Why stall boarding rates need to at least double across the Midwest

[mvp]

[QUOTE=BeeHoney;8286400]
.

Interestingly, the regular stall boarders are the ones who make my job as a barn manager the most work. They are the ones who call and text me after hours and on the weekends, who leave a mess in the barn, want to be out at the barn at odd hours, schedule the farrier or the vet at the last second and then need help, etc. Yes, I have rules, but having to constantly remind a group of adults to follow the rules is an unpleasant task in and of itself. [/QUOTE]

FWIW, I think you are right. It’s herding cats at the boarding barn where my horse lives. (And there are some BO’s set-up/management style helps set up this problem, it’s not boarders being unruly for no good reason.) At the pro’s barn where my mare goes for help sometimes, it’s quite different. The clients do as the trainer would have them do. To talk to them, I learned that it’s because they respect the pro’s expertise and appreciate the standard of care she gives their horses.

The trainer will tell you the same thing the BO will: Managing the horses is the easy part… it’s the cotton pickin’ people that come with them that are the PITA. But from my outside, comparative perspective, things are appreciably smoother at the pro’s place where everyone agrees on a standard of care and it is high enough that clients know they couldn’t do a better job themselves. It’s really, really nice to have a horse in that kind of cradle! I always breathe a sigh of relief when I drop my mare off there.

[HorseCzar]

I don’t resent boarding at all, and I love my clients. Had many for a very long time.

What my problem is, is that it seems boarders want you to make a profit, as long is its not off of them.

I don’t expect to make $100, 000 a year, but I would like to be able to live without worrying how I will pay bills every month.

[kalidascope]

[QUOTE=HorseCzar;8286941]
I don’t resent boarding at all, and I love my clients. Had many for a very long time.

What my problem is, is that it seems boarders want you to make a profit, as long is its not off of them.

I don’t expect to make $100, 000 a year, but I would like to be able to live without worrying how I will pay bills every month.[/QUOTE]

Is it feasible for you to stop stall boarding and offer paddock board only? That seems like it could solve a number of problems at once.

[js]

You claim they make demands, okay, either charge for the extra demands of don’t accommodate them. Stop offering stall board. You make a profit off your pasture board horses. Offer your stall boarders to either switch to pasture board or move. If they all switch to pasture then you are making money and working less. If they move then you haven’t lost anything because you aren’t making any money on them. Problem solved.

By offering pasture board only, you may free up enough time to allow you to work a part time job to bring in extra income to help pay bills.

[ToN_Farm]

My understanding is that the stall board helps pay the mortgage. The OP doesn’t consider that as ‘profit’. Am I correct OP? Profit is what is made after all expenses are paid. Mortgage is an expense.

It depends I guess in how one looks at it. Getting the mortgage met from stall board is necessary. If OP stops stall boarding, there isn’t enough revenue coming in from pasture board to pay the farm bills and mortgage. Also, there may not be enough pasture for 15 more horses.

To need a heated barn, OP must be in a cold area. How does one keep pasture boarded horses when the ground is icy and there is no grass? How does one keep the water from freezing? I would think that field boarding is more work than stall boarding.

[js]

If the stall board is paying the mortgage then it’s making profit and paying one of the bigger bills. The OP’s posts make it sound like the stall boarders board for free because she makes no money on them. Up the board to help offset what ever costs she is losing money on, if their demands are costing, adjust costs. If that drives boarders away, then there is a bigger problem.

The OP presented her post as not making anything off stall board, so if she is “clearing” enough money from her stall board to pay her mortgage, then she is making a profit, just not a wage. If her stall board doesn’t pay her a wage, then she needs to up her stall board or look for ways to cut her boarding expenses.

I have no clue about the pasture board, that was based on how the OP presented it as being profitable and less work. She hasn’t stated how many acres or how many horses. I’m guess that the horses that have stalls also get some turnout, so I’m assuming there is sufficient space. Freezing water is addressed with heated or insulated water tanks, that must already be in place since she offers pasture board. Icy ground with no grass doesn’t seem to be an issue with her current pasture boarded horses.

Most will agree that there is little money to be made in the boarding business and most “profit” comes from offering other things like lessons, training, sales etc… Plenty have said that it is a labor of love and not much else.

[fordtraktor]

OP, I think you need to get your costs down without hurting quality if your market won’t bear higher prices. What I would look to do in your situation is see how I could get the horses out of the stalls as much as possible while preserving your paddocks. So I would invest in some paddocks with all-weather footing, and I would carefully rotate fields and do weed control and seed the paddocks I have to maximize grass production so you are buying less hay for as much as possible of the year but getting the same # of calories in the horses. Then everything should go out as much as possible, pick your outside paddocks daily to maintain the footing, and save bedding costs that way. Horses OUT = profit. At least for me and my dad, who both board. We both feed the best grain and free choice hay, so we don’t cut corners there. But out saves labor and bedding, it’s huge in a boarding barn. I don’t charge less for it either because horses with a reserved stall can come in when the weather requires it, but I leave the stall horses out 24/7 when the weather is good.

