In your situation, I'd have to give it a try. If it doesn't work out, you'll have learned something and can get out of it, but your wife just might be right. We tried raising goats and rabbits, even though we didn't have a proper facility for it; didn't make any money, lost some in fact, but enjoyed it and learned a bit.
Sorry, her logic is strong, another guy bites the dust at the O.K. Corral, Good Luck and have fun
Buck
My tractor is not a toy, its one of many tools of the trade
When " She who must be obeyed " has started making plans is there an option?? [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Make sure all the legal details are established prior to boarding the horses.
Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
One other thing to consider. Are you ready to be on call 24/7 365 days a week? Are you ready to have people at your house 365 days/year? Because with animals, and especially horses, they have to be taken care of a minimum of 2x/day every single day. Are you ready to have to be home everyday at a certain time? Get up every morning at the same time? People severely underestimate the time and commitment to taking care of horses.
This part we are somewhat familiar with - to a limited extent. We've got two high energy working dogs that I train in a competitive sport.
As such we have the same rising time 7 days a week and a set amount of effort I have to expend to ensure that the dogs get worked every morning.
Our vacationing is also very limited to none as a result of this. Frankly I enjoy spending my days off on the farm more than anywhere else really.
As for dealing with people 365 days of the year - I'll use that on the debating table with my wife.
If your wife is determined, then your next step is to sit down and hash out some scenarios. That is, who is going to be doing what on a regular basis. See, what happens is that you start out with a few horses then all of a sudden, you have a full house. Unless you set some ground rules, you may find yourself working far more hours then you want to. I don't know what you do but for sake of discussion, lets say you work a 40 hour job. Are you prepared to come home and put in another few hours? Are you prepared to spend your weekends working?
You need to establish contacts for your consumables. You need a place to purchase your feed or grain from. You need a reliable source for hay and bedding. Trust me on this one, the first thing someone considering horse keeping needs to have in place is a proper place to store hay and bedding. People boarding a horse want a place to store their equipment, a place to wash and groom, a place to ride. Even if not open to the public, you need insurance should someone get hurt or a horse get out and cause an accident. You need a boarding contract. You need rules about what you can and cannot do at your farm. You need to establish hours of operation. You will need to be able to professionally approach boarders when their is a conflict of personnalities. You will need to be able to set aside any personnal comitment in the event of an emergency. You will occasionally need to deal with an injured animal. An injured animal can be extremely dangerous to your health even as you are trying to stop them from bleeding to death. You will in the case of an injured animal, be able to take action to stem an extreme loss of blood. You will need to let your dinner get cold while you administer a couple of tubes of oil and take the time to walk a "colicky" horse. You will need to decide that your efforts won't be enough and you will need to call the vet at 100 bucks for an emergency visit and that your boarder will agree that you have made the correct decision. Come winter, you will need to either provide heated buckets or be prepared to dump frozen buckets twice a day and refill with fresh water.
You will need to have enough fenced in areas to group horses in compatible numbers and then move them to another pasture while the former recovers. Going back to winter, you will need enough "paddocks" in order to turn the horses out for safe exercise and fresh air while you clean the stalls. Oh' by the way, you will need to deal with manure. Should you choose to pile it up, you still need to take the tractor and shove it into a pile on a regular basis. You need to consider the distance from the barn that you are willing to wheel it to. More is better and harder to wheel. Keep in mind, you don't want to pollute your well and come summer, a manure pile is a breeding ground for flies.
Once again, I don't want to discourage you but rather just want to share the realities of horse keeping. Those tasks I have noted, and there are more, become second nature. If you are truly a horse person, then you learn to take it all in stride.
I will gladly answer any specific questions that you have either by PM or on line thread.
Thank you so very much the time you have taken QRTRHRS.
As I have talked about this to my wife, I have realized that this is more about getting into horses to her than it is about making money. In truth we lead a comfortable life just with me working. More money is always great for extras (like horses!) and I guess she is thinking that if we can make even a little bit of money doing something she really thinks she will enjoy then thats worthwhile to her.
