Christmas Livery

Theocat said:
From comments on this thread, the issue doesn't seem to be that people are unwilling to pay, it seems to be that YOs are unwilling to charge - and for an industry that finds it so difficult to run at a profit, I find this whole discussion pretty extraordinary.
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No, experience and basic market knowledge shows that the customer is unwilling to pay the rate that would be needed which is often around £300 a week. Particularly when other yards are charging half of that. If you charge what u need to pay staff properly and still make a profit then you end up with an empty yard.
 
conniegirl said:
No, experience and basic market knowledge shows that the customer is unwilling to pay the rate that would be needed which is often around £300 a week. Particularly when other yards are charging half of that. If you charge what u need to pay staff properly and still make a profit then you end up with an empty yard.
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£300 a week is "needed" ? It can't be "needed" as otherwise it would have to be charged. But I see people on here paying about £80 a week for 7 day part livery now surely that is ridiculous? I pay a friend on my yar £12 a day Mon-fri to do my horse which is muck out, turn out, bring in, pick feet out, change rugs, feed and check over. With my DIY livery stabling costs, feed, bedding etc. it costs me £540 a month. So she makes £60 a week just for my horse and has no overheads out of that as she is already there to do her own horses.
I've always been willing to pay decent money but paying more doesn't necessarily mean a better service IME.
 
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YorksG said:
I often wonder how much people would find to be fair rate per week for full livery, and if they would accept double time being asked for all bank holidays, even if spread out over the year. I used to work in residential child care, many years ago, and the LA found that they had to start paying for bankholidays and overtime, as otherwise they couldn't get people to apply for the jobs. Until people are prepared to pay enough for Yard owners to pay staff properly and make a pofit, then this sort of problem will continue. To those people who say their family live away etc. it is always possible that this is the case for yard staff too, do you not think?
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I pay my free lancers triple time for Christmas Day and double for boxing and New Year's Day .
 
Sussexbythesea said:
£300 a week is "needed" ? It can't be "needed" as otherwise it would have to be charged. But I see people on here paying about £80 a week for 7 day part livery now surely that is ridiculous? I pay a friend on my yar £12 a day Mon-fri to do my horse which is muck out, turn out, bring in, pick feet out, change rugs, feed and check over. With my DIY livery stabling costs, feed, bedding etc. it costs me £540 a month. So she makes £60 a week just for my horse and has no overheads out of that as she is already there to do her own horses.
I've always been willing to pay decent money but paying more doesn't necessarily mean a better service IME.
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I have no idea how the £80 part livery places do it, I can only assume they don't have staff or a mortgage and scrimp on things like insurance, quality of bedding and forage etc.
Paying staff legal minimum wage plus employers ni contribution, plus the new pension contributions, plus electricity, water, council tax, care custody and control insurance, employers liability insurance, mortgage, repairs and maintenance, hay, bedding, feed, cost of an outdoor or indoor school, council tax on the commercial property and then for the YO to make a small profit.
Legal minimum wage leads to high staff turnover and dissatisfaction so if you want to pay them a living wage it is even more
When we put a business plan together for a yard we just couldn't make the numbers work for much less than £300 a week, no one will pay that so we didn't bother.

Your friend can do it for £60 a week because she has no overheads, she doesn't have to pay ni on top or a pension or the various insurances.
 
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Sussexbythesea said:
£300 a week is "needed" ? It can't be "needed" as otherwise it would have to be charged. But I see people on here paying about £80 a week for 7 day part livery now surely that is ridiculous? I pay a friend on my yar £12 a day Mon-fri to do my horse which is muck out, turn out, bring in, pick feet out, change rugs, feed and check over. With my DIY livery stabling costs, feed, bedding etc. it costs me £540 a month. So she makes £60 a week just for my horse and has no overheads out of that as she is already there to do her own horses.
I've always been willing to pay decent money but paying more doesn't necessarily mean a better service IME.
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If you are giving a quality service with good facilities £80 a week for part livery is madness the yard are not making a profit on that .
 
