2.5 acre 'Perfect Paddock' - Advice on purchase / livery price

Well, do you want to know what my dream setup is? I would like a good size barn in the middle of my patch of land. The patch of land would probably be about 5 or 6 acres for my 3. The place would be fenced externally, but within that perimiter fence I would be able to do what I liked, with wooden stake-type posts and electric fencing. (Paddock Paradise or whatever). I'd need mains electricity for the fencing by the way... All around the barn there would be a nice hardstanding surface, going at least 12ft out on all sides. Hopefully the barn would have more than one doorway, nice and wide. And be divided inside so I could use part of it for storage and essentials like tea making, and the other would be open to allow my neds to come and go for shelter and shade. Doors on all sides would be perfect in fact. I'd set up my fencing so that I could open different sections of the grazing when needed, but all would have a gateway on to the hard standing area around the barn, so that the horses could always access the barn. Running water of course... And a nice track leading up to my barn, with room for parking and turning when my hay's delivered.
Oh, a sandschool of some description would be lovely, although expensive to install.
You see, I don't want stables at all. I want a barn that they can have free access to, and that I could use for box resting if I had to. I want to be flexible rather than cosmetically pleasing in how I use my grazing, so that I can keep my horses moving around for the benefit of their health. I don't want the conventional pretty stable yard, I want a setup that works in the best way for me and my horses all year round.
In fact, I think there would be quite a market for that sort of setup, I have friends who, like me, yearn for it to be honest.
 
Marcomacellaio said:
I suppose you're right, people would probably prefer the flexibility. As a non horsey person I was just thinking that from an aesthetic point of view, nice post and rail fencing would fit in more with peoples dreams of the perfect paddock. I went all black beauty!
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Nice white leccy fencing with white poles...all stretched taut and maintained looks nice too......well mine does:p

Or you could go pink:D

You know.....unless you've already got the land ( ie farmer or lucky git) then theres not a great deal of money in renting out yards/grazing. Thats why most yards do part/full livery to make the money from providing services.
Its actually much cheaper for me to keep my horses on rented land than to be on livery or try to buy the land.
 
Financially, I think it would be very difficult to make this work given the set up costs. Livery yards and horsey facilities tend to fall under three categories:

- people who keep horses at home. They are insane about their animals and accept the cost of keeping them as part and parcel of the whole thing. Adding equestrian facilities can increase the value of a property but probably not enough to make it a viable business model. Most people do it for their own horses and accept the increased re-sale value as a small fringe benefit.

- people who adore horses and want to make a living out of them. They generally struggle to make serious money, but livery yards especially in converted existing buildings are a way of keeping things ticking over - they are not going to make anyone rich though!

- people who couldn't care less about horses, but happen to have the facilities, e.g. farms, and like the small extra income. Again the money generating opportunities are limited.

As far as I can tell the opportunities for making serious money from horses are few and far between. The people who have the best chance are serious professionals with a great reputation in their field who can buy a lot of youngsters and sell them on well trained as good competition prospects.
 
I really like the sound of the 'natural' setup, involving the barn with open access to the horses. I'm going to do a lot more research into that now, just sat down with a copy of paddock paradise which I picked up from the library this afternoon.

Guess I'm going to end up designing and writing about something completely different than what I set out to do! Isn't that just the way of it! Thought I was almost finished, now back to the drawing board.

Does anyone else have any opinions, experiences to do with that type of setup? Is there a tangible benefit to the horses, or do some of you think this is just another fad which will be here today gone tomorrow?

Again...... Any opinions would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Mark
 
Marcomacellaio said:
Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions so far.

I am intrigued by the 'Paddock Paradise' suggestion, I have just found a copy of the book in the library, so have had it reserved and will pick it up later.

Does anybody else have experience of the pros and cons of 'Paddock Paradise'?

Also, I had not thought about integrating planning considerations into my design, but actually, upon relfection this is an area that may be important to the overall essay, especially with regard to environmental matters / legislation.

