Any yards relaxed their lockdown rules/restrictions yet? Specifically DIY yards.

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chocolategirl

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As the title really. Have you made any changes since the last government announcement regarding restrictions? The only thing I’ve changed is that trainers are now allowed on, provided they don’t enter any of the buildings, and don’t touch anything while they’re here. I’ve had requests from some of my clients about their loaners/sharers being allowed back on the yard, but I’ve said not at the moment. I’m asthmatic, so I have an increased mortality risk if I get covid which is why I’ve denied this request. My problem is, despite sending several messages to my clients, they’re being ignored by one or two, and I’m left wondering how much more clearer I can make things??!! I hate confrontation, but I can feel myself getting increasingly cross with them. It shows a distinct lack of respect for the fact that this isn’t just a livery yard, it’s my home too! ?‍♀️?‍♀️ Am I being unreasonable in wanting to reduce my risk as much as possible? ?
 
I sympathise with you, and clearly measures have to be put in place to reduce the rate of infection. However, coronavirus may never disappear and a vaccine might not be found. People are right to be cautious, particularly those in positions similar to your own, but this is unsustainable.

It's tricky as I presume there's no where for your clients to move at the moment given the climate.

Everyone should take reasonable steps to protect themselves and others, but ultimately there's more to life than the avoidance of death.
 
Our 60 horse yard never restricted sharers or professionals but asked everyone to respect social distancing and obvious things like not entering the feed room when someone was in there and not to stand around socialising drinking tea. I was impressed with how responsible everyone was.
Covid isn't the first epidemic and it won't be the last, so it might be prudent to look at how you operate in future if you are vulnerable.
 
Do you do services or could you cut yourself off from the yard and deputise keeping an eye on things to someone else? Use cctv to check on things if you have that already? This is not going anywhere and people often need income from sharers to help pay for their horses.

Long term if you are worried, you need to separate your home from your business. Put up a fence/separate access/ separate off areas for your horses if you have them/whatever you need to do.
 
chocolategirl said:
As the title really. Have you made any changes since the last government announcement regarding restrictions? The only thing I’ve changed is that trainers are now allowed on, provided they don’t enter any of the buildings, and don’t touch anything while they’re here. I’ve had requests from some of my clients about their loaners/sharers being allowed back on the yard, but I’ve said not at the moment. I’m asthmatic, so I have an increased mortality risk if I get covid which is why I’ve denied this request. My problem is, despite sending several messages to my clients, they’re being ignored by one or two, and I’m left wondering how much more clearer I can make things??!! I hate confrontation, but I can feel myself getting increasingly cross with them. It shows a distinct lack of respect for the fact that this isn’t just a livery yard, it’s my home too! ?‍♀️?‍♀️ Am I being unreasonable in wanting to reduce my risk as much as possible? ?
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I'm asthmatic too. Might be worth a quick chat with your doctor. I had a consultation with the asthma nurse and it was very interesting what I was told about asthma and covid 19. Might ease your worry a bit.

I'm on a DIY yard and we had no rules other than the standard government guidelines.
 
Our yard is a riding school as well as a livery yard. All lessons and services stopped, staff only looked after the riding school horses and liveries had to do everything for themselves. No outsiders on the yard apart from the farrier, who got the horses out of their stables himself. We're on a rota to make sure we can distance. I've always liked the busy-ness of the yard but I've been surprised at how much I've enjoyed the peace and quiet!

This last week liveries have been able to have private lessons outdoors, and the yard is offering services from tomorrow. Still following the rota and distancing.
 
I'm diabetic and trying to ignore the stats they keep publishing on % of deaths who have the disease. We just have "be sensible" precautions on our yard despite a YO who is in the high risk category (it's her home too)

I agree with the above posters that it's here to stay and we have to learn to live with it. On our yard we have flexibility but if anyone feels ill they are asked to stay away. We aren't using other people's equipment and there is hand washing stuff
 
We are left to our own devices so have managed social distancing and hygiene etc ourselves. All requests such as fence mending, spraying, maintenance go via email to the estate manager who divvies up the work or we catch one of the estate workers to do something we need. My sharer comes up as I’ve two horses to exercise but again we’ve been careful. Only I go in the communal areas and we all sit in the yard separately to have a cup of coffee etc.

