Frustrated, angry, upset .. just need to vent!

$65/month! Wow! Where do you live? The cheapest here is $200+.

Personally I would NOT use say farrier because my horse's well-being is very important to me. And I'd be straight about it to BO just saying "no, thank you". However since some problems started I'd either look for the new place (although I highly doubt you can find something for that price) or suggest to pay more to BO "covering" your portion of discount.

Yes I was surprised by the price too. I am in Mississippi. My 65/month only covers board for drifter in the big gelding pasture. I pay for dewormer every other month which is about an extra 6 or 7 dollars added onto my bill. If they feed, catch, medicate, etc for you it's a 7$ charge every time for every individual action. So it can get very expensive very fast, but I avoid that by Doug everything myself. You can stall board for 250/month and private turnout instead of the big pasture for 180/month. It is a very nice deal! Besides this issue with the farrier I would recommend it to anyone an everyone! The Xc trails are great for trail riding and schooling once you put in the effort to touch the jumps up a little bit. They also lease out about 200 acres or so I cows, but you are free to ride throughout those areas too. Just have to leave a gate however you found it. I was very lucky to have found this place. That is why I am hoping this all blows over and allows me to stay
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Also speed racer, I pay for feed and everything myself. I know the facility has been in her husbands family for the last 3 generations and they make a lot of money leasing parts of it to the cow farmers. Now If she wanted/needed to charge us extra board than that would be fine. By all means she should. I would have no problem paying more for the use of the facility. My issue is with her getting angry about me using a new farrier because the old one was messing up my horse. And I agree it would be great if she could work out a deal with the new one...but that's not my place. That would be between him and her. It upset me she expected me to do that for her.
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Oh and as for hay we have to use the hay she provides. It is $10 per bale. Right now drifter is not getting hay. But in the winter they provide th gelding pasture with round bales. The cost is divided up between the horses in that pasture. If I get off work early enough to to ride I'll take some pics of the place during our trail ride
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I would agree, the saying "you get what you pay for" should apply here. $65 is awfully cheap and I'd die for board like that. Personally I'd tell the old hag to stuff it and go find else where. That's just me though because I have zero tolerance for psychotic horse people!
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As a barn owner I gotta pipe in here. I have an excellent farrier who charges a decent rate for trims and will do shoes if you want them. Nobody here wants them, so our barn gets done very quickly. I pay exactly the same as the boarders and I wouldn't consider doing anything else. I find that absolutely unethical and deplorable. I get a great rate because the farrier gets to do every horse on the place, not because I negotiated a kick back. If he wasn't so good and the boarders wanted to use another farrier, I'd be fine with it, but I'd be having a talk with him about their concerns. If he couldn't or wouldn't shape up, I'd use THEIR farrier if he was better.

I appreciate that your parents taught you to respect your elders but when it comes to taking abuse from an elder, they should know better too. I would let things go this time but if she ever comes back on you for the new farrier then I would very firmly and politely tell her that her horses are her problem and your horse is your business and that negotiating a price break with the new farrier is also her problem. If she could offer him the whole barn, he might indeed be willing to cut a price break for EVERYONE in the barn. My farrier would charge $50 if he had to come out and trim only one horse, but because he does 40 when he comes out, he charges $35 to EVERYONE. That's a pretty good wage for 1 day's work. And if he did shoes, it would be around $100 for all 4 feet with just basic shoeing.

The more I think about it, I think she is just feeling like we all of a sudden have problems with this barn farrier when for years he has been doing fine so she thinks we are crazy to complain/seek a new farrier.

As I mentioned before, there are about 70 horses in the big pastures (35 or so geldings in the gelding pasture, 35 or so mares in the mare pasture) along with probably 15 or so others who stay in stalls. And 5 more who have private turnout- no stalls. This is excluding the BO's own horses (she has about 10).

Now, that total adds up to be about 90 boarding horses on the property. It might be a little less. Out of those 90 horses, there are about maybe 20 whose owners actually come out to see them and live close. Most of the horses are from owners in other parts of the country who just wanted to let their horses live out their days. These horses get shod by the barn farrier.

Now my point in this line of thinking is that maybe she had never heard anything negative about the barn farrier because there were never any owners present to complain. Just recently all of us "active owners" as you will moved to her property and actually paid close attention to our horse's care. And with the close attention, the complaints have started coming in. So maybe she just seems steam rolled and shell shocked because there has never been anyone able to complain in the past.

I could understand the reasoning behind that. At the same time though, I would not/will not apologize for finding a new farrier. Owning a horse that just can't move due to bad shoeing is not ok with me. And if she brings it up again, I will gladly tell her so.

And as far as the 65/month goes - if she needs to charge more.... well then she just should. Underhanded dealing with a horrid farrier is something I am not ok with her doing. Charging extra for board? Totally fine! Charge away. Its worth it! My jaw dropped when I first found out the price. And "you get what you pay for" is a true saying- but this place is a blessing in disguise. It is a very well known ranch in our area and has been known for hosting eventing competitions, etc in the past. We have an AMAZING dressage arena and 3 great xc courses. My friends and I recently spent an entire weekend cleaning up one of the xc courses (jumps, cutting grass, clearing water jump, etc) in order to school on it. We have also repainted the jump standards and such many times.

I just feel liek sometimes the place is stuck in a time capsule. The BO refuses to let it move forward. She always talks about how wonderful it used to be, and the events she rode in, and the events they hosted .. and just doesn't see how it could be amazing again after a little work.

Anyways, I am truly happy paying 65/month for the facility and the pasture. It is great. If she were to want to charge more, that would be great to. My main point in starting this thread was to let out some frustration I was bottling inside, and wondering if she could legally bind me to her horrible farrier in order to stay on her property. And as I have said before, if she gave me an ultimatum Drifter and I would be gone in a second. The main reason I chose her was because it is the only place that offers full pasture board, the people are great, her barn workers are MIRACLE WORKERS (i can't say enough good things about them) and we have over 700 acres to ride in. Drifter is truly happy there. Especially now that his feet are fixed

Good for you, for working and keeping up school!! My 3 DD's have worked since they were 16yo's (they are 24yo, 27yo and 32yo). You are polite AND responsible. Your money is just as good as the 78yo BO's money. It sounds suspicious, almost like there is a racket going on and perhaps a personal/familial relationship between her and the mediocre farrier. Also, the $price is way too high--I only pay $16/trim and $35.00 full showing (no corrective) from my Amish farrier, and they all walk away sound every trim/shoeing.
Your BO is not an experienced horsewoman. I am 54yo and I look at a horse's feet and legs first, then the midline, and last the head and neck. If she had been in horses even as long as me (27 years) she wouldn't be pushing a rotten farrier's work on her customers. I wonder what other things are happening at this barn.
IMO, I would start shopping around for another place to keep your horse. I'll bet your new farrier will follow you there. =D

$16 a trim?! I pay $50, and I know it's higher than average around me but I'm ok with that, he knows what he's doing. It's over $100 for full shoes.

I would start looking around for a new place. At my barn there's several farriers and vets that are used, just depends what horse is getting tended too. I would always be suspicious of any BO that wanted you to use a certain farrier/vet.

Yeah 16 is a steal. I pay 45$ a trim and I think they wanted $150 to put front shoes and pads on my mare.
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