Costs of purchasing / running a stable in the UK???

[TrueColours]

Hubby has the brilliant idea of wanting to move back to the UK (he holds a dual passport) and has suggested what fun it would be for me to purchase a livery there, do my breeding operation over there, take in a few boarders, foals out some mares, etc

While I am willing to LOOK at this, what am I getting myself in to???

What are the bedding costs over there - per bag of shavings? Hay costs for good 50 lb bales of hay? Grain costs? For those of you that run liveries, what are your average monthly costs and what do you charge your boarders and what are your profit margins per horse per month?

he has come up with some lovely inexpensive properties in the Wales area, but they seem to be a bit off the beaten track - what are we realistically looking at spending in a more "popular" and populated horse areas and what areas should we be looking at buying in?

This would be such an upheaval for me - other than having to learn to drive "on the wrong side of the road!" I'd obviously need to leave my big 1 Ton Ford dually truck behind and my gooseneck trailer, all of my North American contacts and start right from scratch

Its intimidating and Im no spring chicken either

so unless all of my ducks can plainly be seen all lined up nicely in a row, its not something I am going to madly agree to in a heartbeat ...

Suggestions? Where does one even START to research this stuff? And are we better off to bring the horses over, find a suitable place that we can board them at short term and then look to buy a suitable place while we are over there?

Any and all suggestions would be VERY much appreciated~!

 

[Enfys]

The first thing about England is that it IS seven times smaller than Ontario, so realistically, for someone used to Canada (where just down the road can be 200 miles) it will seem VERY small, but then the country roads are narrow and have BENDS! Hey, your Dually would FILL some lanes and cost you an absolute fortune to fill.

I really can't help with costing anything as I am well out of touch with pricing now. You actually only live up the road from me (I looked up your location and you are about the same distance from Scotland as we are!) We sold everything when we moved from Wales to here! Shipping horses UK > US 4 years ago cost $10,000 per container (regardless of the number of horses in that container was what I was told) no idea what it would be in the other direction.

I imagine that you will get a lot of useful information here, there are several Canadians who have moved over there, Tarrsteps for one.

Good Luck, Happy Holidays.

 

[TrueColours]

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Hey, your Dually would FILL some lanes and cost you an absolute fortune to fill.


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So we just figured out ...

... It runs me about CAD $110.00 to fill it from bone dry. It would cost me GBP 260.00 to fill it over there ...

ouch!!! Plus I dont think I'd ever get it around some of the tight turns on its own, let alone with my trailer attached to it!

My background is the freight and logistics so I have a good handle on ocean containers for our stuff and airline pallets for the horses. It will run about CAD $12,000 to send them over per pallet, and you can fit 3 standing stalls onto a pallet. If they were smaller - ponies or babies - you can do a quad configuration on the pallet, but 3 is the normal amount to ship

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where just down the road can be 200 miles

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yeah - funny how perception changes, isnt it???

I'd think nothing of driving 3-4 hours to go and look at a horse, or buying a horse in California and shipping it 5000 miles here doesnt even merit more than a passing thought on who the most cost efficient carrier would be ...

Things like the products used in the day to day running of a stable over in the UK compared to here, plus fuel costs, plus acquisition costs are the things that worry me the most, especially when my hay is virtually free here as we have 40 acres planted, my bedding is at cost as I buy it in 30 Ton bulk loads and sell and market it in North America and my only real cost is my grain. Thats where I think I am going to get "sticker shock" when I have to start adding all f these things up ...

 

[henryhorn]

I'd stay where you are, had we been younger we would have moved to Canada or new Zealand, this country is going to the dogs.
Business wise you won't make a lot of money in Wales (not anti Welsh I lived there three and a half years!) but you need to be in a place where there are lots of potential customers and opportunities for liveries.
Anywhere South East would probably be good as would the Cotswolds but of course they are also the most expensive to buy in.
Look on some sites for properties, try Stags, Strutt and Parker, Fulfords for the South West where I live.
The best option is to buy enough land to make your own haylage, otherwise it's from £15 to £22 a large round bale.
bedding is ridiculous with shavings at £6 plus and straw sometimes £2 a bale.
Diesel at the moment is 106p a litre, so jolly expensive, I swapped my Range Rover two years ago as I was continually at the garage for fuel.
Rates are expensive too, so don't forget to factor them in!
Seriously, I wouldn't swap a life in Canada for here, you have no idea what this country is turning into, rules, rules and more rules, idiots in power and crime on the increase. Stay there is my advice...

 

[TarrSteps]

Merry Christmas, TC.

Right, well . . .