There’s no reason for stall horses to be in during perfectly good weather, it’s healthier for them to be out. They have the option of a reserved stall for bad weather and layups and the night before shows, etc., they pay for it. Boarders seem to get this since the horses are fat and healthy and happy. Obviously if a horse has a reason to be in, I keep it in. Right now I have two in – one on layup and a companion for him. Everyone else is out enjoying the lovely late summer weather. With 30 stalls you won’t be able to get them all out, but even if you got 10 out – that’s another 1500 a month profit if your 150 holds from the field horses. More if you are charging more because of the reserved stall. It’ll go down in the winter, but you can anticipate that and save some of the summer profit to get you through the winter knowing your bedding costs are going to go up.

If your current plan isn’t working and you can only raise prices so much, you have to rethink your offerings in a way that is going to work for your clients. You might need to sell them on the concept. Use your vet – mine is always telling boarders how healthy it is for horses to be outside as much as possible. not to be all business-ey, but it isn’t too late to come up with a strategic plan to make your barn work, and it can’t just be “raise prices 200%” because that isn’t going to work. You need to think big picture about the way you are doing things and figure out what can change while providing quality care. You still won’t make much on stall board but make money on field board, so see what you can do to make stall board look more like field board with a stall to the extent you possibly can. That may mean that your max is reached when you reach the max number of horses your fields will support and not your barn will hold, actually. You might end up with some empty stalls and that’s OK if they are too expensive. Less work for no profit anyway.

[js]

Finding a way to make your business pay for your property, pay all the bills, whether personal or business related and making a living wage is what is needed.

Finding a sweet spot that does all that and is still affordable for horse owners to board at is the challenge.

[SMF11]

[QUOTE=js;8287093]
If the stall board is paying the mortgage then it’s making profit and paying one of the bigger bills.

The OP presented her post as not making anything off stall board, so if she is “clearing” enough money from her stall board to pay her mortgage, then she is making a profit, just not a wage.
.[/QUOTE]

Usually I try to be diplomatic, but – this is completely and utterly wrong.

No. Income used to pay a business’s mortgage is NOT “profit”.

[ToN_Farm]

[QUOTE=fordtraktor;8287096]

There’s no reason for stall horses to be in during perfectly good weather, it’s healthier for them to be out. [/QUOTE] Maybe not for you, but that is not the case for others. There are various reasons HO’s don’t want their horses out all the time. For one thing, bugs in the hot summers. Another reason is that people that own quality show horses do not want their horses turned out with other horses. OP’s stall boarders pay for the stall because they want the stall. Otherwise, they would be pasture boarders at the lower rate. My horses, here on my own 44 acre farm have free access to stall and pastures. They do not go to pasture until it is dark and cool out.

[bauhaus]

[QUOTE=SMF11;8287199]
Usually I try to be diplomatic, but – this is completely and utterly wrong.

No. Income used to pay a business’s mortgage is NOT “profit”.[/QUOTE]

It is profit if the business’s mortgage is also the mortgage on the owner’s personal home. You pay for your home using the profit you take from your business. The roof over your head where you sleep at night is not a business expense.

EDIT: I assume the IRS has some way for you to claim a deduction on the portion of your personal home that you use as a business. I don’t know how they compute it (an office vs a barn) but I guarantee that they don’t let you claim the whole thing as if you slept on a park bench at night and your property was only for business.

[TBROCKS]

[QUOTE=spotmenow;8282336]
Except for saving on shavings, having horses live outside is not really much cheaper than stalling them IF you maintain turnout areas, run-in sheds, and pastures properly. Not to mention the labor involved in separating them for graining, either haying several times a day from square bales or buying and properly storing QUALITY roundbales (hard to find/store properly/move). And of course, you are still maintaining the actual facility, including riding arenas, barn for tack up/tack storage, wash stall, etc.[/QUOTE]

I agree with this. Unless you are throwing them in a field and just letting them free range, there is plenty of work involved in pasture boarded horses. It takes time to drive the golf cart or walk to my back pasture, feed the two retirees who live out there twice a day, hose them down it they’re sweaty, blanket them if it’s cold, fly spray them in summer, dump and scrub the water trough several times a week, check the fence line, throw them hay in the winter, and drag their field occasionally. I recently stopped catching and holding for the farrier, it’s now up to the owner to do that.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=SMF11;8287199]
Usually I try to be diplomatic, but – this is completely and utterly wrong.

No. Income used to pay a business’s mortgage is NOT “profit”.[/QUOTE]

Well…. the personal and business sides of the farm should be kept separate. So the portion of the mortgage related to the OP’s home is profit. After all, were she working off-site and for an employer, she’e pay rent/mortgage.

Or you can look at the farm as a real estate investment. The farm pays a larger mortgage for a larger (better?) investment than the OP could alone. When the OP cashes out, she takes her profit from this business then, not from wages.

