It isn’t here - which explains a lot of the confusion!
And no one made that assertation. Despite your insistence, people really aren’t that stupid. This right here:
Illustrates that. Yes, boarders do actually notice when there isn’t enough bedding! No, that’s not how the conversation plays out every time. Barns approach this issue in many different ways.
Again: many think line item billing requires verification of accuracy…because line item billing invites errors. The more granular it gets, the greater chance of error. And despite your insistence that it’s just so easy and cheap to track, there are whole massive industries that prove you wrong.
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I actually dealt with this at a barn and one of the reasons I purchased my own place. There is a thread somewhere cause I was so irked about it.
My boarding contract stated I had x amount of bags used in my ponies stall per month added in at 1 bag per week plus x bags added at the beginning of the month. I was paying extra for this service as they bedded light and I wanted more shavings.
He never got the amount of shavings he was supposed to and was told that it caused too much labor and time. Yes, I went back and forth with BO over this. Finally I had her put the bags of shavings by his door. They only used 1/2 the shavings I was paying for. My pony kept a pristine stall and ate 1/2 of what everyone else ate and never damaged a thing. I paid full price plus additional to cover shavings.
My board was 750.00 a month for 12 lbs of hay, 1/2 lb ration balancer, and tiny grazed down pony paddock, I paid for 8 bags of shavings a month at 100.00 and something on top of standard board.
So BO was being compensated fairly as I was paying the same as a full sized horse.
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This is what I found interesting! The fact that it requires verification of accuracy.
But I think we’re getting hung up on the line item part here. What I was actually suggesting was far different. Up front the barn owner and boarder would have a conversation about how much feed/bedding they need. If they don’t want the minimums (set by the barn) they pay more. That’s all put on the invoice.
It doesn’t mean that every time you add a bag you add it to the invoice - it was simply meant to be a custom designed program for your horse. That is NOT standard practice here, but many people are saying that it is standard where they are.
Again, I explained it poorly. I have repeatedly corrected that, but it seems that we’re hung up on this ONE notion.
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Your thread was actually one that I was thinking of - I felt so badly for you. I didn’t realize you purchased your own place! Congrats, but I’m sorry that you had to do that!
Yes, basically you are one of those that was subsidizing others. I never found that terribly fair, even as a barn owner.
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I think this is the crux of a lot of issues. So far in my boarding experience as an adult, you definitely don’t always get what you pay for. I think many people can, and are willing to pay even increasing costs provided their horses are getting what is promised. The Danger Barn I was at, promised new boarders the world, but wasn’t staffed for half of what they promised. Once it shifted to a co-op it was a little better, but it was a revolving door which wasn’t good for consistency.
In that case, I would have welcomed something more prescriptive from a contract situation because you have that up front documentation at least. There wasn’t much to keep the BO accountable in that situation.
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Yep - that’s what I experienced as a boarder too. And because I know how hard being a BO was I always fretted over the conversation. Making the conversation more objective and transparent usually helps issues like that.
Everybody is happy except the stall cleaners and BO if they need another dumpster or are running out of room at the manure pile.
Look, I think there are some good ideas here for small barns who can run a boutique styled business based on individual needs. But for most the reality is 20-50 horses or more with almost as many owners.
IME over 50+years, the “my way or the highway” method of barn management in a bigger barn has done a much better job of meeting my needs and standards then any smaller operations ever did. Including when I did DIY-did not have that kind of barn time available.
The trick is to pick a barn thats on the same highway as most of your expectations and be willing to compromise on personal preferences to get high quality, trustworthy care.
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Are you serious?
Let’s make this super basic. I board at a barn. The rate, which is overall pretty inclusive, is $1000. There are a few add on fees, one of which is to hold the horse for the farrier. That fee is $100. My horse is shod every six weeks.
I bring in my horse on the first. His farrier appointment is the last week of the month. My bill is $1100: $1000 board, $100 to hold for the farrier. Yep, that’s what I expected.
The next month, I receive my bill. It’s $1100: $1000 board, $100 farrier. But I know my horse didn’t see the farrier that month. This is unexpected.
You think it’s “interesting” that anyone look at the line items on the bill to verify that the billing is correct?
You think it’s more appropriate to … not look? Just write the check? Is that what you do when you receive a bill?
IDK man, maybe it’s because you have over and over talked about billing out each bag of bedding, even going as far as describing how easy it would be to build out an entire tracking system.
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No - but I would check regardless of whether it was line item billed or not. That’s what I found interesting. If my board was supposed to include farrier fees charged at $100 for a hold, and the bottom line was $1k one month and $1100 the next month with no context, I think I’d still check. And if it was $1100 each month because it was included and my horse’s feet weren’t done, I’d be pissed. In both cases, I’d be verifying, whether it was directly on the bill as a line item or not.
Hope that clears up my confusion.
And no - I said that once about being able to scan bedding. It was a fun tongue in cheek statement about what could be done when people were talking about how hard it would be to track. Then someone told me I was stupid and didn’t know software, which is why I had to explain what I’ve done for a living. Hope that makes THAT more clear.
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That’s why I found the fact that it was more common to have a more “per bag/lb” at the larger facilities in CA and Canada particularly intriguing. It seemed to ME to be a larger management problem the larger the facility, but clearly - they didn’t think so.
IME at the 300+ SoCal facility with multiple different trainers/programs, they do this because the facility’s staff feeds one thing (alfalfa cubes) to everything on the property. Then, if you want something else, you feed that through your trainer and their staff. So, they’re still only managing ~20ish horses’ individual diet requirements.
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Maybe I can put the flip side of this up to better explain my thoughts since we’re talking about shavings because this causes SO many issues between BOs and Boarders.