If you're looking at it simply from the "horse industry" perspective, I'd say stay where you are. The costs associated with moving will be large and I think you will find the acclimatisation, for both you and any horses you bring, will be significant. Showing and producing young horses is less expensive here (not when you take the conversion into account, just dollars to pounds) but every other part of keeping horses is as expensive or even more so. I would say it's slightly easier in terms of logistics, although perhaps the this is not the best time to discuss that, seeing as I've lost over a week of work to frozen schools, horrendous weather etc!

Obviously, it would be cheaper to live somewhere like Wales or Northumberland but if you're going to run a public aspect to the business, such as livery, and not just breeding, it's somewhat like being in Saskatchewan or Northern B.C.. Okay, at least North Bay. Yes, the distances are smaller but people are not prepared to travel them to the same extent here and it's commensurately more expensive and time consuming to do so.

The dually and the gooseneck, realistically, couldn't come. I've seen a few pick-ups here, including a Dodge Club Cab, but they are few and far between for good reason. A "big" pickup would be a Toyota or a Mitsubishi. We have a Land Rover and it's a big car here but it would be dwarfed by my old Cummins Dodge. And literally, you would not be able to get your rig down many of the lanes.

I think the biggest adjustment, with your own place, would be the level of bureaucracy and control involved. There would be no erecting of cover-alls or similar. Even relatively minor changes to property involve a level of control you would find alarming.

Also, showing horses is quite different here. Dressage is similar, jumping close enough, but hunters are completely different and a horse that would win at The Royal would need to do some adjusting to win at HOYS. Yes, a good horse is a good horse, but presentation and to some extent desired type is very different. On the other side, there are options here that don't exist in Canada, especially with regard to showing older horses in hand, non-jumping classes etc.

I'd say, on a general note, the credit crunch has had a larger impact here than in Canada. Certainly my Canadian investments have stood up better and the housing market and employment situation are certainly still much healthier there.

Now, all that said, if you move for other reasons they it's quite "doable" to keep doing horses here. And it's interesting learning about different approaches, meet new people, go new places. (Though that's always attracted me, having been involved in many different facets of the industry.) Generally, I've found horses are horses and I've not had too much trouble getting new clients and horses to ride (although I live in about as unhorsey an area as possible

), above and beyond the ordinary adjustments of moving. Of course, my business is quite specialised and based on universal "issues" with horses, not so much showing or breeding, where fashion plays a larger part in what sells. As far as shipping horses, it's not that hard to do and the horses generally come out of it well. That said, the horse I brought struggled with his acclimatisation but the one a friend of mine has just brought has settled in no problem - it's very individual, I think.

If you want to pm/email me I'd be happy to get you specific prices on things and/or give you the benefit of my experience.

 

[TrueColours]

thanks henryhorn - that was exactly what I was looking for ...

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bedding is ridiculous with shavings at £6 plus

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Thats obscene. We are paying on average $5.75 - 6.00 so your GBP 6 translates to CAD $11.10 a bag. Our straw we can get for CAD $2.00 - so again - yours is almost double to what we pay

Your 1.06 for diesel = CAD $1.96 a litre - we are now paying CAD $0.87 a litre for diesel and 0.89 - 0.91 for gas so HUGE difference there!

Round bales we'd pay probably CAD $25.00 - $40.00 for so again - almost half of what you are paying

How the heck do you guys do it over there then? How does anyone afford to live there or keep horses over there? For a decent barn over here - nothing fancy - with an indoor arena, decent turnout, reasonable feed program, outdoor sand ring - we'd pay in the neighborhood of GBP 225.00 - 300.00. For the fancier show barns where grooms will tack up for you, you get lessons included, the horses are kept trimmed and groomed for you - in the range of GBP 450.00 - 600.00

How do your livery costs compare?

I figure we would go through 15 x 3.25 cuft bags of shavings per month per horse. Our cost for that would be CAD $85.00 - 90.00 whereas yours would be GBP 90.00 or CAD $166.50. Plus hay. Plus grain. Plus overhead / insurance / electrical / etc costs

I dont have a clue how you guys make ends meet over there let alone make a profit

Am I missing something here in this equation???

 

[TrueColours]

TarrSteps - Merry Christmas to you as well!

Thank you SO much for your insight!

If this was to all come together, hubby would look for a job and in some of the ads he has researched already, there are specific areas where he needs to be living in order to be considered and I dont think Wales figured in to any of them!

There were some beautiful and inexpensive properties in Wales and with your geographical comparison, I can now understand why ... Same reason King City commands the big dollars for farms and you can buy something nice and dirt cheap in Wawa, Ontario ...

Since I get a lot of enquiries and sales outside of North America being on THAT side of the ocean would be a benefit and not detrimental at all, and I dont think the buyers would much care if I was in Sussex or Wales to be honest. Its whether I chose to run a commercial side to the business other than the breeding end of it

Ive heard that the bureaucracy is getting to be strangling - I gather thats reality and not just a few stories floating around?

