Area lacking in Livery yards

holeymoley

holeymoley

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I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place at the moment. Current yard is not living up to what it said on the box when we moved 2 years ago. The posts are always being moved and realigned as to what happens and when. Horses are allowed out for 2/3 hours per day on mud. Yes I appreciate we have had probably the wettest year in a long time but this could've been slightly more manageable had fields been rested and not been overrun with excess horses. Icey or snowy days they don't get out which is understandable but 8days in and there was no attempt to clear paths or anything unless you done it yourself. Haylage isn't the best and there's no guarantee that there will be a bale as reliant on tractor to move from neighbouring farm. Niggly things which aren't working i.e. Lighting and nearest hose but I can live with these however they are a nuisance. My horse is desperate to get out but then stands at the gate as there really is nothing to do except stand in mud.

Now, my problem is that there really is nothing else in the vicinity. My fallback was always to go back to a yard I left because of distance and the fact it was purely the most basic of DIY, I have since heard from a good friend that it had been knocked down to make way for a house :'(. The nearest yard is an extortion for the facilities and what you get, so would only be an option if I had no where to go. My next plan is to visit a yard close to my 'fallback yard' who only offers full or grass Livery, however hoping they may meet in the middle for a very easy and quiet horse!

Not sure if the point in my post as no one will know the area I'm in, but is your area the same? We really have a shortage of suitable places :( I actually really liked the current yard, and the people on it however I feel my horse isn't very happy.
 
This sort of post is going to become more and more common over the next few years.
Long wet winters
More pressure on decreasing amounts of land

Livery costs will likely get quite high and I do think we are going to have to accept our hobby will get more expensive.

That doesn’t help you now, but I have to say I’m planning long term to scale back to one horse only
 
Is there any chance you could buy or rent some land near you and find another livery to join so that your horse has company?
 
holeymoley said:
I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place at the moment. Current yard is not living up to what it said on the box when we moved 2 years ago. The posts are always being moved and realigned as to what happens and when. Horses are allowed out for 2/3 hours per day on mud. Yes I appreciate we have had probably the wettest year in a long time but this could've been slightly more manageable had fields been rested and not been overrun with excess horses. Icey or snowy days they don't get out which is understandable but 8days in and there was no attempt to clear paths or anything unless you done it yourself. Haylage isn't the best and there's no guarantee that there will be a bale as reliant on tractor to move from neighbouring farm. Niggly things which aren't working i.e. Lighting and nearest hose but I can live with these however they are a nuisance. My horse is desperate to get out but then stands at the gate as there really is nothing to do except stand in mud.

Now, my problem is that there really is nothing else in the vicinity. My fallback was always to go back to a yard I left because of distance and the fact it was purely the most basic of DIY, I have since heard from a good friend that it had been knocked down to make way for a house :'(. The nearest yard is an extortion for the facilities and what you get, so would only be an option if I had no where to go. My next plan is to visit a yard close to my 'fallback yard' who only offers full or grass Livery, however hoping they may meet in the middle for a very easy and quiet horse!

Not sure if the point in my post as no one will know the area I'm in, but is your area the same? We really have a shortage of suitable places :( I actually really liked the current yard, and the people on it however I feel my horse isn't very happy.
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It was one of the reasons I sold my horse in 2003 and retrained to do something else and live somewhere else. I really struggled with finding any livery yards that were part / diy, with good turnout, hacking, care, and lit school within a sensible radius of where I lived and worked. Despite at the time living in a fairly rural part of England.

I have relocated a few times since then, and I still struggle where I live now, and I keep my horses 35 minute drive away, as this meets my requirements for safe hacking, flat well draining all year turnout, good care, and lit full size school. It is further away than is ideal! And I’ve moved to Part livery.

I don’t think there are that many viable, affordable options in some areas, sadly.

My advice would be to draw a radius between your work and home that would be feasible, and search on Google earth for all the arenas in this area, and investigate them all.

I would also suggest joining all the facebook livery groups in your area, and setting a long running search alert on Horsemart, that sends livery vacancies into into your email.

There are often small yards / semi private or private that barely advertise. <fingers crossed>
 
ihatework said:
This sort of post is going to become more and more common over the next few years.
Long wet winters
More pressure on decreasing amounts of land

Livery costs will likely get quite high and I do think we are going to have to accept our hobby will get more expensive.

That doesn&#8217;t help you now, but I have to say I&#8217;m planning long term to scale back to one horse only
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Absolutely, I agree in fact we were just discussing that last night that demand will increase and everything will go through the roof price wise. The also increase of people building on stable sites or spare fields seems to be very common around us now, so that's taking away a lot of facilities and causing problems in terms of drainage in surrounding fields.

Our yard has a mass of acres which just aren't in use and there's no reason for it other than a plan similar to the above which appears to be in the pipeline. Also another reason I think I should have a back up plan.

