Behind the Bit

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Costs of running a barn: Spinoff on hay discussion Posted: 08 Feb 2010 02:10 PM PST My posts about hay (part 1 and 2) made me want to crunch some numbers on costs of operating a barn -- to put things in context. Take a look at these numbers for a 20 horse barn. Am I close? What's missing? Hay costs This is a pretty granular analysis. If you assume a $5 bale of hay has ten flakes, each flake is 50 cents. If you feed six flakes a day (the least I would want to feed most horses), that's $3/day per horse. For a barn of 20 horses, that is $60/day, or $1800/month. Well, I've covered hay concerns in other blog posts -- many people are anxious about hay. If some boarders "self-serve" their horses -- say, ten flakes a day total -- that's $5/day or $150/month, for a total hay cost of $1950. Shavings costs If a bag of shavings costs $6, and a horse uses 1/2 bag a day (conservative estimate), a barn of 20 horses will use $1800 of shavings in a month. Grain Lets assume a bag of grain costs $14 for a 50 lb bag, and the avg horse eats 5 lbs grain a day. That's 3 bags of grain per horse, per month, and a barn of 20 horses would go through 60 bags or $850 worth of grain. Labor Figure 5 hours to clean 20 stalls, 2 hours to handle horses, and 3 hours for feeding, watering, sweeping. If you do 1/3 the work yourself, as the barn owner/manager, you'll pay for 6 hours labor per day. If you pay $8/hour, you'll pay $50/day (conservative estimate), or $1500/month. Facility rental or mortgage For simplicity, I'm going to assume the manager leases stalls at a rate of $100/stall, or for our 20 horse barn, $2,000/month. COST ITEM 1950 (hay) 1800 (shavings) 850 (grain 1500 (labor) 2,000 (barn rental) $8100 (Total) Divide 8100 by 20 horses and the cost per horse is $405/month per horse, NOT INCLUDING utilities and maintenance and equipment and gas for the equipment and insurance and other stuff I've forgotten. What I can't account for are utility costs, maintenance costs (ring, barn, etc). So if you charge $500/month, the gross profts are, well, pretty marginal. Moral of the story You don't make money on boarding.

Lamina saver: A nutraceutical case study Posted: 08 Feb 2010 05:52 PM PST At my suggestion, Bob got me a horse supplement for my birthday -- a product called Lamina Saver.TM Now I admit I contemplated this product in a wave of near panic about Riley and his recovery. It wasn't a rational decision, and I don't recall what caused my mini-panic attack. Bob, who hates to shop, was glad to have "marching orders" for my birthday gift. What I knew before the purchase I knew that Horse Journal had recommended it for healing hoof inflammation, particularly laminitis. Lamina Saver doesn't list its ingredients except to say it had a proprietary ingredient called Restaurex. I knew it was almost $100 in cost (one month's worth). I knew there were positive reports on COTH and other bulletin boards (admittedly this kin of testimonial isn't exactly what you'd call "proof"). The nutraceutical industry depends on consumer hope -- hope for a sound horse, a horse that breathes better, a horse that ages well. It's self-regulating, which means it's unregulated -- I've written about this in the past. So after my impulse purchase, I wondered what I'd actually bought, and what it actually does, according to the experts and the research literature. Belatedly I did the post-purchase research and got the scoop on these scoopfuls of powder. Coming up next!

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