Am I being unreasonable

Blimey! What a lucky escape, indeed. Don't want to worry you, but I would be extremely vigilant for the next few weeks/months in case of reprisals.
 
You've certainly been through it. That they were all mates explains why they wanted to take over yard & run it themselves. I keep my neds on friends farm. 2 winter trash paddocks, 2 summer paddocks & hay field to provide for winter. They do stand in mud in the winter (& yes most of the field is mud), but that's the nature of the soil. Only alternative to keep them in for months. Involves huge amount of harrowing / rolling in spring, which I do my share of. Bottom line is, it's my friends place, if she asks me to use a field, I do it, she says when they can move into summer paddocks, it's her place so I do as she asks, there are no arguments. I help with fencing (I re-wired all the electric on top the sheep fencing last year), help with troughs etc. It's lovely not to be on a 'livery yard', but in return it involves a lot of land maintenance.
 
I rent a yard, 9 stables and 22 acres. I then sublet/share with three others, 7 horses between us. Our grazing is divided into 8 field of differing sizes and in Spring to Autumn we share with local farmer's sheep, cross grazing. The horses are kept as a herd.
I used to be on DIY yard, but got sick of the bitching and sharing fields with people who didn't poo pick!
Now we share poo picking/checking, ride out together, help each other with the horses.
For the most part it works great, but I still find that I, as contract holder, seem to bear the brunt of most of the maintenance. It can sometimes take a bit of nagging to get people to do their fair share of ragworting/weeding/fence repair and all the million and one things that a YO would do if you were at livery. Sometimes I feel like I have'mug' tattooed on my forehead :D
So I feel your pain TC! You had a lucky escape, but I would keep my horses close and watch the place like a hawk for a bit, the ex liveries are up to here in the brown stuff and i wouldn't be surprised if you get the blame for that and they seek revenge :(
I think if I had my very own place I would only share again with close friends that have similar horse management ideas to my own, otherwise your love of horses becomes a pain in the arse!
There are some crazy liveries out there!! :D
 
As a livery I would vote for less liveries and higher prices with strict turnout rules given by the yard owner we have winter, spring and 24/7 summer turnout I and my fellow liveries pay this happily the fields are managed and their are limited problems everyone signs a rule list/ contract on arrival . The group is stable. Individual requests are considered and accommodated but only if this is possible without effecting others.
I've been on a yard in the past where bolshy liveries dictated what happened and yard owner tried to please everyone doomed to failure .
Up to you but I'd try again people will pay more for smaller yards and good facilities/ turnout .
Our yard won't accommodate bullying horses or owners and the contract says so there's a small pony paddock and laminitic turnout everyone else must mix together in the main fields no exceptions good luck
 
Gosh OP that sounds an awful experience! Hope you're ok. I would be shaking by now if I were you. Those liveries make my ex-nightmare liveries sound like angels!

I'm another ex DIY yard owner who ditched the idea and now loves having her yard to herself. No drama, no hysterics, just calm! We certainly used to spend more on the land when we had liveries, and it didn't make a bit of money if you add it all up! We are often getting asked by people at RC about whether we would consider having them as liveries, and now again, when they're really nice, I think about having a livery or two again, for more company for my horses, and my husband gets the shakes and says "please don't do that to us again!!"

Enjoy your yard OP, hope you get your stuff back, and keep those dogs running around and gates well locked for a while.xx
 
A good update.............

Thought long and hard about this and what might happen if they comeback bless my OH he's arranged for CCTV to be put in tomorrow for me and alarming all the tack rooms, everything and we do have a very old static on our land at the back it has never been used in about years but we wused to live in it while we did work and he mentioned to a guy he goes and sees with work what's been going on and he is due to retire on Friday but he is a live in security/maintenance man so for a very smalle fee ie the static and food etc he's gonna come live at ours and help me out when other half is overseas with work he used to have his own horses and farm so Charlie is going to be my security man from no until he decides he's had enough im so grateful to this guy so i said he can come and have all his meals with us etc and he's get a bit of spends aswell he's over the moon and a huge thank you to OH for paying for the CCTV he just said he loves me too much for anything to happen to me bless him :D
 
YANBU - it's your yard. Unless you advertised/ described it to new liveries or put in the contract specifically that they can have 24/7 turnout regardless of weather conditions etc. If you told your liveries before they moved on that they would get 24/7 turnout which you are now retracted, I can understand their complaints.