conniegirl said:
I have no idea how the £80 part livery places do it, I can only assume they don't have staff or a mortgage and scrimp on things like insurance, quality of bedding and forage etc.
Paying staff legal minimum wage plus employers ni contribution, plus the new pension contributions, plus electricity, water, council tax, care custody and control insurance, employers liability insurance, mortgage, repairs and maintenance, hay, bedding, feed, cost of an outdoor or indoor school, council tax on the commercial property and then for the YO to make a small profit.
Legal minimum wage leads to high staff turnover and dissatisfaction so if you want to pay them a living wage it is even more
When we put a business plan together for a yard we just couldn't make the numbers work for much less than £300 a week, no one will pay that so we didn't bother.

Your friend can do it for £60 a week because she has no overheads, she doesn't have to pay ni on top or a pension or the various insurances.
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I pay for most of the overheads you mention out of the £150 per month DIY livery charge which pays for the box and electricity, water etc. and buy all my hay and bedding and feed myself and it still comes to £540 and that is with no restriction on bedding or forage. It's up to my friend to sort out her tax and NI as she is basically freelancing.

I'm not saying that a proper 7 day livery service wouldn't need to charge more (I've certainly paid more) but it's not true to say £300 a week is always needed because if it was truly needed 95% of liverys wouldn't operate but they do.

I am in full agreement that £80 a week is a ridiculously low price to charge and find it difficult to see how anyone makes any money but I guess farms where there is no mortgage, they cut their own hay and have their own straw and maybe have lower rates might be able to achieve a small profit. Or if people just have one or two as a side-line to subsidise their own.

Anyway I'm all for paying a good price for a good service.
 
I run a small yard on my own. It is all full livery. Christmas day is the same as any other day as far as the horses are concerned. I turnout and muck out as usual. This is a sacrifice I knew I would have to make when I decided to run a full livery service, along with zero holidays or weekends off. Most Christmas I also cook the 'full works' for ten people, although I serve it as an evening meal rather than lunch. It might be different if I ran a large yard and needed to hire staff, as I think this might well pose problems.
 
For those who say "do it yourself", what about owners who are nurses, etc and can't do the horse because they work Christmas day?
 
Copperpot said:
Not everyone gets all bank holidays off work! If you do then fine, but if you don't, you pay for someone else to do it.
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Fine in theoy, but obviously it doesn't work out, if no-one is willing to work those days!
These livey threads always confirm for me that we did the right thing when we left livery and then after doing some-one a favour by allowing some-one to put a pony on our land, making the decision that we would only ever have our own horses on our land! It does help that all our horses are jointly owned between me and Sis, so we have always managed to do our own, except for a couple of winters when we had oldies and paid a freelancer to put them out after we had gone to work.
Having a horse is not a right and IMO you can only have one if you can guarantee that either you can meet it's needs, or that you can guarantee that some-one else can. I have worked many bank holidays over my career and some flipping long days, but have made sacrifices overall to keep the life style I chose.
 
There have been previous threads on here about DIY liveries who leave a horse stood in, not mucked out and just get someone to top up water and throw in hay, and there has been outrage!

It seems to be a different story when its the YM/YO - who, lets face it, is actually getting paid to look after the horse.

Personally, I think its not on for anyone to leave a horse stood in its own crap for 36 hours.

If you don't want to provide full livery 365 days a year, don't offer full livery as a service.

Yes, it is Christmas day, but there are people who work that day and other public holidays, and that is the reason they use a full livery service.
 
cronkmooar said:
There have been previous threads on here about DIY liveries who leave a horse stood in, not mucked out and just get someone to top up water and throw in hay, and there has been outrage!

It seems to be a different story when its the YM/YO - who, lets face it, is actually getting paid to look after the horse.

Personally, I think its not on for anyone to leave a horse stood in its own crap for 36 hours.

If you don't want to provide full livery 365 days a year, don't offer full livery as a service.

Yes, it is Christmas day, but there are people who work that day and other public holidays, and that is the reason they use a full livery service.
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PRECISELY!!