Does anybody have any experience of the planning constraints involved with developing land for equestrian use? Is it dificult to get permissions, or is it relatively straight forward?

Any information with regard to paddock paradise or planning considerations would be greatly appreciated,

Mark

ps, this forum beats Horse & Rider hands down! only one person replied on there! hehe
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Take a read of "Animals in Translation" by Temple Granden. She is an Autistic Professor of animal behaviour and a designer of animal habitats/slaughterhouses/zoos. She also advocates the round track system and now most slaughterhouses in the USA are built on her designs. Her work is mainly with cows, but the principles of the track circuits remain the same.
 
Mark, if you set that up at a reasonable rent pm me - I'll probably move to where ever in the country you are!!
Paddock Paradise exercises the horses while they are wandering around the field, so it helps to keep weight down, keep them fitter, it benefits their (possibly barefoot) hooves. In this country people sometimes have to abandon it in winter because unless they put some surfaces on the tracks, it can get in too much of a mess. But that's fine, because it really comes into it's own in the summer.
Open access to the barn, I think, benefits horse and person. The horses get some choice about when they come in and go out. 2 doors are particularly good, because it's easy for one to leave rather than get cornered. Although when I've tried similar setups the horses were so relaxed it wasn't an issue. The barn does have to be large enough for the group to be able to stand in together amiably. Also, having them walk over a hard surface like concrete to get there is good if they are barefoot. And, in the winter when it's horrible and wet, you can do all your hay feeding on the area around the barn and inside, thus making sure they get out of the mud and wet for a good period of time.
Say a horse is poorly. You can rig up an enclosure for them in the barn, possibly also put a gate across a doorway so they can see out and see their friends. Got to help with box rest hasn't it?
From the owner's point of view, take someone like me who pretty much does everything to care for their horses. If it snowed and I couldn't get to the yard until late in the day, I'd know they had shelter, water and plenty of hay, so it wouldn't be the same worry as if they were waiting in stables. Also, if I could only visit once a day, I'd know that they could get themselves out of weather or sun if they needed. It would be great.
Seriously, I've dreamed about this setup for years, and it's an "if only" for me. If I had an arena to play in, well, how good would that be? Brilliant.
 
I own 3 acres in the home counties. Purchased as a horse paddock over 20 years ago.I paid £12,500!That seemed quite alot back then. All it had was barb wire perimetre fence and a water trough.
It is now divided into 3 paddock, has 4 stables, tack room, barn, 2 shelters and 2 water troughs.Oh, and a tap!
We have solar electric, but it is USELESS! It is great in summer- when you don't really need it, but barely lasts in winter, inspite of it being a professional product. Car batteries work far better if you don;t have mains electric. Obviously not as ethical though!
I have horse netting for my fences as I beleive it is safer than any other type.There is also a good thick hedge on one and half sides I do, however, strip graze with electric tape. I have far too much grass in summer, but never enough in winter, as we're on clay and it gets very very poached.
Planning was a nightmare, and I believe it has got much worse. We had to screen the stables from the road, and are also not allowed to burn anything-which was a stipulation fo the planning consent- which now means I have to pay £200 a year to have some but not all of it cleared away.It would cost 3 times that if I were to clear it all away!
I have not had it valued recently, but I believe it would be worth in excess of £100, 000. Land is a very short commodity in the Uk,as we are an island with an ever increasing population, and as a result,along with strict planning regulations on many councils for horse related activities, it can only increase in value, which makes owning land out of reach for many many people.
 
I must say that Tinypony's idea does sound lovely! I have two horses and my ideal yard/setup for them would be around 3 acres of grazing, fenced with post and rail round the edge and also trees/hedges outside for shelter. Then I could divide up the internal grazing as needs be using electric fencing. It would be nice to have a tree or two in the field for the horses to shelter under, scratch on, have as a feature etc! I would have automatic water troughs ideally or if not a tap, the guttering system for water is a god idea but doesn't work so well in summer when there's been no rain for weeks so definately would need a water supply of some sort, (probably not a pond/stream as I would worry a horse would get stuck in it!)

