The pro's and con's of living in the boondocks
Trotting down the canal road.
Many horse lovers, myself included, set our goals to live in a remote, rural place. Lots of people live stressful lives and yearn for a retirement where they can have their horses at home instead of a boarding stable. They’ve invested time, effort, and money on acquiring the knowledge to take the best possible care of their horses and they know that having horses at home offers the best scenario. Now they just need land to do it the way they always wanted. I picked a career in agriculture so I could live in the country and have room for horses. There are lots of pro’s for living in the boondocks: cheaper land, less traffic, cleaner air, quiet, lower taxes, fewer neighbors, less crime, the chance to grow your own horse feed and most of all: the room to let our horses just be horses, out in fields eating grass. I had horses for 25+ years in a place that averaged one house per square mile and most people spent a long day a month driving 2 hours one way to go shopping in the big city. While I’d do it all over again, I wish I’d had someone with experience at the onset to help me figure out how to work around some of the negative aspects of having a horse property in the boondocks. I’ve seen people with dreams that became nightmares because they didn’t understand what they were getting into.
Land: Cheap vs. worthless
Generally, the further away from a big city, the cheaper the property taxes and initial cost of land. The basic fertility of land is also a big factor. Fertile farmlands that can support productive row crops can go for over $7000/acre, and they will only sell it to their grandchildren or large developer. Less fertile pastureland is generally more affordable, but be careful. You get what you pay for. When local people know how worthless a piece of land really is, they are eager to sell to someone who doesn’t understand the problems they are taking on. I’ve had too many pasture management clients that took soil samples after the purchase of land only to find that the former land manager (abuser?) had sucked the life out of the soil. If the person who managed the land previously went broke raising cattle, chances are they used zero inputs the last few years, which is why they went broke. You can’t budget the costs for managing land until you see the soil tests. The cost of lime, fertilizer, and weed control to bring some depleted soils back to growing nutritious grass can be over $1000/acre the first year, with following per year costs only slightly lower. You can buy hay for less than this, and after experts help you with a reasonable budget that might be what you decide. If you go ahead and put horses on degraded land, you may put them at risk for toxic mineral imbalances if the pH is less than 6.0. In contrast, pastures that have been properly cared for may cost less than $100/acre to maintain and can produce 3-5 tons per acre of quality forage. It is imperative that you take soil samples and have comprehensive tests done BEFORE you purchase land intended for horse pasture. Always have someone able to ID toxic plants walk the land before you put horses on it. (Sustainable Stables, LLC can do this for you) I’ve even encountered a few naïve people who thought that the way to restore land that had been farmed or grazed to death is to do nothing and “let Nature heal it”. Doing nothing is what caused the problem! It takes lime to correct toxic pH levels in the soil. It takes added nutrients to restore an efficient nutrient cycle in depleted soil. It takes herbicide to control noxious, invasive, poisonous weeds unless you want to spend all your free time controlling them by hand while you worry if your horse has eaten too many of them. Some of the saddest stories I’ve heard are from owners who learned too late about the poisonous weeds that killed their horses.
Many areas in the western USA have depleted aquifers. I know someone who was shocked to spend $20,000 for a well on her new ‘bargain’ priced acreage. She then discovered that the county did not maintain the roads in her remote development and she had to hire someone to plow snow for a half-mile. Cheap land may come with no access to electricity. You may have to pay to have lines put in. Land fraud schemes are common in remote beautiful places. Ask a local well driller for an estimate before you buy a property. Don’t assume that the services you can expect back home will be available in the boondocks, including timely fire and ambulance. Many beautiful properties in remote, beautiful places are for sale due to the poor health of the owners that need to live closer to health services.
