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The cost to properly take care of a horse is more than the average boarder realizes. If you have never lived with your horse and cared for it daily you really can’t have an accurate understanding of how much time and money it takes.   

You can expect to spend up to 30-minutes per horse each morning. A great caregiver will have a strategic and efficient morning routine that will cater to the needs of the horses. A typical morning consists of a general walk thru the barn and greets each horse, conduct a health inspection and if you don’t have to tend to an overnight injury then you would prepare specially customized grain concoctions with supplements for each horse. A delivery system will be in place of the order of who gets grain feed. This is dependent on learning the behavior of each horse. Some are impatient and paw at the ground, get vocal, pace, bang upon the gates. A caregiver who understands this behavior will elect to make feeding a teachable event. So it may take longer to get the food out because they will not want to reward this behavior and will have to wait until a horse stops what he is doing so he can be rewarded with the grain. Once the grain is delivered then a caregiver may do some other chores to give the horses some time to eat.  This may include feeding the barn cat and the resident dogs. Once the grain is eaten another strategic system is used to decide who gets turned out with who, and in what order. This typically involves opening a series of gates and haltering each horse, leading them to their assigned pasture and releasing them. A caregiver that truly cares about your equine bestie will also use this as a teachable moment because they handle any issues along the way and they will always take the time to be sure he is released correctly and does not bolt when his halter is removed. Not all horses are created equally. Quality caregivers learn the behavior and personalities of every horse in their care and they must adjust their teaching moments to fit the individual needs of every horse. This is also time for fly spray, and blanketing if needed.   

If the herd is not in a pasture for grazing then hay needs to be delivered to each horse. Horses eat 1-2% of their body weight each day. So the 1,000-pound horse will eat on the low end 10 pounds and high end 20 pounds a day. Where I live in NC we can pay $21.65 for a 65-pound bale of alfalfa and $14.00 for a 50-pound bale of orchard grass. So, let’s just average that to $17.83 a bale and for the sake of this example let’s just round up to $18.00 a bale for 50 pounds equates to $.36 a pound. This equates to as low as $3.60 and high as $7.20 a day. Let’s take that average of $5.40 a day. So approximately 31 days at $5.40 is $167.40 a month for hay. (All math should be adjusted to what you pay for hay.) Add on even more if the barn provides grain. At Sisterhood Stables our boarders provide the grain as I do not believe it is my role to dictate the type of grain they feed their horse. 

After everyone has been turned out the stalls need to be cleaned and the waste disposed of. You can easily make 2-3 trips pushing a 40-100 pound wagon of manure and bedding.  In one night it is possible to lose a bag of bedding. This is dependent on how much solid and liquid waste is waiting for you. Some days you lose half a bag, some days a whole bag. An average bag of bedding is about $6.50 including tax. Let’s just say for this example you use half the bedding a day at $3.25 a day. If the horses are not confined to their stall overnight they may not use as much bedding as they may relieve themselves outside. 31 days equates to $100.75 a month.

Part of the morning chores are cleaning the grain buckets after feeding and setting them back up for the next use. Then refreshing water troughs or emptying them and scrubbing them and refilling them. Typical water troughs are 100 gallons. The average cost of water per 1,000 gallons in the US is $1.50; so let’s say one penny a gallon. So each time you fill a trough it is $1.00. We have two troughs that are filled daily and emptied weekly so this is $2.00 to fill, and let’s empty at half full so this is $1.00, this $3.00 a week for the barn and .60 per horse. Let’s not forget to freshen the water in the stalls for good measure. 

After water is taken care of the sweeping or blowing out of the barn commences followed by a final lock check of every gate. Many barns offer training or exercise programs and then each horse is scheduled accordingly. For the purpose of this article we are going to stick to a standard full board situation. 

Evening chores consist of an evening cleaning of stalls in case anyone returned to their stall to hang out for a bit, water troughs cleaned and filled, feeding, getting horses back into their assigned stalls and a final feeding, gate and lock checks and it’s a wrap! Add on 30 minutes per horse in the evening. Add on time in the winter if blanketing occurs. 

Owners of boarding facilities have to also deal with the wear and tear of their facility. Horses are tough on their environment. It’s not unheard of to wake up to bent gates, broken boards, broken floats, etc. It’s important to fix issues as quickly as possible so the barn can function properly. In addition, overall mortgage costs are considerably higher for ranches and farms. 

If we add up the average cost per horse hay $5.40, bedding $3.25, $.60 water, wear and tear we will leave off, this is $9.25 a day per horse times 31-days is $286.75 a month. 

Now let’s talk about labor! 30 minutes both am and pm is one hour a day.  This is about 31 hours a month dedicated to each horse. So if someone pays $400.00 a month on boarding and it costs $268.50 in expenses and 31 hours of labor you are paying $3.65 an hour for care for your most precious partner. 

Clearly, most of us are in this for the love of the horses, not the money. I did not include fuel/maintenance to run the tractor and ATV to drag paddocks, electricity for the barn or hotwired fences, replacing the gate when your “best behaved no issues mare” breaks it or when that same amazing mare kicks a hole in your barn wall, seed for the pastures, water for pastures, pest control for things like fire ants, carpenter bees, etc at $1,300 a year, homeowners insurance, general liability insurance, insurance for the farm equipment or the increased mortgage and for us, it went up an additional $1,100.00 a month in order to have property. In addition, caregivers are up early caring for your horse even when we are sick and exhausted and are sure to be home in time for an evening feeding, so we have little social life. 

So anyone who is complaining about $400.00-$750.00 a month on board should do some math on their end and consider buying property. I am confident that you will find that even at $750.00 a month, it’s a steal.