For my main shelter I would also like a barn type building that opened on more than one side to allow the horses to come in and out as they pleased. Inside it would have two large pens so that horses could be seperated if nessecary, I would probably stable them there overnight in winter but in summer they could come and go as they pleased. The other main need would be a store of some kind, either as a seperate building or one attached to this one in which to keep hay/bedding/tools etc. Solar lighting would be good, though it would no doubt need an electric back up for winter, couldn't manage with no electric in winter as I like to be able to see my horses (was at one yard where there was no electric and had to go round with a headtorch which wasn't ideal). Security wise it would be in a nice safe area, fairly isolated, I like to be able to do my own thing so wouldn't want many other people around! Obviously the absolute ideal would be that my house would be next door but this would put it well beyond my current budget!

An arena of my own would be a real bonus but also expensive so (unless I was feeling very rich), I would probably make do with schooling in the field in summer/dryer months and then using lots of hacking for my other fitness work (see below!) Hopefully I would have my own horsebox which could prehaps live in the haybarn out of sight which I could use to hire out local arenas if needs be for more schooling.

All the above would then be situated on a quiet lane within easy access of excellent off road hacking, either in a national park/forest or just somewhere with lots of bridleways! To make it really ideal it would also be close to a local show centre so I could hack there for competitions/lessons/to hire their arena (in which case I wouldn't need my own so much so could buy a slightly cheaper field).

Hope this helps, I think I have covered everything I would want/need.
 
Thank you 'Rot' for the book suggestion, I will definately look into that. I actually visited the slaughterhouse (part of farm visit for course) at Laverstoke Park Farm. Classical music playing, small numbers of animals going through at once. Was actually really interesting and very calm, which was surprising. They slaughter their own animals on site so no transportation. They even have big massaging rotating brushes in the barns for the buffalo!

'tiny', 'spotty' and 'ally'; thank you so much for you detailed responses, is actually fascinating to share in someone dream scenario. I hope many more people are willing to take the time to share that much! However, there is one important consideration, and that is cost.

Would I be right in assuming that you all would rather be renters rather than owners? If so, what would you class as 'reasonable' rent for any of the dream setups that you just described?

Ps. None of the ideal scenarios should include a house, the model I'm designing reflects land useage. So if living there too is 'perfect' then try to imagine what would be your dream just below perfect.

Thanks again everyone, I look forward to another day of excellent responses
 
Well, my biggest dream of all is to buy my own place and do that with it. However, pigs... fly... etc. So renting seems to be my only option. Again, speaking for Kent, where I am, this would rent probably for about £50 per week I should think. Strange as it seems to me, a lot of people would not want this, because they want a nice neat set of stables. I have something close-ish. I have 6 acres, and a barn, but not the hardstanding, arena, and the barn isn't in the middle of the fields. It isn't big enough for storage and shelter, so I've had to opt for using it for hay. I pay £150 pcm for that and have 3 horses. For something more like the dream setup I'd go to about £200 pcm, but above that I'd struggle, even for a dream, budget is a consideration as well!
 
Thanks for that, I'm gonna write a generic email questioning planning criteria and send it to all local authorities and see if I can come up with some sort of general rule of thumb for the purposes of my essay.
Thanks for the info regarding solar, I'm going to re-look at that. Maybe also have wind power over winter, would be very effective where I used to live in scotland!
 
Tiny - £200 sounds reasonable to me. Just wondering though, would the income generated be £200 per month or would you be able to rent to more than one owner who pays £200pm. Perhaps that would ruin the dream, sharing with someone else?
 
Just another thought, local authorities are now very concerned with muck heap disposal and regulations are getting tighter all the time.

We looked into wind turbines for the house and found that the really small ones you can just put up produce almost nothing (but that may be enough for this situation?) and the other option were the massive ones that need PP, are very expensive and may have all your neighbours up in arms! There didn't seem to be an in-between option.
 
