Help Wanted!

Image result for help wanted gifI am curious on how much you all pay your help when you are away or at work (if you have help or not). Or how much you make if horse sitting is in your list of work history! If you want you can email me martidoll@gmail.com to keep it confidential. Or post here! Let me know what you pay/get! Thanks!

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Most people if they see my mud

I had a young girl from the feed store come by to see the place and meet the horses yesterday, and I am going to hire her when I am away to at least come during the day and do the stalls (rather than Mark doing them YES!) and just check water and throw hay. She seemed to be a typical horse crazy college kid and I even told her if she wanted we could come up with some spring cleaning jobs and get her a bit more pocket money. OH HELP WOULD BE SO DIVINE! She is interested and the flexibility would work with her school and other jobs. Mark would still feed and water and turnout or whatever in the am and pm but he could leave the stalls. And as I said I would not mind hiring her for a few days even when I am here. She loved both Remus and Tate who having been up for almost a full day and night showed off for her in the stalls. Oh you horses. She is a nice kid and I hope it works out for us both.

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In case you think it dried up here. um nope

Othewise it’s cold as shit, I have to blanket my faucet (Tate’s heavier blanket when he is not wearing it works well) in the barn at night as well as my horses and I am pretty done with this winter.  Anyone else done with winter? Work sucks too.

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I am so done with it all I am done then an extra done! UGH

One odd thing is since the night I walked the horses up in the mud, they haven’t back in the front pig. Whether it is too cold for them (it is windy out there) or if they think Satan Pig is out there waiting for them I don’t know. But it is odd since Remus loves to stretch out and snooze out there. Once you figure a horse out he changes his mind. Right?

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Is it odd I am drolling over tshirt weather and grass in this cartoon gif?? LOL

27 thoughts on “Help Wanted!”

  1. So, this is a tough one to price out. I farm sit a lot, and charge a minimum of $50/night but I spend the night, muck stalls, feed 2x day, usually care for dogs which I hike daily and I’m a licensed vet tech, so if anything happens I have some medical knowledge that can help.
    So, um, I feel like for mucking stalls and cleaning, something like $15/day would be fair? You’re horses are fairly simple in that they don’t need meds and there is an adult who is also there checking on them. So, it should be a good gig for her!

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  3. When I go away, I have a friend down the road from the horses who LOVES spending time with them. He asks for nothing in return, and has turned down money several times in the past. I instead send him a case of beer (which I don’t imagine you will do for a young girl, lol), bring back fun things from our vacation (last time I brought him stuff for smoking salmon, BBQ sauces, grill stuff, etc bc he fishes a lot), and this Christmas I commissioned an expensive painting of his boat as a huge thank you.

    When I used to farm sit, my “reward” was often riding the horse I was looking after. Of course, it was also my 4-H leader’s horses who I had already been riding. Plus, I was so excited to be LIVING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM that I didn’t care about money lol.

    As I got older tho, I was paid around $15-20 a day which included feeding, graining, blanket changing and watering of several horses. No mucking bc it was winter and the owner’s scrape down the paddocks after the snow melts (it’s hard to scoop poop in -15 anyways).

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  4. When I’ve farmsat in the past for my BO, she’s paid me really well at $30-35/day. They’re VERY well off though. All I had to do was let the dogs in and out of the house + feed/water them, feed/water the chickens and peacocks, and make sure the horses were all standing and healthy. No stalls to muck, no dogs to “walk”. Pretty sweet gig in a gorgeous home on a gorgeous property.

    For little ol’ me in my life so far, I always find locals who don’t have their own place who want to escape roommates/parents/etc. for house-sitting/dog-watching gigs. We have a pretty sweet pad and staying there is a treat in and of itself (hot tub anyone?) We tend to leave a pretty stocked fridge and alcohol and let them have at, cautioning that they can have a few friends over but no raging parties. To make it a little sweeter, I give them $10/day. Once the horses are home, I will probably up it to $15-20/day with all of the other stipulations.

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  5. I earn $10/hour when I work at my barn, but when I in a position to pay it’s $15/hour. So for two horses that would probably be $15-$30 to do stalls, feed, etc. depending on how much you want done.