Scenario #1 - Barn owner puts what they consider adequate shavings per stall and that’s NOT in the contract which is pretty normal here. No tracking, no choices for extras. $700/mo board. Dutifully on the first, the boarder pays their board but doesn’t think they are getting enough shavings. Nothing interesting on the bill, just always says $700.
They have a conversation about shavings, and no one feels very good about it. Barn Owner feels like the boarder is ungrateful. Boarder feels like they are paying good money and they ought to be getting shavings. Not nice for anyone. One or the other capitulates, sometimes the BO, sometimes the Boarder. This is how most barns work around here.
Scenario #2 - Barn owner puts a minimum of 2 bags of shavings/week per stall and that’s in the contract. Boarder accepts this as the minimum. It’s not itemized on the bill. $700/mo board bill. Dutifully on the first, the boarder pays their board but doesn’t think they are getting enough shavings. Chances are, they might forget it’s in the contract. But let’s say they don’t.
All of a sudden, things got legal. Awkward conversations abound.
Scenario #3 - Barn owner puts a minimum of 2 bags of shavings/week per stall and that’s in the contract. Boarder wants 3 bags. They modify that in the contract. It’s itemized on the bill. $700/mo base board bill + $54/mo for their extra shavings.
All of a sudden the BO and the boarder both have some shared information that they can work from. The conversation might still be awkward, but at least it’s a little more objective and transparent.
Between that and the offering of more custom packages, that was all I was really suggesting!
So your trainer then submits the bill to the facility? How does that work? They have individualized prices, so I’m just trying to understand the notion 
If the barn includes holding for the farrier in my base board rate, there is nothing to verify. Nothing changes. My board bill is the same every month.
If the barn is breaking out services, supplies, whatever and billing those as one offs every month, the bill is changing every month, its easy for errors to creep in, and the bill requires verification.
You describe “board including farrier fees” above but fluctuating because of farrier fees–then board isn’t including farrier fees. A barn billing for services and then not including detail on the bill. It’s still billing services.
If it’s straightforward stuff–holding for the farrier, wound care, etc–that is easy to verify. If it’s seasonal monthly charges–blanketing, fly masks, etc–that is easy to verify.
If it’s daily line item billing–bedding, turnout down to the hour, etc–that’s a nightmare to verify.
The more granular, the more error prone, and the more difficult it is for the client to actually verify as correct.
MANY barns offer “upgrades” in feed or bedding plans, generally at the monthly level–because that makes it easy on the barn and the client. That’s not a novel suggestion, and works or doesn’t work depending on implementation and price and all sorts of other factors.
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You pay board to the facility, which gets you the alfalfa cubes and stall cleaning. Then you pay your trainer for training and any extras/incidentals
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I purchased an older race farm. 25 stalls but I don’t plan on boarding. Folks don’t want to pay appropriate labor costs or don’t think the things I think are important should be things they pay for.
Deeply bedded stalls, tested hay, properly maintained fields, property improvements, new dry lots, maintaining driveways with more traffic, property costs, taxes, etc. - just a small list.
I’d love to find a few folks and do a co-op so I could go on vacation occasionally, but boarding in my area is around 400 a month for places with no indoor and I’m not building an indoor and that doesn’t cover my costs. I’d have to do dry stall which runs around $200.00 a month and insurance is about the same cost.
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Because you chose farrier holding fees it looked a little weird, but I went on to explain. I’d still verify either way if I believed I was supposed to receive a service and didn’t think I got it. So to ME it was strange to hear that you’d only verify if it was illuminated.
But I think we were talking past each other.
Barns here don’t offer upgrades, and when they do, people say they are being nickel-and-dimed. That’s the complaint about one of the major facilities in the area “they charge for everything”. So I wanted to strip the services down even further and offer significantly more options.
I was trying to make the whole process more transparent and affordable, not less. And I see that your problem is that you think I meant daily line items. That would look like a CVS receipt and you’re right - no one would want that. Of course that would be ridiculous. One system that I built did have a digital version of this where you could expand the summed up monthly line item if you really wanted to see the detail (different industry) but I’m not sure horse owners would want this - maybe they would.
What I was really talking about was custom designing a package based on a daily structure, and then being billed per month for that. Obviously the barn would have to have minimums to ensure a basic level of care/nutrition/not damage to stall floors and facilities, but anything above that would be calculated. What exposing the daily rate does is make it easier to pro-rate.
I do these calculations all the time on my personal horses. For instance, if I’m bumping a horse up from 5 lbs of grain to a different grain that requires 12, obviously that’s not done in one shot. I don’t figure costs at 12 lbs immediately when I make the decision, because that’s not accurate for purchasing grain nor for financials. So my calculation includes the gradation, which includes cost. That way I know how much my horses cost me at all times (with the exception of tack, which I don’t track because I don’t want to know LOL)
The stall cleaner is grumbling because they are not getting paid more to shift manure ball bits out of lots of shavings.
What if you need to save costs but Dobbin needs more food?
So really your plan only saves the people who happen to have an easy keeper that is neat. Everyone else will have to pay more.
Or, what if the owner wants to pay less and signs on for the lower feed/bedding option and you find out that Dobbin can not maintain weight at that lower feed level and is a pig in his stall so his stall looks gross all the time at the lower bedding option?
I think it is pretty common that most standard boarding horse owners have no idea how much bedding Dobbin actually uses. So having this conversation ahead of time will be great, in theory. But likely will not typically end up with you getting the information you expect.
This is no fault of the horse owner, they are simply not around enough to know this answer you expect them to know.
Then how are you going to bill the extra shavings? A general number? Dobbin will be on the second tier shaving payment plan, where he will get up to three extra bags a week?
This is what you described in your original post.
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Wow, that’s some low board prices.
I thankfully bought a place with a caretaker cottage onsite - that helps me leave.