Unfortunately no spare fields around here to even do that with, farmers have them all for their cattle :(
 
wingedhorse said:
It was one of the reasons I sold my horse in 2003 and retrained to do something else and live somewhere else. I really struggled with finding any livery yards that were part / diy, with good turnout, hacking, care, and lit school within a sensible radius of where I lived and worked. Despite at the time living in a fairly rural part of England.

I have relocated a few times since then, and I still struggle where I live now, and I keep my horses 35 minute drive away, as this meets my requirements for safe hacking, flat well draining all year turnout, good care, and lit full size school. It is further away than is ideal! And I&#8217;ve moved to Part livery.

I don&#8217;t think there are that many viable, affordable options in some areas, sadly.

My advice would be to draw a radius between your work and home that would be feasible, and search on Google earth for all the arenas in this area, and investigate them all.

I would also suggest joining all the facebook livery groups in your area, and setting a long running search alert on Horsemart, that sends livery vacancies into into your email.

There are often small yards / semi private or private that barely advertise. <fingers crossed>
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Many thanks for your ideas -that's a great help.

I have 3 directions to go in, however my work is one of them and ideally I'd like to go out that way as if I go the other ways the time taken through traffic would be insane. Is unfortunate as 30mins away we have a really good area, unfortunately that 30mins away is through a main bypass of traffic which has an accident almost everyday(council are currently trying to create plans for a second road) and there's also a high bridge which would need to be crossed which again is usually closed in the winter due to winds, that would then make it nearly and hours de tour through the city :'(. I wish we could just uproot to a different area but just too difficult at the moment with mine and Oh's and childcare.
 
You have my sympathy OP. I have had to compromise with my yard as there are hardly any in the area, and the big ones have waiting lists.

I made a list of what was of high importance; DIY and all year turnout. Fortunately in terms of my list, the yard I am on ticks all the boxes albeit it's very basic, I have no facilities and we only have one good location to hack to without it all been roadwork. But come spring I have a couple of acres to school in and a very happy pony for the rest of the year and that's my compromise.

I think the Google earth idea is great - I wanted to try find an arena I could hire and hack to locally so had a look. Couldn't find anything but was really interesting to see what's around you

Hope you find something sharpish
 
Similar problem in my area. I know the livery yard I'm on at the moment has been allocated for housing, but the developer has got another 40 odd houses on the fields next door to build and sell first. So its probably got another 12 months of going through planning etc before we get given notice. Its odd thinking that the poor drainage which is causing our fields to turn to a bog might be what slows down the actual planning application.

There really isn't a lot else out there. I don't want to go back to the yard I was at a while back because its shared with a riding school who get first priority on facilities - so I was never able to ride. One of the other local riding schools shut down last year, but they don't want liveries so those facilities are lying empty which is a shame.

I might have to do the google earth thing as well. I don't want to be the 'last one standing' at our yard in case we only get a month's notice.
 
Wow! You should move to Cheshire! There is an abundance of good livery yards in this area and as a consequence, it’s very competitive and prices very low. It always astonishes me when I read some of the posts on here about what livery clients are prepared to put up with on their yards. I would never get away with treating clients the way some do. That said, I do think that a large proportion of clients expect an awful lot for their £25-£30 (DIY) per week. It’s a bit of a post code lottery I guess? OP, I think you will just have to accept that good yards are few and far between, and pay for the ‘extortionate’ yard? Is it full? If it is, that’s very telling surely? Good luck finding somewhere!
 
We are at a lovely yard - but they have absolutely no competition as there isn't another yard similar within at least 20 miles; despite there being a lot of livery yards around. Ours offers part & DIY with services available, with great facilities (school, walker, solarium, secure tack room, etc etc), amazing hacking, and not bad turnout.
 
I feel for you as I too am in an area where the yards are not very good. Land management and resting fields is unheard of on any of the yards in my area and we have the same issue of too many horses on not enough space, which inevitably leads to restricted turnout. I don't think my situation is as bad as yours because when the horses do go out they do have grass to eat and are happy out all day. It's more when they have to stay in that I feel for them as they're bored and fed up and I get frustrated that they're paying the price for poor yard management. I also used to live in a different area where our yard was well run so I feel the frustration even more.

I think it's difficult to know what to do for the best really. My yard is okay enough that I've decided to put up with it for now but if it gets any worse I will have to think again. The other yards nearby are not suitable so I'd be looking at about a half hour drive. I previously had my horse at really nice yard that was about half an hour away and sometimes a difficult drive and the distance really got to me after a while. My heart sinks at the thought of having him that kind of distance away again if I do have to move him as to me not being able to go twice a day would be real compromise too.