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  6. When I farmsit I’m getting $100-150 a day (depending on what all is going on) but that’s for 7 horses and a dog, and me staying out there and doing more work than just mucking. It seems like the going rate for general barn help around here is around $10 an hour, sometimes up to $15.

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  7. So my regular guy who does all the morning stuff (turn in and out, stalls, feed breakfast, keep the barn spick and span) he gets a salary. I based it off having four horses since I did when he started, and let’s just say he’s incredibly overpaid now that there are only two. But I’m so grateful to have him and want to keep him that I haven’t cut his pay. Plus he has five kids to feed and cloth, and this is still just a part time job. So I won’t tell you what I pay him as it’s not relevant here…
    For my weekend helper, she gets 10.75 an hour. When I go away, I have a horse sitter that will come for lunch, dinner, and maybe night check depending on whether my tenant is home. (If she’s home she does night check for me.) Horse sitter charges me $25.00 per visit.

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  8. I would say $10-15 an hour seems fair. It kinda depends on how far she’s driving to get to you, too. If she’s not close by, it has to be worth her while to drive there. So maybe $20 a visit while you’re away and hourly otherwise when she can work longer?

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      1. also what you are saying is my mind to pay her more when I am away and then an hourly when she comes to work when I am here. I will figure it out i just didn’t want to insult her by paying her less!

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      2. Yes – that’s what I’m saying. I would just make sure she gets enough to make it worth her while when she comes just to muck. Like I could muck two dirty stalls in less than an hour (pro poop scooper for many years lol). So if I was being paid $10/hr I’m not bothering.

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  9. I tend to ask people what they want to be paid. It gives me an idea if we’re on the same page. I often just pay for the week vs per visit. So xxx/week visiting 2x/day. My last person only wanted $15/day for 2 visits but that seemed really low so I paid her more. But since I never know what to pay, I usually start by asking what they charge.

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  10. oh my god i cannot believe how much mud you still have.

    I farmsat once and got lowballed so hard I couldn’t even believe it. She had 2 horses (that got fed 3x a day), 2 dogs, a cat, and not only did she want the stalls cleaned but she also wanted the paddocks picked. Sooo I did it for her once and never again.

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  11. One of the things I really wanted when house shopping was a rental unit. I wanted to rent it out to someone horsey for a reduced rate in exchange for barn work. That didn’t happen and there’s no way to add a rental without building another house so it won’t be happening anytime soon. You’re not asking for a lot of work, but maybe $20 a visit since you want to make it worth her travel time. I’ve done barn sitting in the past and I preferred the jobs that were bigger and paid more to the ones that were super easy, but didn’t pay much. If I’m going to drive over there, I’d rather do a bunch and get paid more than throw hay and leave, but get paid too little to make it worth my time. I did dog sitting for a while and would regularly turn down cat watching jobs because people didn’t want to pay a lot for me to just refill water and check the food bowl. Which I totally understand, but my time getting to and from is worth something too.

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  12. When we have gone away and needed a house sitter we paid $50 a day to stay here and take care of the zoo including 2 cats, 2 dogs, a guinea pig and the two horses. That was when we didn’t have a barn so they got fed outside. I think I may give $65 a day since we now have 3 horses and they get brought in to eat

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    1. And because I’m me I wanted to add that you should do the task you hire her for and have a solid idea how long it takes you. Add in a little wiggle room for the person being new, not having a system, and not knowing where everything is. That way if it took you 3 hours and they are taking 5 you know you are getting milked.

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      1. thanks 🙂 HA HA HA you crack me up! If I ever have her stay I will pay her a fortune I have housesat and know that shit is not easy 🙂 And It takes me an hour to do everyting in the am (feed/water/sweep/blow/puthayout and clean stalls) so if she is just doing stalls it should be less than hour but i get it!Thanks again!

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  13. i’ve never been a barn sitter or hired a barn sitter so i have really no idea of price. i like the idea of asking the kid tho. and really, when i was younger i probably would have done it for peanuts just for the experience, and probably for close to free if i got to ride haha. but then again there aren’t a lot of assurances that come with hiring kids so that might not be the most confidence inspiring option. good luck tho!

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