Best way to prevent thieves?

[sassandbells]

Hi all, was hoping people might have some tips & tricks for deterring thieves? There’s been a spate of thefts from local yards lately with batteries, energisers, rugs, tack, fly stuff being taken, both from secured and unsecured locations so trying to plan ahead to keep our stuff safe.

I’m on a yard where we all have our own fields / storage but nothing is particularly secure. I’ve brought most of my high value items home (expensive stuff stays at home anyway, but rugs & things have now come back) but it’s not ideal to keep everything at home forever.

I have a camera which lights up when it detects movement and sends me a notification.

I’ve painted my batteries / energisers with pink paint and written “stolen” on them.

Has anyone got any ideas for rugs etc?

Thanks!

 

[Barton Bounty]

Put mini padlocks on your rugs? Whether on or off the horse if on, clip up as normal and stick it through and lock it

 

[ycbm]

Sorry you're having such problems.

Postcode painted on the rugs should work. Store with it clearly visible.
.

 

[Pinkvboots]

It's awful I know I once turned up to turn Arabi out and put him in his field mucked out did all my nets then went out to poo pick and realised I had no fencing around my field on one side, they had stolen all the fencing battery energiser the lot, luckily Arabi didn't realise and was happily grazing in his perimeter that was no longer there I had been out that night drinking so in my drunken haze didn't realise.

 

[sassandbells]

Thanks all, interestingly I’ve popped back up to retrieve a few things and noticed a very dodgy looking van driving down the road slowly, they then turned into our car park, paused for a bit, likely saw the torch from my phone and then promptly turned round and sped off… not really sure what to do now

 

[Barton Bounty]

Thanks all, interestingly I’ve popped back up to retrieve a few things and noticed a very dodgy looking van driving down the road slowly, they then turned into our car park, paused for a bit, likely saw the torch from my phone and then promptly turned round and sped off… not really sure what to do now

Video everything, video the vans the reggies , where they are

 

[mini-eventer]

I'd keep popping up unexpectedly, a lot of thefts take place early hours like 3-4am

 

[Bob notacob]

Take precautions but dont let it become an obsession that rules your life and takes all the joy out of it. If you do then they have robbed you twice!

 

[sassandbells]

Video everything, video the vans the reggies , where they are

I didn’t get close enough I was hiding & on the phone to my mum

I locked the gates with me still here so they couldn’t just drive up and they came back after about 10 minutes, parked across the road for a few, and then turned round and went down the road to side of the fields… I let the rest of the yard know and someone drove that way but said they didn’t see anything…

 

[sassandbells]

Take precautions but dont let it become an obsession that rules your life and takes all the joy out of it. If you do then they have robbed you twice!

To be fair, we’ve been here a few years now and never had anything stolen even though it used to happen all the time so I knew it was coming eventually! Just when all the yards around you have been hit it’s a bit close to home

 

[neddy man]

What part of the country are you in please?

 

[sassandbells]

What part of the country are you in please?

East Dorset

 

[Barton Bounty]

Id put mouse traps in boxes that you aren’t going to use for a while so if they open it , ping

 

[neddy man]

Thank you.

 

[YorksG]

Might be worth getting some cheap rape alarms, fasten one end to a static object, the other to whatever might be moved. Makes a brilliant noise when the pin is pulled out

 

[meleeka]

You’ve already got cameras so that’s good. I’ve had no trouble since I installed mine. I have one a lamppost in the gateway which alerts me if there’s a person/vehicle and others around my yard (some of which work, some don’t). I’ve also made my perimeter pretty difficult to get into. There’s lots of bushes and where there was a gap, I’ve allowed a friend to dump an old tree, so it would be difficult to climb over.

 

[Maddie Moo]

Someone I worked for as a teenager keep geese in her barn that had the tack room in…used to scare me when I had to let them out in the morning

 

[Jambarissa]

Contact alarms are good. They'll work on anything with a lid so if you keep stuff in wheelie bins or big boxes you can stick them on.

Only issue is you can't open the box without it going off so you need to get good at knowing where it is and turning it off quickly.

You could bolt down a wheelie bin or similar and then lock it but if they're not worried about being disturbed they'll just take their time with the bolt cutters.

There really is very little you can do if your yard is out of sight. Motion sensing cameras would be good but they'll probably get stolen.

Marking everything with paint so they cannot resell is probably the most effective.

 

[sassandbells]

Someone I worked for as a teenager keep geese in her barn that had the tack room in…used to scare me when I had to let them out in the morning

We have geese at the farm I work at and they are terrifying! It’s taken a year and a half for them to not attack me on sight I think I’d be too scared to get any for our yard but it would be a fab deterrent!