Did the boarding business borrow it’s share of the downpayment for the farm from the OP? If so, she can accept payments from that business.

My point is that a BO doesn’t get to live on a farm for free because she works there or enjoy the benefits of a business contributing to a real estate investment and not call that “profit.”

And I’m also the one who said above that I think BO’s should live within ear-shot of the horses. But the money connected to that aspect of this business needs to be sorted out.

[Gloria]

OP, I think you need to go to business school and take some finance classes. Or at least ask your accountant, and if you have not, obtain a financial adviser. Stop asking advice on this board. The astronomical amount of incorrect and utterly bizarre information given relating to what is business and what isn’t is really scary. Farm business is a complex business. It is not something a layman can give you good advice on.

[Obsidian_Fire]

MVP, thank you. I live where you live, and am running into this same problem. Over and over.

Years ago, you could change barns every weekend if you wanted. Now, you’re lucky if they let you in the doors!

It makes me very sad to realize that at some point I may have to give up my horse ownership simply because my “middle class” income won’t be enough or worse yet there just won’t be any place to put my horse!

I chose to board, rather than buy property, for a number of very valid reasons. Now they are all coming back to bite me.

Makes me very sad.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

I often wondered when I was a boarder why stall prices didn’t increase gradually, like everything else (apartment rent for example). Instead BOs would get really stressed and then up prices $50 a month (on $300 board). I had this happen a couple times and watched most of my barnmates leave or get resentful.

What about increasing gradually and more frequently. Not a 10-20% increase, but smaller?

[skyon]

Serious question. If all board was raised to $1000 so the OP could make this the standard, where are all of the not–able-to show for xxx reasonss, only do x’s occasionally - or light dressage when sound, aged, not aged but nqr, retired horses supposed to go?

If horses can live 25 yrs + or minus, who is going to fund this at $1000 and more with vet bills care not even yet adding lessons, because more often than not as of late, I have seen people being sold this or with lease and at $550-$600 and over, with the other costs not yet added, not making it quite past the 2 yr mark.

[js]

On the flip side, if board were $1000 and boarders were not willing or able to pay that and left, then what? I’m guessing at those rates a few would buy little properties for themselves using that $1000 towards their own mortgage. Somewhere there has to be a middle ground.

I’m GUESSING that the boarding business that survive, either have a second income from and outside source like a spouse that works or has a property that is already paid for and doesn’t need boarding costs to pay a mortgage or offers other services beyond boarding that they make additional income from.

[shea_smom]

Equibrit, your numbers may seem ok to you but i find them unrealistic.
a 17 hand horse in NC needs at least 6 flakes of orchard a day, because we have no freakin grass and had a drought in hay season.

6 flakes, $4.65 per day, plus I have to have a shed to keep it in.
Grain for a 17 hand senior, 4 pounds a day. $1.60 plus elecrolytes and salt blocks.
Bedding if in 12 hours, one bag per week?!!! My boarders would freak. Two BiG wheel barrows per week. $13.50 and yes we have mats.
To clean that stall and scrub the buckets and water and add bedding better take my employees at least 15 minutes, $2.50
They also have to feed him, turn him out, water the pasture he is in, hay the pasture, bring him in, blanket as needed, rake the barn aisle, empty the spreader, take care of straightening up.
Water is not free. I am am county water and if I wasn’t, I would use electricity to run my well.
This mentality is why boarders thing we are cheating them.

[BuddyRoo]

After reading the follow up posts and other comments, it seems like there’s a disconnect.

If you are going to have a business–not a hobby, but a business–there needs to be a business plan. In the case of the OP, it sounds like the business plan has to be re-engineered at this point with an eye towards actual costs and ways to reduce them.

A qualified financial planner/accountant would be a good resource as would some of the templates available online through the SBA or other similar small business orgs.

In my mind, personal living space and boarding of personal horses should be kept separate. So if the whole property is considered “the business”, the person living there should be paying rent–that’s income for the business. And those personal horses should be paying board–that’s income for the business.

Those personal expenses should not be simply absorbed into cost of doing business.

During the course of engineering a new business plan, learning more about the market in the area is imperative. Let’s pretend that 1k/mo is what the OP determines she actually needs to charge in order to cover the costs of doing business (including a salary for her). If that’s the case but other facilities are doing quite well at $400 mo with more amenities and nicer facilities, then the OP is screwed. There’s no market for her. Trying to limp along while going into the hole is not wise. Downsizing to just her own horses and getting a full time job might make a lot more sense.

Bottom line, there aren’t very many communities other than those near major metro areas that I’m aware of that are likely to keep a barn full at 1k/mo offering nothing but boarding. And there are barns doing quite well in the 400-600/mo range but they aren’t offering just boarding. They are offering training and lessons. They host shows. They have an active group of boarders–typically with a requirement of taking X number of lessons per month.