Depends... ideally I prefer to rent the lot, and if there's enough room and land I'd get someone in to share. Then I can chuck them out if they turn out to be a pain in the wotsit. Small yards tend to be worked out on a per horse basis round my way, with stable maybe £25 per horse per week, grass livery £15 upwards.
My YO rents his small 4 stable yard out by the stable to various people. It doesn't promote harmony, put it that way! He just throws them in there and leaves them to it. They are supposed to decide on things like grazing rotation democratically... LOL! That's why I'm pleased that I rent my own little patch away from the Corrie-like atmosphere.
 
Thanks Boo - I had actually forgotten to consider a muck heap area when I started this topic, now realised I need to consider a way to get rid of it, I thought spread it on fields, but just found that that can be a worm problem. Plus, the ideas gross! I wouldn't want pooh spread all over my dinner!
 
It's OK if the muck heap is well-rotted, but you need to rest the land, so that means... more acres.. Muck disposal is pretty expensive, but you'd set the yard up with the facility and leave it to the DIY liveries to arrange and pay for it.
 
Tiny - ah ok, so of it's their responsibility, the plan just has to show an area that is safe to store it and the liveries would dispose of it.
An ex girlfriend of mine had a horse, she used to complain all the time about the 'yard politics' at play. She made horsey people sound like bit#?!s and nutters! Mind you, she wasn't much better! Hehe anyway, swiftly moving on..... Do you think there would be a Market for people who are fed up with yards but need the services such as full livery? Could you provide a rented field with stables and arena etc etc buy have mobile stable staff who could perform full livery in privately rented stables?
 
As you're looking at the eco theme...

Our (oil, we're out in the sticks) boiler blew up in March, and we've been umming and ahing since about what to replace it with. We have investigated solar energy - we've a long 1970s bungalow facing the sun = ideal for collecting.

According to the guys who came to quote, if we spent £22K on the most industrial heavy duty solar panels , and got them installed this year, we could generate enough electricity to gain an income of at least 1.5K a year (on this year's input tarrif. (Problem is we've not got £22K!). You might want to factor this in?
Also look at the costs for sinking a bore hole, and investing in an automatic watering system for your paddocks (pump powered by above solar system = no running costs just wear and tear) - this would enable perfect growth across your paddocks (not this dried up brown stuff we have) . Would cost a fortune to install but would mean your grazing on 2.5 acres would be sufficient, and you should be able to cut enough hay to survive the winter.

FWIW we're on the edge of Reading, I've seen under an acre (next to us) with an ex electricity sub station sell for £80K 3 years ago, 3 acres of ragwort, poorly maintained hedges, no facilities right by motorway but next to housing advertised for £75K and is under offer. Anything with a remote possibility of being built on in next 40 years seems to be sold for £25K/acre+ and has an uplift clause to cover the increased value should you ever get PP for a house! We keep looking at bits of land (we'd like 3 acres more, for hay), but by the time you factor in the £££cost we think we'd like to move to a cheaper area and have all our land together on a small farm, but then we look at all the things we need to do (like replace boiler) and think we'd never get them done....
 
Dubsie- I'm really sorry to hear about your boiler, I know how that feels. I used to live in a country cottage in Scotland and our oil boiler packed in. Our landlord fixed it but it was costing an absolute fortune to run, cottage had no insulation, double glazing etc. We had no choice but to try and survive a winter with no heating, using only coal fire in living room. I've never been so cold! Bedtime wearing gloves and a wooly hat! Amazingly we got used to it eventually and didn't feel it so cold. Our visitors didn't! Parties in our living room looked like they were being held outdoors because nobody would take off gloves and jackets! Hehe. Now we live in Bournemouth, in a town with gas central heating etc, and we've never been so I'll! Hehe non stop colds and snivels. Were evolving into soft townies!

Thanks for all of the information you provided. I really fancy the idea of the yard design being self sufficient for energy but from some of the feedback on here it would seem that that may just be unrealistic. I am going to contact planners as I would be interested to know whether features like that would make planning more or less likely, or whether it would make no difference.

Mark
 
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