Would YOU hire a stall cleaning service?

[system]

I’m working on an idea, and want to get a feel for the demand that might be out there. Hope this isn’t considered advertising; I’ve posted under an alter and am including as little specific information as possible.

I’ve discovered something that cuts stall cleaning time about in half, while getting almost all manure pieces larger than a small marble, and reducing the amount of wasted bedding by 40–50%. However, it is dependent upon using a fine-textured bedding such as fine shavings, sawdust, or expanded pellets. I don’t think it will work with “flaked” shavings (but I haven’t tested it with them yet).

I’m seriously considering starting a stall cleaning service using this device. As a provided option, I’m also toying with the idea of adding bedding supply and manure disposal as part of a full-service package. That way, anyone who hired us would not have to worry about where to store bedding, or how to get rid of their manure pile. I also would include the option for regular customers to have us come in and feed, hay, water, turn in/out, etc. when they go on vacation, or just need some extra help. All of my current employees are experienced horse people, and any future employees would be “vetted” here at my farm to ensure they meet our standards before being sent out to a customer’s location.

A manure disposal fee would be included in the cleaning price if that option was chosen; bedding cost would not be included, but bedding would be available at a price that was competitive with local suppliers, with delivery part of the package.

Now, the questions:

• Would you use a service like this?
• How much would you be willing to pay per stall if your bedding costs were cut in half and you didn't have to deal with manure dispoal?
• How much would you be willing to pay per stall for just the stall cleaning (still saving 40–50% on your bedding use/cost)?

[kookicat]

yes. i use the one at my barn. my trainer says that real ladies dont shovel shit. she only charges me $20 per stall per day. i think its a steal!

[Carolinadreamin]

Jan. 12, 2009, 09:37 AM
Sugerbunnikins
Training Level Join Date: Jan. 12, 2009
Posts: 15

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yes. i use the one at my barn. my trainer says that real ladies dont shovel shit.

Isn’t that what you’re doing here?

[kookicat]

[QUOTE=Carolinadreamin’;3798094]
Isn’t that what you’re doing here?[/QUOTE]

i don’t understand…

[stryder]

OP:
I think you’re asking two separate, but related, questions. The answers could help you determine whether you have one offering, or two.

Your first question is whether BOs would buy your new device. If it’s simple to operate effectively, it’s reasonable that people would want to buy and use it. It could be marketed for specific bedding types and not for others. You could either manufacture or license this device. Selling it would not be location-dependent, and would not require you to hire employees to handle other people’s horses. Your employees would focus on manufacturing, marketing and distribution. The device could be patented, but it would be subject to imitation over time.

Your second question relates to actual horse care. This service is location-dependent, and requires employees with different skill sets than option #1. You’re asking if BOs would either contract with you to provide stall cleaning services, or respite services. I’m not a BO, but this option seems more complicated to me. You would become the “Molly Maids” of the horse world.

Are my assumptions correct?

And now a return to the regularly scheduled programming…

[pines4equines]

Hay

If the economy were better, I might consider this service for our farm. Would you be doing this for large farms only or the 2 horse farmette as well?

Not sure how much I would pay but part of your marketing plan and advertising could be what people are REALLY paying to do the work themselves. I think we might all be surprised at the actual costs which I never sat down to figure out. I’m sure they are higher than I expect.

If you can save bedding so the costs are the same or slightly higher, I think everyone would jump at this. But if your service was astronomically much more expensive…it might be a harder sell unless you’re in a fancy, schmancy area.

Good luck!

[unclewiggly]

I pay roughly $4.50 per stall and supply my own bedding, we get paid for the straw manure.
My mucker is a self contractor and does not handle the horses beyond tying up if they are in stalls.Drops hay/bedding cleans stalls, washes re-fills water buckets, sweeps/ blows aisles and racks up out side of barn

After you factor in Bonding and Insuring your personel, factor in the travel n fuel how cost effective is it?

There is a local shaving/woody pet manure dumpster company I see advertised and it wasn’t cheap for a roll-off, not only is there a monthly rental fee but a pick-up swap out/disposal fee.

Good luck keep us posted…

[Go_Fish]

[QUOTE=Sugerbunnikins;3797846]
yes. i use the one at my barn. my trainer says that real ladies dont shovel shit. she only charges me $20 per stall per day. i think its a steal![/QUOTE]

:eek: $20 per stall per day? Yikes, if you clean every day, that’s $600 per month per stall just for stall cleaning.