You bring up great points. I think its going to be very valuable for her to have neighbours who board and have their own horses who are encouraging her on as they have long established networks of suppliers for feed etc. One of the previous owners of our farm dropped by and said to my wife that she would be happy to help her interview prospective boarders.
We have a riding ring but its often confused me as to where those that board horses at our neighbours ride. Most of the neighbours don't have a riding ring and I imagine thats not enough at there needs to be trails etc. for hacking out. I would imagine that people would take their horses out in a trailer if there weren't trails on the property. We've got 10 acres of woods through which we plan on making some tralis for our enjoyment but we want to wait to see what the land is like after the spring melt off.
We have a great hay loft that can be used to store hay and bedding. Out outbuildings are fantastic - under 20 years old and in great shape.
We've also got a heated and insulated tack room that is sitting empty right now so storage room for tack will be no problem.
Thanks again.
Owners come in as many flavors as horses do. Some show up to pay the board and not much more. Some show up to groom once a week. Some don't even want their horse out of the stall for fear of cuts and nicks, wanting to keep the horse looking best for the show ring, but then spend time training or showing. We have a large outdoor arena but no indoor. Some accept that and not being able to ride in the winter due to ice while others want an indoor arena and go else where. Some are happy to ride in the arena during good or reasonable weather. One family enjoys an occasional ride around the property but more often hitches up their wagon for a ride on the township road.
I prefer boarders who stay put over show people. Horses bring home colds to spread in the barn to others. I try to somewhat isolate the ones who go out on a circuit.
or you could be in our situation, looking for boarders, but getting no takers...i think our area has a "glut" of boarding farms...
Have you done some market research in your area? What are your competitors charging? How do your facilities stack up?
We built our new barn allowing us to bring in boarders then had people more interested in our older barn at a lower price. Eventually, we lowered our prices on the newer barn and started to bring in boarders. These days, we don't board in our older barn. We found out that we had more problems with the lower rent boarders, ie; not paying, not showing up to work with their horses, making unreasonable demands, etc. Having a level playing field for the boarders seems much better. We do make slight concessions for multiple horse owning familys. Horses generally are easier to deal with than people. More horses, less owners is a good thing.
Our biggest drawback is not having an indoor arena for foul weather riding. We have priced our boarding accordingly. Our barn was designed (by us) to be super healthy for our horses. Our ammenities include 12' high side walls, ceiling fans, windows, heated water, 16' wide aisle. For the owners comfort, bathroom, double washbay with hot water so two folks can work at the same time, well lit tack room with indivdual lockers big enough to secure all their equipment, custom tailered feeding and more. Once we got some boarders in, we seem to have no shortage of inquiries. Maybe it is word of mouth?
Outside, we have reasonably adequate pasture without overgrazing. A large outdoor arena with a round pen within. Free parking for trailers and in the case of one boarder, shelter for their two wheeled buggy. Enough property for an occasional relaxing half hour ride. We have enough dry paddocks for a few hours of winter turnout for each horse or group of horses.
We have boarding contracts spelling out specifically what is and what is not allowed. We allow seven day a week visitation but loosely restrict times to follow the seasons. We require all boarders to follow our worming and shot schedules. We will worm for those not up to the task. If someone should choose another vet, dentist, farrier, trainer over ours, we let them. We avail ourselves to exteme situations such as helping doctor an injured animal back to health. We will let our dinner go cold while walking a colicky animal for however many hours it takes or until we need to call in the vet.
We ask that our boarders call our attention to things they could use such as an extra hook for hanging or things that they feel are unsafe. If someone decides to move on, we put on a happy face and wish them well (as long as they don't try to skip out without paying) and do not take it personally.
We try to encourage a family atmosphere and are fortunate to have some very serious competitors that also enjoy sharing their knowledge with others.
This is what has worked for us, hope it helps.
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