#horses - #Need help saying no to a friend.

Need help saying no to a friend.

Hi everyone.

So I just opened my hunter/jumper facility.

We have 4/9 stalls full. We only offer full care stall boarding with turn out as we do not have the property for pasture board. We have three pastures, each pasture at 2-4 acres. The middle 2 acre pasture is being renovated (pigs used to be in there) and not useable at the moment. The lower 3 acre pasture has two sections with great grazing, but is mostly wooded and there will be very little left after the winter. The pasture Im using now for turnout is 4 acres, and I have all four horses going out there at the moment, three is still grass, but I will need to start adding hay soon as it is getting brittle and and yellow.

We have three school horses with open schedules. We literally opened less than a month ago. One boarder. Two lesson students who started the week of our opening.

Needlesstosay, we are not making money yet. It is coming along slowly but surely.

Now..I have a friend who i have let come ride a few times for free. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

She told me her boyfriend "dropped a bomb" on her that he has a horse standing in the middle of a pasture and she is going to go check it out. She said if he is in bad shape would I consider helping out with one of my pastures. I said I would consider it but wouldn't promise anything.

She texted me a photo of the horse today. The horse is fat and happy. Not a dire situation. He doesn't have a buddy which sucks, but that's not rescue material for me.

She asked me if we could work something out for pasture board. In her eyes...with one pasture being used and 5 stalls open...we have the space.

But the thing is, we won't have the space when we're full. I cannot put a horse on pasture board here and I have already turned people away for it. The wooded pasture we aren't using gets sloppy and I cannot fall asleep at night knowing I have a horse in that pasture. Wooded pastures for me aren't safe enough for full time pasture boarding.

Do I need to explain anything to her? How do I say no? I just feel bad because I would help if I could...and it LOOKS like I can...but I really can't.

Submitted November 17, 2018 at 01:24PM by queenmamabee
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/9xznjc/need_help_saying_no_to_a_friend/?utm_source=ifttt