Expert advice is hard to find
Forget finding a veterinarian that specializes in horses when you live in the boondocks. Most rural vets make their living taking care of cows and pets. Don’t expect them to have the skills and knowledge of your equine specialist back in the big city. If you are horrified when you discover they offer tests and treatments deemed obsolete 20 years ago you must be careful not to show it. Be nice. You will need a local vet that will suture wounds and administer first aid treatments to stabilize your horse before the long haul to a specialist. Same with hoof care providers, dentists, and trainers; the good ones live where they can work on a whole barn of horses just off the highway. They do not live in places where they have to drive an hour to work on a couple of horses. How to get around this problem? Join local horse groups and seek out the best-educated horse people in your area. Host a clinic at your farm to meet horse people motivated to learn. When I lived in the boondocks, we networked to bring skilled specialists to our area. A person with an indoor arena or parking with shade would offer their facility and we’d all trailer there. Sometimes we could get enough work to keep a skilled person busy for a couple of days. Be extremely grateful, feed them well, and give them a comfortable place to stay to entice them to come back. I used to host an excellent dressage trainer at my house because I can cook vegan and had a guest room. It’s also possible to use your network of better horse people to share expenses to trailer to a specialist. Also, consider sharing large truckloads of hay from outside the area if local hay is not of good quality that year.
Don’t expect an agricultural extension agent in a rural area focused on cattle production to understand the special needs of horses with metabolic disease. When I asked for some help for a client in rural Alabama, the local guy laughed long and loud. He thought it was insane that someone would be looking for low sugar grass or hay. He refused to believe that horses with high insulin exist. I’m sure he retold this story many times about the ‘low sugar grass lady’. You are on your own if you have a special needs horse in the boondocks. Oh, and the internet is slow and unreliable.
Farming supplies may be hard to find
This might be hard to believe, but some of my consulting clients created a horse oasis in an area with no easy access to agricultural supplies like fertilizer, lime, or custom applicators for weed control. Some prime residential areas of ‘farmettes’ are far from farming country. In other areas, less fertile soils are typically used as pasture because they won’t support intensive agriculture. If a large region of marginal land gets degraded by overgrazing, as are many areas of the southern and western USA, the farm supply companies go broke along with the ranchers. When this happens, you may be required to haul your spreader full of lime or fertilizer 100 miles or more. No matter where you live, you cannot get a commercial pesticide applicator to drive more than 20 miles for a job of fewer than 40 acres, and then you’ll have to pay extra. If your new land is full of toxic plants, you need to budget for a tractor with a PTO and 3 point hitch to facilitate a brush hog, or at least an ATV and sprayer.
In some areas, the only form of fertilizer people can find nearby is poultry litter. Before you consider poultry litter for fertilizer, please read up on Salmonella contamination. Always compost manure before spreading on fields to decrease parasite and disease levels.
Salmonella in Broiler Litter and Properties of Soil at Farm Location. Volkova VV, Bailey RH, Wills RW (2009) PLoS ONE 4(7): e6403.
Salmonella Oranienburg Isolated from Horses, Wild Turkeys and An Edible Home Garden Fertilized with Raw Horse Manure M. T. Jay‐Russell J. E. Madigan Y. Bengson S. Madigan A. F. Hake J. E. Foley B. A. Byrne. Zoonoses Vol.61, Issue1,Feb2014,Pages 64-71 Full text:
Once the soil fertility is built back up by adding nutrients as per soil testing, on-farm composting of manure is more likely to fulfill long-term soil fertility needs. Recycling of nutrients doesn’t work well until the entire ecosystem is properly fed. If animals are fed forage that is deficient nutrients, they produce manure that is deficient in nutrients.
If there are no farm supply dealers in an area, I have been able to find bagged fertilizer and lime through golf course managers. The next time they have a delivery, pay in advance and join in the order. The products are not always exactly as I would have advised but way better than nothing if custom fertilizer mixes are not available.