In your situation I think it's definitely worth you looking at the expensive nearby yard as well as the one that only offers full or grass. If you can afford it and it offers what you want then it may be worth paying more to not have to travel, as well as you saving on travel time and petrol money. I have often said that I would happily pay more for better turnout and a more well run yard and if a yard was available near me that could guarantee decent turnout every single day I really wouldn’t care however expensive it was. For me it’s definitely about value for money rather than actual cost. Obviously that depends on your own financial circumstances though and whether you can afford that option or not.

Good luck and I hope you manage to work something out. Being a rubbish yard can really get you down at times.
 
P.S. I like the posts from those people who are in decent areas. I would welcome more posts from people who are on good yards as I wouldn't rule out a move to a different area in the future to be at a better yard. Would definitely want to know I was going somewhere decent beforehand though because as we have seen, all is not always as it seems when it comes to livery yards!
 
Thank you guys. In regards to the more expensive yard, I was there at the very beginning when I had my horse(I've had him for 13years) and it was paradise. However it did seem to go along the same lines with building stables here there and everywhere but also selling land off at the same time. FIelds are in the same way, sodden due to the buildings that have been built on the sold land. Hacking has also been compromised with the buildings and access routes, and its right next to the main road so quite dangerous to ride straight on to. It is more of a competition yard, seems to be filled with pony club/showing types who really just need a school and then compete at the weekend.

I'm really hoping this place I've thought of could work, i could use my friend's arena if desperate to school and I have a trailer so could box 10minutes up to the forestry or just go straight out into country roads. Grass Livery could work?! He's just had the comforts of a stable every night!
 
Yes i agree, some of you are very lucky!

I just feel myself and my horse are both at an age where we really want to make things as stress free as possible, I don't think I could go over 30minutes travel time from my house. Also worried if we went somewhere and it was completely the wrong move :(.
 
3.2 acres of green belt land - no planning permission and no buildings at all -sold in local village in December for £250,000. I would venture to suggest that no livery charges can make that worthwhile!!
 
We’ve got spaces on our yard and it’s got good all year grazing, reasonable facilities and excellent hacking. However it has no formal on site assistance which is quite difficult for many people. The yard is also picky about who it takes as it’s small and we need to have people that get on and work together to make it a pleasant place to be.
 
In the last 5 years the number of livery yards and show centres that have closed down within a hours drive of where I am is unbelievable. There are waiting lists at all the remaining liveries and alot of pressure on grazing. It's only going to get worse as more and more land goes to housing. It's getting harder to have safe routes to hack and the roads are getting busier with the increase in housing in the area. I find it quite depressing how things are going. Hubby and I were only discussing recently how before long we will end up selling up our yard and moving to a even more remote area to enable us to enjoy our horses. I often wonder if there will me areas of the country without space for livery yards and horses in years to come
 
I had not quite the same, horse was at a yard over ten miles away, nice enough yard lovely people, all year turnout. BUT when we had snow before Christmas I couldn't get there, don't get me wrong the girls stepped in and did him for me, but it was the last straw, problem being no yards around us at all, the only one was closing down as we moved in. I have now and literally only just last weekend moved him to a neighbors place, just him and their two horses, very early days and I really hope it works out. By the way as good as google earth is, if it's anything like around here it's about ten years out of date I tried the same thing :-)
 
I agree with the others who say that this is going to become the norm. Around us, although reasonably rural but with Milton Keynes ever expanding, there is far more money to be made from selling your land than running a yard. There are half a dozen or so within 30 minutes of me but nothing that offers what I need, full and part livery seem to be the options now rather than DIY and you can understand why, you have to offer and charge for services to make any sort of profit so diy options are almost unheard of now. Even if I wanted help, the options are limited and spaces dont come up often at the better yards :(
 
MyBoyChe said:
I agree with the others who say that this is going to become the norm. Around us, although reasonably rural but with Milton Keynes ever expanding, there is far more money to be made from selling your land than running a yard. There are half a dozen or so within 30 minutes of me but nothing that offers what I need, full and part livery seem to be the options now rather than DIY and you can understand why, you have to offer and charge for services to make any sort of profit so diy options are almost unheard of now. Even if I wanted help, the options are limited and spaces dont come up often at the better yards :(
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Having moved from MK a couple of years ago I was surprised just how many yards there were! Lots more than I have seen in other more rural areas. The same with Northampton, theres yards everywhere! Some are better than others, but theres always somewhere suitable if you look hard enough.
 
Sussexbythesea said:
We&#8217;ve got spaces on our yard and it&#8217;s got good all year grazing, reasonable facilities and excellent hacking. However it has no formal on site assistance which is quite difficult for many people. The yard is also picky about who it takes as it&#8217;s small and we need to have people that get on and work together to make it a pleasant place to be.
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I love your yard, but am I right in thinking that you're not allowed 24 hr turnout in the summer? How many spaces do you have?
 
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