We have a group of guys that go around and clean stalls at various barns throughout the region. I don’t know what they charge, but it’s a nice business for them. I think they do about 300 stalls a day, if I’m guessing right.

[system]

Stryder: The primary intent is not to sell the device, but to act as a contracted stall cleaning service (yes, the “Merry Maids” of barn cleaning) that also, as an optional service, provides the convenience of bedding supply and waste removal. I understand that it initially will be location-dependent, but I live in an area that has a large population of barns (large and small) which should make it a pretty good test area for my idea. If it takes off, I’ve thought about the possibility of franchising the business OR creating regional offices.

It’s really not that complicated: a barn hires us to clean stalls for a fixed fee per stall per day; they may opt to have us supply bedding (at a rate of XX per bag) and remove the waste for an additional fee per stall per day. Discounts would be provided for monthly contracts.

I realize that a secondary market of people wanting to buy their own device very well may emerge, and will deal with that if the time comes. I did not invent this device, but I have spoken to the inventor who makes a limited number of them each year. Inventor does NOT want to become a “factory,” plus the device is pretty expensive.

Pines4Equines: We would provide this service for small, medium, and large farms, although my guess is that larger farms that already have their own staff would be more interested in buying their own device (see above). The service is primarily targeted to those that have anywhere from 2 to about 25 stalls which I think is about the break point for hiring your own full-time person.

The cool thing about this is that it gets stalls cleaner than is possible with manual cleaning (unless, of course, you pick all the little pieces out by hand), in about half the time, wasting almost NO bedding. If you figure in the cost of bedding saved, the cost of labor/time, and the cost of removal, I think the amount I’m thinking of charging is VERY reasonable.

Unclewiggly: What do you pay for bedding on a monthly basis? How long does it take your cleaners to clean each stall, and are the stalls really, REALLY clean (almost NO manure pieces left in them)? I bet the cleaners clean quickly, but I also bet that they remove a LOT of bedding from each stall. That translates to a lot of bedding used, but ALSO a lot of bedding/waste to dispose of. Are your current stall cleaners bonded and insured? They drive to your farm now, right? My costs for those aspects shouldn’t be much, if any, different than theirs…

The whole reason I’m doing this: I used a very reasonably-priced stall cleaning service. But because their whole purpose was to clean as many stalls as possible as quickly as possible, they wasted a LOT of bedding. I went through about twice the amount of bedding each month and twice-as-frequent disposal when they’d clean the stalls. When I cleaned the stalls, they were cleaner and I used less bedding, BUT it took me about twice as long to clean them. With this device/system, stalls get cleaned in less than 10 minutes each, they’re cleaner than they’ve EVER been, less bedding than EVER is being used, and less disposal than EVER before.

[system]

[QUOTE=Go Fish;3798770]
:eek: $20 per stall per day? Yikes, if you clean every day, that’s $600 per month per stall just for stall cleaning.

We have a group of guys that go around and clean stalls at various barns throughout the region. I don’t know what they charge, but it’s a nice business for them. I think they do about 300 stalls a day, if I’m guessing right.[/QUOTE]

My fee wouldn’t even be CLOSE to $20.00 per day!!! It would definitely be less than $10.00/day, and more likely closer to $5.00 than to $10.00, depending on which options are chosen.

GoFish: In what area do you live?

[Go_Fish]

West Coast.

[SaddleFitterVA]

Someday, when I have paid off my mortgage and have lots of discretionary income, I could see paying for a service like this…but, that day is SO far off that unless something happens medically where I HAVE to pay for it short term, it isn’t likely to happen.

Problem is the cost. Even “less than $10/stall per day” adds up really fast. The entire barn can be done in less than 2 hours, it takes me less than an hour, but figure 2 hours for someone else less energetic. I have 6 stalls in the barn, that would be $60/day. That would be almost 1700 per month and if I’m going to spend that kind of money I’d be better off looking for a part time worker at $10-15/hour, 20 hours per week and getting other farm maintenance done as well. Yes, I’d have to do workman’s comp and payroll, but I’d be getting a lot more value than stalls from that.

So, you’ll have to figure out the cost model carefully. There will be a niche market that will be interested is my thought.

[system]

What if it was closer to $5.00/stall/day, and you saved half on your current bedding and disposal costs? What is one hour of your time worth?