Wildlife and the neighbor’s cows
After you create the best grazing for miles around, the wildlife will find it. When you plan your horse oasis in a wilderness, add 7-foot perimeter fencing to keep out wild animals. Add ‘hog tight’ if you want to live in places with feral hogs. I’ve seen overgrazing by deer, elk, feral hogs, kangaroos, and hares. You cannot manage your pastures properly if herds of other grazing animals are allowed free access. They also carry parasites that transmit diseases to your horses. If you like watching herds of wildlife grazing on your property, fence off a portion just for your horses.
Understand local fencing laws. Much of the American west is ‘open range’. In these areas, cows may roam free and it is your responsibility to keep your neighbor’s animals off your property. During hard times, your neighbor’s animals may be very motivated to get on your pasture. Baked goods are a useful bribe when asking your neighbor to come to get their animals out of your pasture or hay shed.
Growing your own horse feed is not cost-effective
On small acreages, if you add up everything you spend on equipment, farming supplies, irrigation water rights, and trips to the chiropractor after stacking hay, you will find that it is cheaper to buy hay from someone who barely makes a living haying 1,000 acres. Friends who kept track tell me it doesn’t pay on 40 acres. Balers are too expensive to buy and maintain. If you live in an area where horses can eat stockpiled forage over the winter, (and they still have adequate teeth and appetite to eat tough grass) you might come close to breaking even on fairly fertile land. This means having fields of mature, tall grass set aside that horses can eat when the grass stops growing. It doesn’t work in areas with deep snow and long winters, but it may work in the southern half of the USA when you have enough rain or irrigation and plenty of cross-fencing. Small-time hobby farmers have other sources of income and do it because that’s what they like to do; not because it is profitable. If you can hire an old retired farmer who still has a working small baler and wants to feel useful, treat him like a rare treasure. Feed him a homemade apple pie. (I cannot stress enough the value of baked goods in a neighborly rural area.) When he dies, his son will charge you a lot more to bale your small field, and he will do it after his own crop is safely under cover; not when your field is ready.
You might feel bad for your neighbor’s horses
Those of us who care for our horses like they are family will be shocked when we drive by and look at the way poor people care for horses considered useless and worthless. Old or injured cows get taken to the sale barn. Since the slaughter of horses has stopped in America, in poor rural areas old or injured horses often die in fields with no shelter, special feed, or medication. If you complain, they will put them in a field not visible from the road. When your neighbors see the way you care for horses, they will want to sell theirs to you cheaply or give them to you. If you have the extra resources to take them in, thank you. If you don’t, learn to look the other way on that stretch of road. In rural areas, there are not enough large animal rescues, if any. The people who have the job of administering animal cruelty laws will generally not get involved until at least several animals are found dead in a field and the rest look horrendous. You will hear some version of “there’s always going to be a few that are old and sick”. The livestock mentality towards horses rules in the boondocks.
Breeding is rarely profitable
Please don’t think you can breed horses and sell them to finance your horse farm. Having a horse farm is how you spend money, not make money. Only experts that breed and train a few select horses destined for high powered show careers manage to sell them. They may not make a profit per horse, but do it for the tax write-offs to finance their own horse habit. If you are not an expert trainer with a following you cannot sell horses for a profit. There are already far too many mediocre horses that need training priced for far less than what it will cost you to raise another one.
But sometimes dreams come true
If you are informed, adaptable, resilient, independent and creative, living in remote rural areas can be the perfect way for horse owners with adequate resources to spend their hard-earned retirement years or inheritance. Or get a job as a crop consultant, and be self-employed with seasonal work, like I did.
Some of my fondest memories are wandering my remote, rural property in my nightgown and boots at dawn, drinking coffee and watching my horses graze. There were plenty of dirt roads and farm lanes to ride on with minimal traffic. While it was sometimes frustrating and never easy, I learned how to manage the downsides of living in the boondocks with horses. It is a worthy fantasy. Just don’t let unrealistic expectations or inflexibility turn your dream into a nightmare. Get expert help formulating a budget for restoring and managing pasture land for long term sustainability and health for your horses. Ask the right questions beforehand to make sure you have what it takes to make your dream come true.