I can understand your concerns but as others have said you need to think about how you can manage it going forward given that you can’t restrict people forever. My nephew is an asthmatic and also a GP. One of his roles has been going to care homes to talk about corona virus end of life. I think heart disease / vascular disease followed by diabetes seem to be the riskiest co-morbidities.

I hope you manage to sort something out that is satisfactory for you and your clients.
 
chocolategirl said:
As the title really. Have you made any changes since the last government announcement regarding restrictions? The only thing I’ve changed is that trainers are now allowed on, provided they don’t enter any of the buildings, and don’t touch anything while they’re here. I’ve had requests from some of my clients about their loaners/sharers being allowed back on the yard, but I’ve said not at the moment. I’m asthmatic, so I have an increased mortality risk if I get covid which is why I’ve denied this request. My problem is, despite sending several messages to my clients, they’re being ignored by one or two, and I’m left wondering how much more clearer I can make things??!! I hate confrontation, but I can feel myself getting increasingly cross with them. It shows a distinct lack of respect for the fact that this isn’t just a livery yard, it’s my home too! ?‍♀️?‍♀️ Am I being unreasonable in wanting to reduce my risk as much as possible? ?
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Our restrictions were only regarding keeping social distance, no instructors etc now we are allowed instructors again but the go directly to arena.
Loaners were never banned. Presumably on a loa ers day the owner doesn't come to the yard so I can't see why they wouldn't be allowed? I can imagine it could be very hard for some owners to cope without loaners both financially and time wise so I can understand why they keep asking.
 
I have no experience of liveries having sharers but my concern would be that any contract is between the sharer and the owner of the horse, the livery contract should be kept to by the sharer but the YO may feel less able to intervene and less in control with sharers than with owners.
It may be worth looking at having a new contract drawn up to cover sharers, there may be a few tweaks to be made to the normal livery contract, payment is obviously one but there could well be a few other potential issues that could easily be put in, that way the sharer does have a direct contract with the YO, who is ultimately responsible for H&S on the yard, they can step in if a sharer is not following covid guidelines or yard rules and will have more control on who is coming onto the yard, long term keeping them away is not sustainable and you risk liveries that rely on the money having to move away.
 
Muddywellies said:
I'm asthmatic too. Might be worth a quick chat with your doctor. I had a consultation with the asthma nurse and it was very interesting what I was told about asthma and covid 19. Might ease your worry a bit.

I'm on a DIY yard and we had no rules other than the standard government guidelines.
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This! I'm also asthmatic but have already had the virus.

Studies appear to be showing that only around 3% of hospital admissions are patients with asthma.

They don't yet know why, but I would suspect its because we are already taking medication to keep our airways open.

So its good to be cautious but please don't feel you have a death sentence hanging over you as it may be that we are not as high risk as previously thought.
 
My yard owner doesn’t really seem to know what to do with the situation.

We’re not meant to be on the yard if we don’t need to be, yet we are told to tack up/brush etc at the school which is next to her house. Now I’m all for not having a large gathering on the yard (we are a big yard) but, I fail to see how telling people to only arrive after 1pm (surely everyone will turn up as soon as they can??) and only use the school for racking up/rug changing/feeding etc is any safer than having people at the yard. At least when we’re on the yard we can stick to our stables and tack rooms, not be sharing the same area and be so close to each other.

Just makes absolutely no sense to me the way she’s doing it, as long as everyone’s sensible I don’t see the harm in being at the yard as you usually would be.
 
I understand yards having precautions in place and the fact some of these places are the YO homes but ultimately whether your home or not you still choose to run a business from your yard. We have restrictions in place, the social areas are closed, so no brew room etc and we have a booking system so we can book slots with only a certain number on yard at one time, hand washing and sanitizer in barns. But I am struggling to understand why you would not allow loaners or sharers if they are coming to the yard instead of the owner at anyone time. Loaners and sharers can be essential members of the horsey community so to indefinitely ban them when this isn’t going away seems slightly unreasonable to me. If I was one of your liveries with a shared/loaner I think I would be looking for somewhere else to move my horse too.
 
