Christmas Livery

MotherOfChickens said:
^^ this, in spades.

How much is full (i.e. including exercise) in the SE currently out of interest, anyone?
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Around 750 pm although I did know someone on part who was paying over £1000 as he was just on the outskirts of London. Still doubt the yard would have made huge profits though as the rent on that place must have been horrendous!

I moved from part to assisted to save money and it has halved my livery bill. However, my new yard has liveries because she likes us, owns her own land so while it is all run properly, she isn't paying a huge amount in rent each month. I was on a small yard previously and my horse was taken very good care of but when I had a candid conversation with my YO, it was pretty clear that this was a lifestyle choice. She made more money teaching. Full liveries are few and far between as well. Its a catch 22. As horse owners, we all make huge sacrifices in time and money to pay for our horses yet your average YO doesn't see huge money on each client. Looking after horses is mostly a repetitive chore so doesn't pay well, yet you need someone with the experience and knowledge to take care of your pride and joy. Long way of saying... as a livery, I never did begrudge and never will, helping out on Christmas Day. I will assume mine will not go out on Christmas day but I will do him as normal in the morning. I will exercise him but have no expectations of my YO bringing him in later for me.
 
I don't think you can really compare a part livery yard to kennels and catteries as they are more like the equivalent of taking your horse to a holiday livery yard and the dogs will need to be exercised every day too.

I think the costs of running a yard are not fixed and for £245 a week for full livery without exercise you would be including a full groom every day plus tacking cleaning every day and services such as mane pulling and clipping, which a lot of people would not require as if they are exercising their own horse they probably have time to groom and tack clean too.

How much rent and rates etc would depend on what facilities you have for example indoor schools usually mean more rates/higher rents, if you have a cross country course then maintaining that is more expensive.

With regard to staff training, if people have worked with horses before it won't take them long to learn how to fill haynets, muck out stables etc.

A top competition yard where there are big horses are on individual turnout and there is an indoor school and the horses don't go out for very long so need more mucking out/hay/feed yes I can see can see being very costly but most full livery yards are not like that and have lower out goings. If the horses spend most of the day in field the cost of hay and bedding can be reduced and time taken to muck out is less too. If they are more leisure horses in light work they can have fibre based feeds which are not so expensive and don't need huge amounts of hay.

Grooming/riding/cleaning tack every day is time consuming but the basic horse care should not be that time consuming if well managed. In you are looking after several horses you will probably benefit from the economies of scale. Hay and bedding does not need to be hugely expensive if cleverly sourced and and bought in bulk.

I think there is also a bit of difference in what people call full and part livery. I am 7 day part livery and that is everything but grooming/exercise and tack cleaning. My pony is very clean and on the deep litter system so only needs the wet taken out once a month but poos taken out twice a day. He also only eats a small amount of un-mollassed chaff mixed with his supplements and as he is prone to weight gain cannot have ad-lib hay so has to have soaked hay in a greedy net. He is on group turnout and normally they TO/CI two at a time and field not far from yard so does not take long to catch in. I do not pay anywhere near £245 a week {and could not afford to do so}and that includes 365 day care including going in the field on xmas day as normal.

Yards are not charities and most must be breaking even otherwise they would not be able to be run long term. If yards can offer DIY for around £150 a month then surely it would not cost an extra £800 a month to feed and provide basic care for a horse on top of that unless the horses are eating huge amounts of food and getting through a bale of shavings a day and you are paying for more highly skilled staff than you actually need.

charlie76 said:
I would just add for the people that were pulling me up. At my yard the fulll liveries are done as usual but do not get turned out. Part liveries do their own but this is stated in the contract .

Witn regards go full livery costs I do agree that full livery is very under priced in comparison with kennels and catteries.
I do think that people assume that yard owners are taking it in with full liveries but I don't think everyone really understands the costs of actually running a yard and the over heads.
Just off the top of my head....
Rent
Public liability insurance
Employers liability insurance
Vehicle insurance and tax
Petrol
Business rates
Water
Electric
Staff wages
Hay
Bedding
Feed
Muck removal
Staff training
General maintenance
Fence repairs
Field maintenance
Tack cleaning equipment


So at an average cost of 160 per week ( ex exercise) it works out at 22.79 per day.

A large dog at a kennels is on average 16 per day and next to no out goings.

Maybe the answer is to charge more.. Around 35 per day but would anyone really be willing to pay 245 per week for full livery without exercise?

There is a huge media discussion at the moment about lack of people wanting to work with horses, the reason being is the pay and hours and bad , the reason for that
Is simply that owners don't want to or can't afford to pay what it really should be for the yard owners to make a decent living.
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We're DIY at the moment but I was full livery years ago (and worked on that yard). On Christmas day the full livery horses got fed, watered and hayed in the morning and the evening. Extra bedding on Christmas Eve, thorough muck out on Boxing Day. If you wanted to turn out/muck out then you had to do it yourself, which nobody ever had a problem with. I always mucked out but didn't generally turn out so horse wasn't left out on his own if others were brought in earlier.