That said, I wouldn't move somewhere I had to bring my beasts in because of a bit of rain in summer. But then, I actively dislike having good grass too ;)

eta, teach me to post before reading the second page :eek: They sound like psychopaths, though I am slightly concerned as to how you managed to kick everyone off in a day? I'd find that very concerning on livery, never knowing when it might happen again. But yes, given the circumstances CCTV sounds very sensible. Some people :eek:
 
Last edited:
patterdale said:
QUOTE Billie1007 'Oh and Patterdale, consider yourself on my 'hate' list as you have your own land I am just a mere livery'

It's my husbands farm - which is FAR FAR worse than being a livery........a YO likes horses and has to at least try and be polite about it.
He thinks they're a total waste of time and money and cause he's closer to me can tell me exactly what he thinks and be extremely rude about them :D

All I ever hear is broken fencing, churned up patches etc etc, and the current favourite 'that black sod keeps scratching his arse on the gates, I hope you're paying for a new one when they're all bent in two!'
Yawn.

My very very own land would be amazing haha!

:D
Click to expand...

Oh God that all sounds achingly familiar! My OH is exactly the same :(
 
What a bunch of nut jobs!!!

Where do you take a horse at 9pm at night?? EEK!!

Really though I dont blame you one bit at the end of the day its your home and they have no right to intimidate you and bully you.
 
Dear God OP, what a nightmare! I really feel for you, but at least these lowlifes are now gone from your yard.

I have had people ask for livery here, I have always refused, this whole saga has just confirmed that I was right.

I can't believe what you have gone through with these people, poor you!
 
This is all just :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: !!

I'm glad you appear to have everything sorted now. What a load of barstools they were - I'm SO glad the police have caught up with them now :)
 
I can see both sides of the argument, when i was a livery didnt like the owners horses going out 24/7 and having the run of the summer grazing and ours could not go out until June and the grass only lasted two weeks then you were feeding hay for the rest of the summer. But would expect liveries to respect the YO decision, if our YO says that they are staying in because of snow/bad weather etc noone argues as its his decision and he has to manage the land. tricky one - no easy answer, but i do prefer being a livery than running a yard, far less hassle!!
 
Mithras said:
I'd never run a livery yard. But as I'm currently on livery, I expect the following:

- Grass in summer
- Turnout in winter
- If its full livery, I like them to be on a settled routine, if its DIY livery I will only consider it if theres enough land to do it properly

Otherwise I'd be as well keeping them in my own garden.

And I can't be doing with my horses being brought in and out whenever it rains in summer. I was once at a yard where there was no turn out for 3 weeks one summer because it was wet and the fields were getting spoilt. Then it went dry and I went away for a weekend only to return to find that I was paying £125 a week for my horse to be on 24/7 turnout!

I've also been at yards where the horses are prone to galloping madly around, and I have a suspicion its do with their field companions and hence field dynamics constantly being changed.
Click to expand...

This.

If you can't manage eight horses in 20 acres, then liveries aren't for you. It's not rocket science regarding land management and those that say it is, do so for their own advantage.
 
Apart from the fact that your liveries were let's say the lower end of pondlife so in this case it was worth the hysterics it seems that so many livery yard owners move from passive straight to aggressive with not much in between.

Really a few lessons in communication skills wouldn't go amiss. Laying out rules in writing, reasonable flexibility e.g. when you have a sick or laminitic horse that has particular needs but your decision is final, no means no - it's not that complicated. Instead we get unwritten rules made up as you go along, no one minute yes the next yard owners pet livery who pees everyone else off but gets away with murder. Threats to throw everyone off the yard because someone left their field gate open - why not speak to THAT person. Be up front about costs - if you need to charge more for all year turn-out say so and say why.

Good well run livery yards usually have good liveries because everyone knows where they stand and they have a low rate of turn-over where people are treated fairly and reasonably. Win-win for all concerned. Not saying it's easy but what in business is?
 
I can manage the 20 acres fine Blazzing Saddles its the liveries who were the problem ive been doing this job over 25 years so not a novice. Anyway rant over with.