If you run full livery then it's a business. It is up to the YO/YM to plan what services are on offer, when those services are on offer and to then price their services accordingly and specify what their client is purchasing in the contract.

Full livery clients are generally on full livery for a reason. They don't have to justify that reason to anyone and it's not their fault if a yard doesn't factor in attractive pay to have staff work bank holidays.

Don't get me wrong - I'm one of the most involved/pro active full livery clients around. I will be doing my horse Christmas morning - but because I want to, not because I have to!
 
This thread has been playing on my mind, as always there are differing ideas as to what full livery is, for me there are the following liveries options;

full ridden livery=everything done including riding and owner pops up as and when/rides when/if they like.

full schooling livery as above with schooling at the level needed

full livery=as above with no exercise

part livery what ever is arranged between horse owner and provider of livery services, so 5 day livery or am or pm livery for example

DIY with services, a do it yourself yard with someone available to help out when it is needed and convienient.

DIY=sort your own horses care yourself-no one on the yard available to help out but owners can help each other if needed.

For me all the full livery options are similar to care homes for people, if you are in the caring or animal sector then you are rota'd on to work your share of high days and bank holidays if there are people/animals that need your care and it is your turn then you work.
The work load can be reduced by haynets all being made up/fresh water being placed outside every stable the evening before/ bedding being placed outside stables etc
Never have I left horses in because it is Christmas day, they get turned out early and then bought in early (minimum of 7hrs out) and then an extra late check and rehay/water last thing.
I don't get the ditching of responsibilities because it is a high day, Full livery is full livery and it is the responsibility of the provider of that service to make sure there is adequate cover for the holiday period
 
YorksG said:
Fine in theoy, but obviously it doesn't work out, if no-one is willing to work those days!
These livey threads always confirm for me that we did the right thing when we left livery and then after doing some-one a favour by allowing some-one to put a pony on our land, making the decision that we would only ever have our own horses on our land! It does help that all our horses are jointly owned between me and Sis, so we have always managed to do our own, except for a couple of winters when we had oldies and paid a freelancer to put them out after we had gone to work.
Having a horse is not a right and IMO you can only have one if you can guarantee that either you can meet it's needs, or that you can guarantee that some-one else can. I have worked many bank holidays over my career and some flipping long days, but have made sacrifices overall to keep the life style I chose.
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I have my own place now and pay a freelance lady plus my OH will help. They live out also, so if I don't finish work til 9am and feed then it's not an issue.
 
So all you people who say do it yourself on christmas day if you planned a holiday abroad over christmas and put you dog in kennels you would be happy for your dog to stand in **** and not go for a walk on christmas day. Same thing to me you pay for an animal to be cared for therefore it should be cared for the same on christmas day as any other day of the year.
 
It's one of the first questions I asked when I moved to my current yard last November! I'm grateful that the answer turned out to be 'Christmas day & new years day are business as usual - they are just another day.'!

They do everything as normal, which I am grateful for, but I still come up in the morning and muck out my own stable. And to give YO a bottle of fizz & box of chocs! I would have no problem whatsoever if they didn't do livery - I would be more than happy to come and do my own horse & offer to help with others if needed.

When I was on DIY, a few of us joined forces for the day. One person came in the am to feed and turnout. Second person came in the afternoon to bring in and lunch hay. Third person came in the eve to feed dinner, hay and put to bed. You would muck out your own stable when you were there. All haynets and feeds made up in advance. Agreed horses could stay in turnout rugs. This worked out quite well for us.

I have also worked on Christmas & new year when I was a working pupil. Pretty much business as usual except no riding lessons and we only had to do a half day. We agreed amongst ourselves who would do the first shift and who would do the second, then do the reverse on new years day. I felt lucky to do 8-1 on Christmas. No extra pay.

I don't like the whole 'horses not mucked out' thing. This just seems so wrong to me - especially if you have a mucky beast like mine, he'd look like a rescue case after only 8 hours!! Let alone 24/36!
 