[Pat]

I used such a service in NY, say 10 years ago. I’m pretty sure we were charged about $3 a stall/day. I’ll ask my BF if he remembers the actual charge.

You need to clean ALOT of stalls to make money at that. The guy who did our stalls cleaned MANY stalls at that barn, about 35 or so each day. It was a large barn with multiple entities involved, and rather unique.

You’d have to find either a big barn to do, or several mid-size ones VERY close to each other. Or be available to more chores than just stalls.

[Guilherme]

The main problem with the concept is that stall cleaning is not a “single” item of care (like a vet or farrier visit), but an ongoing expense (time and money), kind of like daily feeding and watering. For horses in 24/7 you’re talking about at least two cleanings per day. And there will be a periodic “stripping.”

If the OP has a “better cleaning tool” they’d likely make more money patenting it and selling it.

At $5/day I’d likely not use the service 'cause I don’t think a business like this could survive in our area at that price level. Places are too spread out, meaning lots of travel time/cost. I don’t want to hire service like this, plan for it, then get left “high and dry” when it fails.

At $5/cleaning I might take a closer look as I could “split” my effort, doing one myself (and giving me the advantage of using that time to also examine the horse for problems; we also sometimes learn stuff by examining poo :eek:).

Vets have traditionally charged a “farm call” fee. Many farriers now have a similar fee. Other profesionals build the “farm call” into their fee structure. A “site charge” is probably an essential item.

Current Federal and state minimum wages are found here http://www.laborlawcenter.com/t-State-Minimum-Wage-Rates.aspx?gclid=CKKnloqdipgCFQEuxwodUDKp_g To these add an immediate 7.25% (IIRC) charge for employer’s social security, plus state mandated things like unemployment compensation, workers compensation, etc.

I’m not sure a “farm sitting” venture might not make more sense. Price it by day (maybe even half day), week, and month.

G.

[SandyHTF]

[QUOTE=AlternativeAlter;3798875]
My fee wouldn’t even be CLOSE to $20.00 per day!!! It would definitely be less than $10.00/day, and more likely closer to $5.00 than to $10.00, depending on which options are chosen.

GoFish: In what area do you live?[/QUOTE]

OMG, in a heartbeat. :lol:

Seriously, not sure I could afford it daily. I would have to start boarding again to manage that. :eek:

I would certainly do a couple of days a week to give myself some time off and would also use for when I am out of town on business or vacation…it is far easier to get horsey friends to feed, etc. Harder to include all barn chores.

[grandprixjump]

If your device really does a better job…

You might be better off talking to some barns about coming in every OTHER day and they clean themselves on off days, I agree, not everyone is gonna like $5 per stall, per day everyday of the month.

[system]

I wouldn’t necessarily need to go to every barn every day. Every other day would be fine with me! Keep the comments coming…I’m absorbing everything!

I’m also going to offer a “vacation service” for my regular customers whereby we’ll essentially “barn sit”: in addition to cleaning stalls, we’ll feed, turn in/out, throw hay, fill buckets, etc. for those times when staff or owners go on vacation (I know…that’s rare in the horse world…but it does happen sometimes!). We’ll also offer this service for workers’ day(s) off for our regular customers.

[Fairview_Horse_Cente]

I would hire a stall cleaning service, but it would have to be competitive with what I could hire by the hour. I can clean by 27 stall barn in 3 to 4 hours in the winter time (less in the summer). So paying $10 an hour, that is no more than $1.50 per stall. I don’t think you can help me save on bedding either. My $400 load of sawdust, last a month in the winter. That is less than $15 per stall, per month. Hard to beat that.

[system]

Fairview: If you hired a part-timer to clean stalls, I’m betting that your bedding wouldn’t last you that long and that your stalls wouldn’t be as clean as you’d like them. You’re probably one of those that would most benefit from buying your own device. It WOULD save you time and bedding. There is just no way that a person can manually pick a stall as clean and save as much bedding as this device does.

What’s an hour of your time worth? Do you teach? If so, let’s assume you charge $50.00/hour for a lesson. If you spend 3 hours cleaning stalls, that’s taking $150.00/day out of your pocket. If you hired a part-timer, you would have use of that time to generate income and, if you paid the part-timer $10.00/hour, you’d still be netting $40.00/hour AND using less bedding AND having less waste of which to dispose. What would that be worth to you?