I have the same dilemma as you, OP. Have a livery on my yard at home who helps with my old boy, she gets free livery in return. No one else uses my school so I've said from next week her instructor can come but she is also wanting a sharer, who just started coming before the lockdown, to start riding again.
The thing is that I have just finished chemo and I've got advanced cancer so it would be curtains for me if I got covid19. I have sold my riding horse but I still like to spend time with my old horse. Obviously we have had farriers, physios etc here but I don't want anyone else!!
As others have said, this virus is not going away. What to do?
 
CavaloBranco said:
I have the same dilemma as you, OP. Have a livery on my yard at home who helps with my old boy, she gets free livery in return. No one else uses my school so I've said from next week her instructor can come but she is also wanting a sharer, who just started coming before the lockdown, to start riding again.
The thing is that I have just finished chemo and I've got advanced cancer so it would be curtains for me if I got covid19. I have sold my riding horse but I still like to spend time with my old horse. Obviously we have had farriers, physios etc here but I don't want anyone else!!
As others have said, this virus is not going away. What to do?
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In your situation, most definitely put yourself and your health first.

If a sharer on the yard feels like one person too many then I'd say no. I'm sure your livery will understand why.
 
southerncomfort said:
This! I'm also asthmatic but have already had the virus.

Studies appear to be showing that only around 3% of hospital admissions are patients with asthma.

They don't yet know why, but I would suspect its because we are already taking medication to keep our airways open.

So its good to be cautious but please don't feel you have a death sentence hanging over you as it may be that we are not as high risk as previously thought.
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Yep that's exactly what I was told. Nurse said we are full of steroids (not literally) from taking our puffers, and studies seem to be suggesting this may be keeping covid 19 away from asthmatics. Initially I thought I would be considered 'vulnerable' but now after speaking with the nurse, I'm not concerned now.
 
Our yard had everyone on 1 hour slots per day and banned hacking and jumping and discouraged all riding, unless you deemed it essential (I did). They've lifted all of those restrictions and are now asking that people maintain social distancing from staff, disinfect surfaces around their stable, and use the little hand sanitizer dispensers they've placed everywhere. They had a one person per horse rule, which could be a sharer or an owner, but now you're allowed to bring someone in your household if you want.

My friend at my old yard was banned from seeing her horse for seven weeks. All part liveries, including my friend, were forced on full livery. The first week of May, the YO relented to allowing owners to come twice per week, but for no longer than 1.5 hours. After the slight relaxation of rules and the change in BHS advice last week, my friend was hoping YO would allow for more access, but no such changes so far. I don't see this being sustainable -- if YO doesn't change his tune soon, he will hemhorrage liveries as people start to realize that other yards are a lot more relaxed. He lives at the yard, so I get that he wants to protect himself and his family, but the virus will be with us a for a while, and running an extremely restricted livery yard won't work for most owners in the long run.
 
chocolategirl said:
As the title really. Have you made any changes since the last government announcement regarding restrictions? The only thing I’ve changed is that trainers are now allowed on, provided they don’t enter any of the buildings, and don’t touch anything while they’re here. I’ve had requests from some of my clients about their loaners/sharers being allowed back on the yard, but I’ve said not at the moment. I’m asthmatic, so I have an increased mortality risk if I get covid which is why I’ve denied this request. My problem is, despite sending several messages to my clients, they’re being ignored by one or two, and I’m left wondering how much more clearer I can make things??!! I hate confrontation, but I can feel myself getting increasingly cross with them. It shows a distinct lack of respect for the fact that this isn’t just a livery yard, it’s my home too! ?‍♀️?‍♀️ Am I being unreasonable in wanting to reduce my risk as much as possible? ?
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As others have said, I think you need to find a way to work this to everyone's benefit. You don't want to lose business. You just need to take responsibility for yourself rather than look for others to protect you. Just follow government guidelines and be super strict about washing your hands before you go indoors, and don't let anyone in your house who doesn't live there. There is some uncertainty about the benefit of wearing a mask. I believe latest research suggests they aren't overly effective at stopping you catching the virus from others. For the best protection you would need a surgical mask with a filter. They have been proven tho to help stop the wearer spreading the virus.
Also, do your own research as to how many cases you have locally. In my area there have been no new cases in the last few days. It may put things into perspective for you, enabling you to relax a little.
 