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cronkmooar said:
Yes, it is Christmas day, but there are people who work that day and other public holidays, and that is the reason they use a full livery service.
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This^^

I'm working Christmas and new year. I would
Love to be able to see my horse on those days but my employer has decided I'm working. I've also worked several other bank holidays this year. I don't get paid more either, I get days in lieu.
 
All the decent full livery yards I have been or worked on, have mucked out on xmas day. But turnout has been down to the owners. The staff take it in shifts and work it out between them like any other business that needs to run over Xmas.

Have only ever had one yard where it wasn't done and it caused no end of problems as wasn't in my contract and had no idea until after I had planned to go away to family. I left soon after. I can cope with no turn out but a quick skip out if I am still paying for the service doesn't seem unreasonable for a paying client.
 
For those of you that say you would have to pay extra for xmas and bank holiday cover. Do you not factor that in to your overall costs and spread that across the year so that you can then pay staff double time or whatever it is over Xmas? That's how any other business would do it.
 
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I dont think it's unreasonable for people who pay for full livery to expect that their horse will get the basics done on Christmas Day.
Mine are all full liveries - albeit they live out, and it wouldnt occur to me to say "Oh, as it's Christmas, I'm buggering off down to Devon to see my family - look after your own horses". My liveries pay for their horses to be looked after the same every day, and that's what they will get. I may not skip out the hardstanding paddocks, but that's the only thing that might be let slip.
If I was to go away, I would pay a freelancer to do the horses, rather than expecting owners to do them
 
Some years ago I had a horse on full livery. There was no turnout that day, this from what I understand is normal- many yards don't turn out xmas day firstly due to time- everything is done with tighter time restraints and staff numbers they were also lower on staff so 40 horses were done between 4 instead of 6 staff. I didn't mind as it was Christmas and my horse won't disintegrate in his stable. There were no rug changes and everything was just walked round the yard 'island' 2x on each rein both morning and night whilst one other member of staff skipped out the stable. I also paid £10 extra that month on my bill. I'm totally ok with that and in fact I think I tipped the staff too. Everyone needs time off at some point so some staff had their with family so totally understand skimming the team down for Christmas.
 
In over 25 years of having a yard I have never once had a livery client complain about their horses not being turned out on Christmas Day, some do actually get a leg stretch in the school while they're mucked out but don't get out to the fields. Some liveries actually turn up and help muck out which is nice - a couple of times one has even stayed for Christmas Dinner! Surely in the season of good will it's all about give and take, most horses don't come to any harm having a day in and it allows YOs to have a little family time. It's not like one yard I knew where every single Monday horses were left in, not mucked out and all thrown a scoop of mix irrespective of their normal feed as it was the day of for the owner and staff.

As others have said the profit margins on livery aren't big and for many YOs it's a lifestyle not a job. Very few owners could afford to pay the costs required to generate what other businesses would consider an acceptable profit. It's all very well saying don't run a yard if it doesn't make enough money but if all YOs did that there would be a crisis for horse owners without their own land and horses would suffer.
 
The yard I used to work at did full livery (no turn out) on Christmas Day. BUT the YO also did a huge breakfast bbq to which a lot of owners went and they all mucked in and did their own horses, as a treat to the YO. Not expected, but much appreciated.
 
I run a livery yard with full, part and DIY liveries. All the horses will go out as normal. If the owners want something extra from the norm on Xmas and Boxing day then I charge double. When I had my horses on part livery I used to go up and muck them out etc on Xmas morning to help out. they were always turned out then as well.
 
windand rain said:
So all you people who say do it yourself on christmas day if you planned a holiday abroad over christmas and put you dog in kennels you would be happy for your dog to stand in **** and not go for a walk on christmas day. Same thing to me you pay for an animal to be cared for therefore it should be cared for the same on christmas day as any other day of the year.
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No I wouldnt be happy for any animal of mine to stand in its own crap all day so therefore I would either ensure it was placed with somewhere that DOES offer the same service over christmas or I wouldnt book a holiday over christmas. Its tough but then thats the choice I made by choosing to have horses....
 
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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