[id911T]

My wife and I own a small horse boarding business (12 horses), so not exactly what you are looking at but some of this may apply.

We only do self-care pasture boarding (they feed) and full-care pasture boarding (we feed). All the animals have access to shelter of course, but they do not stay in stalls. They are free to circulate between pasture and shelter as they please. Since we have our own animals to care for the workload isn't that much different than our normal routine (1hr in the evenings). We do not provide stall boarding except for medical reasons, since it's a PITA and takes a ton of time.

If you have clients that want their animals in a stall most of the time and turned out for a few hours a day, then expect a ton of work feeding, mucking, and playing musical chairs. This may be a requirement for studs, horses with medical issues, crazy horses, or those with crazy owners.

If you have the land and can give the animals some room, then your daily responsibilities change to checking them over, feeding supplements/hay, making sure the watering is working, and giving your fences a glance.

It was easy for us to get into boarding since we already had horses, and supplements our income nicely. Chose your clients carefully, it's easy to spend 80% of your time dealing with 1 bad-apple client.