The last yard I was at before my current one offered livery service on Christmas day but they charged double the normal rate, which I thought was fair enough.
 
When I had 1 on part livery I happily paid a premium for Xmas Day and Boxing Day so I could go and spend the holiday with my family. When I got back the other livery on the yard told me the YO had asked her to look after my horse instead - and she didn't get any of the premium I'd paid so not at all honest/trustworthy.

I've been on DIY for years now and arrange with another livery for them to do Xmas Day evening and Boxing Day morning so I can get to see family or have a drink and a hangover at home, I always do theirs for them instead Xmas Day morning. I do try and leave them out but last year Somerset was a bit wet and turnover was stopped over Xmas as the fields were flooded at the yard.
 
I'm on DIY so not affected, but find it incredible that YOs don't factor in the added cost of Christmas (or all bank holidays for that matter) into their business plans and charges. Many people choose full livery because they work irregular hours, including Christmas Day and other bank holidays and simply CAN'T be there to do their horses.

Any other business, a care home for example, doesn't just stop providing care on Christmas Day or hold residents to ransom by suddenly demanding double for a service they can't say no to. If they add £5 a week onto the livery charge, that will provide an extra £260 a year per horse to cover double pay for the 8 Bank Holidays (so an extra £32.50 per horse per bank holiday). This way they treat their staff and their clients fairly.

If they're a one man band, then sorry but tough. If that's the career you've chosen you have to take the rough with the smooth. My husband is a police officer. I think he last had Christmas day off in 2012. He has his first New Year's Eve off (not a bank holiday so doesn't get paid extra to work the one night nobody wants to work) in about 6 years this year and I'm in work at 7am on New Year's Day so we can't really do much. You just deal with it.

Some friends of mine run a restaurant, husband out front and wife in the kitchen. They haven't had a Christmas Day off for 20 years. They shut the restaurant on Boxing Day and have their family Christmas then. They get one week off in January. The wife had to continue working through chemotherapy as they're a small restaurant and she's the only one in the kitchen. When you're self employed it's what you have to do.

There are ways to make it easier - don't change rugs on Christmas Eve or Christmas Night. Make up haynets and feeds in advance, even give double water on Christmas Eve if saving that little extra bit of time matters. I'd be happy with some extra bedding in Christmas Eve and a quick skip out and tidy up if the horses were turned out on Christmas Day.

ETA Our YO actually offers an enhanced service on Christmas Day as she'll bring them all in if we muck out in the morning. She lives on site so is there anyway and it means we can have a drink with lunch and not worry about going back up. Its the one day of the year she does it without charging. There are only 9 of us though and the winter field is right next to the stables so it only takes 5 minutes.
 
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Really good post Annagain. I am on full livery, have been at 2 different yards, and there is no issues with christmas or bank holidays. One was just full liveries, the other with a mix of diy, part, full and riding school ponies. The school ponies still need to be done, so the full liveries are done then also. I dont mind if they have one day where their stable is a bit deeper or messier, or rugs are not changed etc.

In saying that, I think if you have been DIY all year, it might be a bit cheeky to then ask to be full on christmas day, and hope to pay the same as you would pay for extra services on any other day.
 
I don't have my horse on livery now, but when I did I didn't begrudge the yard owner having time with their family on Xmas day, Xmas is the only time some families ever manage to get together. The yard I was on actually closed on Xmas day and all the horses would be kept in for the day, it never seemed to do mine any harm. She was very happy there and the yard owner was available pretty much every other day of the year so I think she deserved one day off!
 
With regard to costings for livery the reason many DIY yards are so cheap is because many have started livery as a sideline on agricultural or former agricultural premises and don't pay commercial rates. I know 5 yards in my area that are like this and it's hard to compete against them. Many also take short cuts with insurance and other things so there's no way to compete with them cost wise
 
Well I am now starting to feel very lucky that normal services will be offered on xmas and boxing day for the 7 day part liveries.

The horses will be turned out as normal and then YO and Head Girl will come back after their xmas lunch to catch in and put to bed the part livery horses and their own horses as normal unless the owners decide they want to come up and help out. Assisted DIY's and 5 day part liveries will need to look after their own horses or help each other out.
 
Well oddly enough my (new YO) stopped me tonight to discuss Christmas Day. As far she was concerned it was business as usual. However, us liveries (we are on assisted DIY) said we would do horses as normal in the am, double net/spare hay and leave in. YO will feed in the evening and check but we said we would leave the horses in. Getting our lot in is the worst job atm. I honestly don't see why people have an issue with helping out (unless they really can't get there or are on shifts). I might feel differently if I met a livery yard owner who made a lot of money out of me!
 
SO1 said:
I don't think you can really compare a part livery yard to kennels and catteries as they are more like the equivalent of taking your horse to a holiday livery yard and the dogs will need to be exercised every day too.