Last night was the first night Ive have a good nights sleep in over 4½ years and I feel like a big weight has been lifted from me I will never again have liveries that's for sure. CCTV being fitted this morning guys were here at
8.30am made them a full english breakfast they're just having a cup of tea they know where they're being installed and also sensors on my gate god I love my OH:D

And on en even brighter note my horses seem a lot more chilled and calm than they have been:cool:
 
Sorry not got time to read it all, basically if you offer 24 hour turnout, or daily turnout year round, the thats what your liveries are paying for and probably why theyve chosen your yard, if thats not what you offer, then do what you need to do to maintain your land and discuss compromise with liveries.
Nothing bugs my happiness more than being told all year turnout, then the plug being pulled on it when the weather turns.
If youve got the land have a sacrificial field for if the weather gets bad, or dont offer what you cant realistically provide.
 
Sounds like you've made a good decision overall ...

Generally speaking with 20 acres I would split into 15 and 5 acres ... would let them use the 15 all year round and close off the 5 for summer growth / open it up when I feel like it and while it's open do maintenance on the other 15 acres - the horses are unlikely to come anywhere near or you can lock them in for a few weeks while they gorge. Then again, I have good doers :lol: ... but in my experience doing it like this means that only small portions of the larger paddocks actually get trashed - gateways and maybe some fenceslines, but they have the space to then wonder onto grass. I've long given up having any grass near my gates!!!
 
I think this is one of those threads you need to read through, Marydoll, a lot going on here :)

OP I think you sound well shut of them. If you decide to have liveries in the future I think you do need to aim for a better class of livery owner, and have your rules well thought out and in the contract, also displayed in the tack room so there are no excuse as to whos read them.
I wouldnt blame you if you called it a day with liveries though. I get the occasional person asking for grass livery with mine but it will be a cold day in hell, frankly ;)

Remember, your livery yard, your'e in charge.
 
Honey08 said:
You either live in an area with perfect ground or you know nothing!
Click to expand...

That's not quite fair - as in normal circumstances 5 horses on 20 acres is perfectly manageable.

However the OP's circumstances were slightly different to the 'norm' hence the difficulty in maintaining the land.
 
I'm sorry if you thought that unfair. I actually thought Blazing saddle's comments about rocket science and the suggestion that people who say it is difficult are making it up were the unfair bit!

As you know from previous threads we have 20 acres of wet ground that would cost thousands and thousands to drain and is very hard to manage for horses. Any "rocket scientist" that knows it all is welcome to take a field for a year and work their magic! They would soon change their mind.

I just find it offensive when someone comes on and suggests that its easy and cheap - it isn't.
 
Honey08 said:
I'm sorry if you thought that unfair. I actually thought Blazing saddle's comments about rocket science and the suggestion that people who say it is difficult are making it up were the unfair bit!

As you know from previous threads we have 20 acres of wet ground that would cost thousands and thousands to drain and is very hard to manage for horses. Any "rocket scientist" that knows it all is welcome to take a field for a year and work their magic! They would soon change their mind.

I just find it offensive when someone comes on and suggests that its easy and cheap - it isn't.
Click to expand...

I agree, Honey08. We now have 18 acres and 7 horses. We have way too much grass due to me reseeding and fertilising early this year, coupled with the alternating rain and sunshine. We have all but 3 of the horses on restricted grazing, and their paddocks are now trashed due to the heavy rain. I can't move the good doers onto the excess grass though as two have had laminitis this year. :( I would cut it for hay, but this weather is so unpredictable, I think we could end up losing it all. So now I'm a bit stuck as to what to do with all the long grass. Even if the horses could be moved onto the long grass, they would trash the gateways and a considerable bit of the fields in no time with this clay soil.
 
I dont have to worry about it every again Im not having liveries telling me what to do on my land threatening me and bullying me, its may land not theres Ive sat with Charlie today and to be honest he just popped in to see if there was anything he could do but ive clean his static, put all new curtains up opened all the doors windows filled up all the water containers, charged up the batteries sorted a freeview box for him and general made it home from home even out a few beers in the fridge for him along with a few treats bless him. He was saying that I have done more than most YO would even consider doing I asked them did they all want a field together no was the answer so I fenced it all off into sizes they wanted i said they could weather permitting have 24 summer turnout out but used to ring me at midnight to go fetch horses in:eek: They have a winter trash field then moved them onto summer fields while I was out and trashed one of the sumer field them moaned like feck:eek: So please read all of it before you comment as there is a lot more to this than "She cant manage 20 acres" thinking silly bitch I could do it comments you literally have no idear until you read the WHOLE thing p.s. it is a clay mix soil so doesnt drain the best despite £40k for field drains!!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top