 

[sassandbells]

Contact alarms are good. They'll work on anything with a lid so if you keep stuff in wheelie bins or big boxes you can stick them on.

Only issue is you can't open the box without it going off so you need to get good at knowing where it is and turning it off quickly.

You could bolt down a wheelie bin or similar and then lock it but if they're not worried about being disturbed they'll just take their time with the bolt cutters.

There really is very little you can do if your yard is out of sight. Motion sensing cameras would be good but they'll probably get stolen.

Marking everything with paint so they cannot resell is probably the most effective.

Thank you! Thankfully our yard is next to a main road & they would have to park on it under a lamp post for access to either of the gates, there is a road running along the side that’s more like a country road but they’d have to go through hedges & barbed wire to get to the fields & park in someone’s driveway.

It looks like there’s a couple of groups doing it from posts on Facebook, pretty much everything important is at home now so I might just leave everything unlocked as the only stuff they can take now is either damaged or not of use to me anymore..

I wonder if they do contact alarms that send a notification to your phone when a door is opened?

 

[ycbm]

I wonder if they do contact alarms that send a notification to your phone when a door is opened

Yes, my OH installed one for a friend who was losing stuff from his yard.
.

 

[Highmileagecob]

If you have driveway gates, keep them closed at all times. Personal attack alarms are good - make sure the noisy bit is fastened to the item likely to be stolen! I have an old chest freezer in the tack room, with a hasp and staple bolted to the lid. It is a fair option for rug storage.

 

[blitznbobs]

Cameras with speakers… shouting what are you doing? Occasionally at people (who have every right to be there) has hilarious results (yes I am 5 years old) but given their reaction it would definitely deter a burgler… joking aside, making your stuff more difficult to nick than next doors has always been my go to prevention, locks, cameras, alarms etc all have their place but not so much that they ruin your life.

 

[fetlock]

Definitely geese!

 

[PeterNatt]

Postcode and Smartwater anything of value including tack. Reverse all gate hinges so gates can not be lifted off hinges hinges. Freezemark all horses as anyone can read a Freezemark.

 

[sunnyone]

If you have a hay ring feeder use a ground anchor to "screw" it in place, then padlock the 2 halves together. That might just deter the type of thieves who knicked ours, by lifting it over the reverse hinged and padlocked gates.

 

[Griffin]

Varying the times you visit is a good idea and having a very bright torch (quite useful if it is heavy too). You can buy motion sensor solar powered light quite cheaply from Amazon, they are useful because you can put them up pretty much anywhere and they are quite sensitive.

 

[Ratface]

We have motion sensor spotlights, two very noisy large guard dogs wandering loose at night and the place locked up like San Quentin when closed.
Next door's yard (their boundary marches with ours) have the same. They are full- time residents and have some hefty chaps and chapesses there 24/7. Their guard dogs are miniature poodles, but their screaming and yapping is ear-splitting.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

Over the years I've not had much stolen. I had a leisure battery stolen from powering my electric fence. I'd only had it 3 days & it went. Years ago I was at another yard when it was raided & bags of feed were stolen but we recovered most of them as we followed the trail across the paddocks. At another yard we had feed stolen from the feed room & we worked it out that one of the liveries was not buying feed & was just helping herself to anyone's feed. At the yard we are at now & have been here for around 8/9 years we all have lockable store rooms where we keep feed & clothes electric tape, tools etc. We also have a main tack rook where we keep saddles, bridles etc & this room is alarmed & has a steel door which has 6 or 8 locking points so extremely secure. It's up to your yard owner the ensure the security is up to standard, livery has gone up & up in price so there is no reason for the YO's not ensuring security of tack, feed & horses is not looked after.

 

[Birker2020]

Hi all, was hoping people might have some tips & tricks for deterring thieves? There’s been a spate of thefts from local yards lately with batteries, energisers, rugs, tack, fly stuff being taken, both from secured and unsecured locations so trying to plan ahead to keep our stuff safe.

I’m on a yard where we all have our own fields / storage but nothing is particularly secure. I’ve brought most of my high value items home (expensive stuff stays at home anyway, but rugs & things have now come back) but it’s not ideal to keep everything at home forever.

I have a camera which lights up when it detects movement and sends me a notification.

I’ve painted my batteries / energisers with pink paint and written “stolen” on them.

Has anyone got any ideas for rugs etc?

Thanks!

These are cheap food ebay and light up. We are buying some for the top of our hoarding as we keep getting fly tipping on the road behind which will impact on deliveries to site. They flash a red light and use batteries.

You need signage up - Horsewatch do signage for gates. Also turn your gate hinges upside down.