Today's confession is that I had no idea how hard it is to find barn workers. In the past I've posted on Facebook and found someone pretty easily. Or asked around and help would find its way to me. But this time it's proving a bit more difficult. I've posted in my stories on socials and on a couple of local horse pages on the book of faces. And all I've gotten is crickets. Meanwhile, this week alone I've come into the barn to find Shiny with no water and manure left out in two of the three turnouts. Not to mention all the hay everywhere. And it's only Tuesday. But hey, at least the gates were closed and the doors were latched. Thank goodness for that.
Hopefully I can get my lack of energy situation worked out with doc so I can just get more done myself. That's obviously the best solution. Anyway though, any suggestion on where to advertise for help? Maybe there's something new I just don't know about. I am of a certain age after all!
It’s always interesting how difficult it is to find manual labour help in today’s economy. It might also be the time of year. You could try at a local college if there’s one in your area.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think the location is what's tough. I'm not really very close to any schools. I am near lots of other horse farms, but I think I just don't know where to advertise these days. Hopefully I can figure it out!
DeleteUgh, frustrating. It's odd how quickly he went from being reliable to not, I wonder what's going on. I'm no help on finding workers, but have you considered putting auto-waterers in? I ask for a couple of reasons - one, if you end up having a revolving door of help going forward, it's really nice to know that they are never, ever without water even if someone ends up being flaky and forgets. And two, it makes the job itself easier/quicker which might make it more attractive to potential workers. I love mine in the co-op for both those reasons.
ReplyDeleteI second the auto-waterers. It is a con that you can't monitor their intake, but the pros outweigh them for most horses (I do buckets for sick or otherwise dodgy ones who need monitoring more than most)
DeleteNelsons actually have intake monitors now. There is a little LCD screen that sits on the stall front and is connected to the waterer via a wire. I haven't bought them yet because I've never had a situation in which I needed to monitor intake that closely, if ours are acting off at all we shut off the Nelson and put a bucket in the stall.
DeleteI do get why auto waterers are popular, especially with the newer ability to monitor intake. But I've never been a fan. I don't have it in my budget to do at the moment, but also it's one more thing to break and/or leak. Watering is really simple at my barn anyway, as each stall has it's own hose.
DeleteI'm always too afraid to trust anyone to do my barn work for me at home (except my parents who help with stalls a few days a week for exercise - for free!), so I'm not much help. What about someone from the winter barn looking for extra hours/money?
ReplyDeleteI saw a couple comments on auto waterers. I don't have them but there is at least one that measures intake made by Cascada. I would love to have those!
The new winter barn is about 25 minutes away from me, and most of the workers live a bit away from there the other direction. Plus, the ones I would really trust work there full time so wouldn't be available anyway. But hopefully there's someone out there I'll cross paths with soon!
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