CavaloBranco said:
I have the same dilemma as you, OP. Have a livery on my yard at home who helps with my old boy, she gets free livery in return. No one else uses my school so I've said from next week her instructor can come but she is also wanting a sharer, who just started coming before the lockdown, to start riding again.
The thing is that I have just finished chemo and I've got advanced cancer so it would be curtains for me if I got covid19. I have sold my riding horse but I still like to spend time with my old horse. Obviously we have had farriers, physios etc here but I don't want anyone else!!
As others have said, this virus is not going away. What to do?
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CB I think your situation sounds completely different as you’re not really running a commercial livery yard. I’d absolutely in your shoes do whatever I could to stay as safe and well as possible.
 
it is tricky. But this virus is not going to be gone anytime soon, realistically i would think we are all going to be on high alert for 18 months to 2 years. i think you have to let things get back to normal as much as possible.

Are your liveries all DIY? How much do you need to be on the yard? if you have horses do you keep them on the same yard/fields as your liveries? If so is there anyway that you can segregate your own horses and make a personal yard that other people cant use?

Regarding sharers, I would implement a rule where only one person can be on the yard with the horse at anytime. So either the owner or share.


Trainers ect.. to go straight to the school and await their rider is fine. Any communal social areas to be kept closed. Can you have a wash station by your yard entrance? It only need to be a couple of buckets of water and some hand wash that people can use before entering the property.
 
Leo Walker said:
You know how many things I have wrong with me, plus the diabetes and I caught it and barely even noticed, Try not to panic!
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I did get a bit panicky in early March ..... then I decided if wiping alcohol on your hands killed it I might as well zap it by drinking wine. And gin. And eating dark chocolate for the antioxidants.

Seriously though some of the diabetic survivor stories are horrific!
 
chocolategirl said:
I’ve read through most of the replies, thanks for those. I guess I value my life far more than my business, so if it does turn out that in the future, we will face more problems like this, then I will most definitely have some choices to make won’t I ?
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You will I think need to make a clearer divide between home and business both physically and in your head and procedures. You are entitled to be safe in your own home but you also have a contract to provide certain facilities and services to your livery clients and you need to get yourself in a position to be able to fulfil that contract as soon as is reasonably possible or you will lose clients. It may be that in order to provide your contracted livery services you need to compromise your own freedom within your own property to an extent eg staying away from the yard totally or when it is busy, even paying freelancers/a yard manager to do some of what you would usually do, whether that is just oversight of what is going on, or provision of more hands on services. Perhaps you can minimise your contact with the yard for a period whilst opening it up a bit more for your liveries. Do you have a livery who could take on a general oversight function for you for a period? I'd be considering things like that if you wish to preserve the business and relationship with clients.
 
chocolategirl said:
I’ve read through most of the replies, thanks for those. I guess I value my life far more than my business, so if it does turn out that in the future, we will face more problems like this, then I will most definitely have some choices to make won’t I ?
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Sadly yes but most of us have to work and many people are much more exposed than you will ever be running a yard so you do need to put it into perspective unless you don’t need an income and do it just for the hell of it ?.

Many people with underlying issues are still working in frontline services including my nephew who is asthmatic and a GP and his wife is an obstetrician who has to continue operating on women who may be COVID-19 positive.
 
chocolategirl said:
I’ve read through most of the replies, thanks for those. I guess I value my life far more than my business, so if it does turn out that in the future, we will face more problems like this, then I will most definitely have some choices to make won’t I ?
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What is your current set up? Do you offer part/full livery? Do you have your own horses on the yard? Can you separate them from the other liveries if so?
 
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