have always had horses that had considerably less than the maximum amount of grain, but I was fine with that. They tended to eat more hay! And there was always the option for premeasured supplements once a day.

Yes - here it tends to be either zero provided or a plan you have no input on. Neither seemed terribly preferable to me as a boarder. The latter was mostly because barn owners didn’t trust boarders, and the former was because the care was…substandard.

Just proves again that it’s SO regional.

[FjordBCRF]

For me, I dont view an itemized bill as nickel and diming because everything does have a cost to it. I don’t see it mentioned upthread, but my auto bills are always itemized too with the cost of every component and then the labor/hours. I always think it’s interesting and think I should watch more Youtube so I can do more basic stuff myself

[dags]

@Alterration

So it’s not so much discounting Neat Nellie and Air fern Annie as it is charging them commensurate to what they need. But - that could be accomplished with just minimums and saying anything extra has a cost too, which is kind of what I was proposing anyway. Minimums for feed/bedding and anything over that is $$.

I feel like this is already pretty standard practice?

@MsM

Somehow bedding was a bigger issue. When allowed to add themselves or pay for more bedding, some had shavings to their knees. The people cleaning had a harder time fishing though all that.

This is a classic case of BO Knows Best so why even invite an argument with an option to bed more. It’s wasteful, takes longer to clean, has to be stripped more often, doubles the manure pile, and is easier to get cast in, but for some reason the owner insists the horse cannot be comfortable without 12" of shavings on top of mats.

[FjordBCRF]

@mmeqcenter

Just because they had enough space, doesn’t mean storing your trailer does not carry risk. If a tree or something falls on it and damages it, I assume you’re going to expect the BO to pay for the damages, yes? So they get liability insurance to be safe. Your fee for trailer storage likely just pays for insurance. This is a great example of costs that boarders just don’t consider, then get all resentful when they’re charged for something they think should be free or less expensive because to them it’s “not any more work.”

Given that I carry my own insurance on my trailer, I wouldn’t go after a barn owner in that case. I get your sentiment, but I am confident this was not the reason why with this particular barn.

[Alterration]

@FjordBCRF

For me, I dont view an itemized bill as nickel and diming because everything does have a cost to it. I don’t see it mentioned upthread, but my auto bills are always itemized too with the cost of every component and then the labor/hours. I always think it’s interesting and think I should watch more Youtube so I can do more basic stuff myself

Yes - me too. It also allows insight for me into what’s going on so that I can also adjust. As a boarder, I have experienced problems when the barn owner thought my horse needed more weight, so without talking to me she put him on a TON of hard feed. He’s a more naturally slender bred and growing horse (ASB) which she didn’t account for, as she had more WBs in her barn that look more chunky. There were no ribs - nothing scary - he just didn’t have the hunter rolls of flesh.

All of a sudden, my very quiet horse went straight to lunacy on the spicy scale. She also reduced his turnout to sub 4 hours because he was the most polite to bring in and she needed the turnout. Neither of which were discussed with me, and when I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him it took significant sleuthing to be able to understand why my horse suddenly went ape. I didn’t picture it being her fault, so that was the last place - if it’d been on my bill I might have had a clue and been able to say “oh, so he may need a different solution for feed because he’s lost his mind”.

I do believe that’s where his metabolic problems started.

The sad thing was - I know she was trying to be responsible and helpful. I don’t think it was nefarious, it was just terrible communication and then when I was unhappy because my horse turned into a lunatic it was a super awkward conversation. I’m sure on both parts.