03/13/2025
What no one tells you about owning a horse boarding facility….
•It’s loving someone else’s animal so much it hurts at times.
•It’s noticing and addressing the slightest change in a horse’s behavior, eating, or drinking habits.
•It’s staying up all night to monitor someone else’s horse when they aren’t feeling well.
•It’s an overwhelming feeling of guilt when a horse gets hurt or sick; even though there was nothing you could have done differently to prevent it.
•It’s facility overhead. There’s ALWAYS something that needs fixed or updated.
•It’s having a camera roll full of cute, silly pictures of horses you don’t own.
•It’s watching the electric bill quadruple in the winter due to aisle lights and heated waterers and tack rooms.
•It’s an overwhelming feeling of anguish for weeks on end when you have to tell boarders that the cost of board must go up.
•It’s working on every holiday, birthday, anniversary, and sick day.
•It’s a constant feeling of guilt for not spending enough time with your own animals.
•It’s wondering if you pay your wonderful help enough, even though they make more per hour than you do most days.
•It’s getting to know horses even better than their owners do, in some ways.
•It’s rearranging family, work, and personal commitments to take care of horses.
•It’s dreaming about that bathroom remodel you’ve always wanted, but maintaining the barn and arenas instead.
Boarding horses is so much more than feeding, watering, and cleaning stalls. It isn’t for the faint of heart and it surely isn’t for anyone looking to get rich. It takes a village of people with a special place in their hearts for equines. To anyone that can relate, just know that you ARE APPRECIATED! 🐴❤️