I think the costs of running a yard are not fixed and for £245 a week for full livery without exercise you would be including a full groom every day plus tacking cleaning every day and services such as mane pulling and clipping, which a lot of people would not require as if they are exercising their own horse they probably have time to groom and tack clean too.

How much rent and rates etc would depend on what facilities you have for example indoor schools usually mean more rates/higher rents, if you have a cross country course then maintaining that is more expensive.

With regard to staff training, if people have worked with horses before it won't take them long to learn how to fill haynets, muck out stables etc.

A top competition yard where there are big horses are on individual turnout and there is an indoor school and the horses don't go out for very long so need more mucking out/hay/feed yes I can see can see being very costly but most full livery yards are not like that and have lower out goings. If the horses spend most of the day in field the cost of hay and bedding can be reduced and time taken to muck out is less too. If they are more leisure horses in light work they can have fibre based feeds which are not so expensive and don't need huge amounts of hay.

Grooming/riding/cleaning tack every day is time consuming but the basic horse care should not be that time consuming if well managed. In you are looking after several horses you will probably benefit from the economies of scale. Hay and bedding does not need to be hugely expensive if cleverly sourced and and bought in bulk.

I think there is also a bit of difference in what people call full and part livery. I am 7 day part livery and that is everything but grooming/exercise and tack cleaning. My pony is very clean and on the deep litter system so only needs the wet taken out once a month but poos taken out twice a day. He also only eats a small amount of un-mollassed chaff mixed with his supplements and as he is prone to weight gain cannot have ad-lib hay so has to have soaked hay in a greedy net. He is on group turnout and normally they TO/CI two at a time and field not far from yard so does not take long to catch in. I do not pay anywhere near £245 a week {and could not afford to do so}and that includes 365 day care including going in the field on xmas day as normal.

Yards are not charities and most must be breaking even otherwise they would not be able to be run long term. If yards can offer DIY for around £150 a month then surely it would not cost an extra £800 a month to feed and provide basic care for a horse on top of that unless the horses are eating huge amounts of food and getting through a bale of shavings a day and you are paying for more highly skilled staff than you actually need.
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'Yards are not charities and most must be breaking even',
I think most yards if they actually did a spread sheet and worked out their net profit, and would include the cost of buying or renting the land, and paying wages for either themselves or staff would not be making a profit.
A lot of people rent or buy a house and yard and take a couple or more liveries to help with the costs of keeping their own animals. The thought being I am mucking out two so to do four is not a problem. I doubt if they pay themselves minimum wage and some will not be paying business rates or the right insurance.
I looked in to all of this, I already have stables and acreage etc but most people want a surface of some sort, I do not need one.How many £20 a week gross profit would you need to have before you covered the £15-20k it would cost to put one in?
I could put up a shower and toilet block for £15k and take touring caravans at £10 a night and shut when I want a holiday or Christmas.
 
honetpot said:
'Yards are not charities and most must be breaking even',
I think most yards if they actually did a spread sheet and worked out their net profit, and would include the cost of buying or renting the land, and paying wages for either themselves or staff would not be making a profit.
A lot of people rent or buy a house and yard and take a couple or more liveries to help with the costs of keeping their own animals. The thought being I am mucking out two so to do four is not a problem. I doubt if they pay themselves minimum wage and some will not be paying business rates or the right insurance.
I looked in to all of this, I already have stables and acreage etc but most people want a surface of some sort, I do not need one.How many £20 a week gross profit would you need to have before you covered the £15-20k it would cost to put one in?
I could put up a shower and toilet block for £15k and take touring caravans at £10 a night and shut when I want a holiday or Christmas.
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This.
I am a yard owner. The business pays for the keep of my two horses. I do not take a wage. I am sure that many people look at the livery charges and we must be making a good profit. That couldn't be further from the truth. We do it because we like the horses and like the people.
 
honetpot said:
A lot of people rent or buy a house and yard and take a couple or more liveries to help with the costs of keeping their own animals. The thought being I am mucking out two so to do four is not a problem. I doubt if they pay themselves minimum wage and some will not be paying business rates or the right insurance..
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This is so very true! I did exactly that, and I in no way even break even now that the horses are having ad lib hay. There's a top on what I can charge for full grass livery, and I don't feel I can add any more on, so extra hay comes out of my own pocket.
I have CCC insurance, but thankfully, rates and maintenance are included in my rent.
 
We're at home and they stay in for ease, go on the walker in the morning for an hour or so - they are fine.

However, I would question any YO or YM who thought it was acceptable to leave a horse in its stable, not mucked out for 24 hours, for a yard offering full livery to suggest that is frankly disgusting.
 
I'm on part livery and yo is happy to feed and turn out as normal think they do even do full livery for some but extra cost
I'll probably leave mine in as I spent most of last Christmas day trying to catch the flipping thing! It's ok normally as we can wait around for him but not Xmas day as dinner to cook etc. He will of course have a haynets etc.
 
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