Its funny you mention the employment situation. From a quick glance through the job offerings, it appears to be far healthier and more plentiful in the UK with more stable and lucrative salary ranges than what we have here in Canada. Are you saying that is NOT the case at all???

Thank you so much for your insight - I appreciate it so much. This was exactly the type and variety of feedback I was hoping to get

 

[TarrSteps]

You can't really compare by conversion, as I mentioned, because if you're living here you're getting paid in £s. So someone making £60k here would likely be making $60CDN (or less, depending on area etc.) and a livery fee of £500 would be relatively the same as one at $500.

Then there are regional differences - boarding in King City is going to cost more than, say, the same level of service in Wawa, in part because of proximity to Toronto. We recently moved our horse half an hour's drive further out from London and are getting a lot more bang for our buck than we were in a yard more easily accessible by transit.

Over all, the "nanny state" is much more in evidence here. Part of it is purely logistical - almost every piece of property is bang up against someone else's property so personal decisions/behaviour are weighed much more in the public interest. I did ask around about fabric arenas when I moved as a friend is involved in marketing them in Ontario and the general consensus is, while they are available here, they are so expensive to erect and so unlikely to get planning in the area I'm in that it's pretty much a non-starter. Very few places in the south have indoor arenas, certainly not in the way we understand the term, and they're certainly not standard even in quite high end yards.

Re employment and industry, obviously I have a layman's view but in talking to people, reading and drawing from my OH's experience . . . there are so many people here, in such a small space (another, separate issue) and it's such an economic centre, there are, of course, very good jobs to be had with salaries to match. So yes, there are more jobs than in Canada and comparatively more people at each level. There are also more than 2x the number of people in an area that, as Enfys said, is a tiny proportion of Ontario alone. But comparing how real estate prices have dropped over all, especially in London and surrounding areas, and how unemployment figures have risen relative to Canada I'd still say, yes, the UK has been harder hit, relatively speaking. There's still money around, people are still working, but it's a very expensive country to live in and I think anyone in the horse industry would confirm there has been a noticeable pinch.

It's pluses and minuses. Fuel cost a lot more, not just relatively. But auto insurance is cheaper. Bedding is more expensive, show fees are much lower.

I have to say, if I was spending Canadian money here, I wouldn't do it. It would be overwhelming financially. Because I can work freely and have a secure situation, I'm okay, but if I'd had to do it all by, say, financing it completely with what I'd got for my Canadian property, I would have struggled. Of course, I wouldn't have them moved to London, either.

 

[sidesaddlegirl]

Hi and Merry Christmas from another fellow Canadian!

Yes, it is expensive over here (fuel, hay and feedwise) but the things like tack (I'm looking at an Exselle raised bridle at the mo and they cost about $239.00- $300 US usually but are £45 over here). Horses are a cheaper here as well. I couldn't have afforded my horse back in Canada (LOL, although i wish I had here there as we would have whooped some butt in the hunters!!).

I don't know how it is in the rest of Canada but I'm from Quebec where the unemployment is VERY high so to me, there are plenty of jobs here if you want to work. I run my own biz (not horse related) and work at my son's school and can afford my horse and two ponies plus renting my land/stables, feed, farrier, etc.

Someone I know, is thinking about selling her normal sized house that has 7 big box stalls, tack room plus an outside arena and about 1- 1/2 acres of grazing and that will set someone back about £600 000 (this is in the middle of England here in Leicestershire) so that works out to about $1 000 000 Canadian? Other properties with similar facilites in areas like mine go for about the same amount so getting one off the beaten track may be a better idea.

 

[Orangehorse]

My sister lives near Seattle (I know it is another country!). I think she pays for horse things the same in $ as I pay in £s for things like feed and tack, but the vet seemed a lot more expensive. I also have a friend who lives near Vancouver. It seemed to me that living expenses were slightly less in Canada, so you have a bit more spare money than on the same sort of salary than in the UK. But employment conditions/holiday entitlements, etc are much better in the UK.

I often wonder who makes any money out of horses in the UK!

If you are seriously thinking of living over here you should come and live for a month and visit a few shows and go round some yards to get a feel of the country. The countryside changes a lot in a few miles, and Wales is very different from England. The reason properties in Wales are cheaper is that they are often very remote with poor road connections. Having said that, living in a border coutry I've often noticed that the Welsh are very prepared to travel to England to compete/deal, etc. but the English are not so prepared to travel to Wales (we are too used to having nice straight motorways).

Showing in the UK is very popular, but there isn't big prize money.