Discussion about livery

[fidleyspromise]

I feel like I have the perfect yard but after shelter and fencing costs plus what it cost to get the field ready (it was covered in gorse), it will be 5 years of livery before my YO breaks even and that's not including whatever was paid for the field.
I pay for a field and a shelter. If a post is decayed or broken my YO will replace the post, I often take one from his pile and fix it myself. Our muck heap is taken away annually and other than that the field upkeep is up to us to sort.
We pay per field, not per horse so I have 3 horses on 3 acres. Previously I've paid the same monies but for 2 horses on 2 acres.

So far, I've not heard of any yards near me closing but whether that will change in the future we'll see.
I'm not sure what the future holds for horses especially as the cost of living increases.

 

[millitiger]

I am lucky (and work hard!) to have my horses at home.

However, lots of local horse people I meet tend to mention indirectly how nice it would be if 'someone' offered livery in the village
They don't want much, just a DIY stable and field, they're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble.

I absolutely don't want to offer livery and definitely not for £30/week which seems standard around here.

That doesn't go anywhere near to covering insurance, stable maintenance, fencing upkeep, field maintenance, arena care.
Let alone having a horse here eating grass, creating mess in the field, owners turning up at all hours to see to their horse, interrupting the privacy of my home.
Even £100/week wouldn't be worth it for me and that's just DIY!

So when people drop hints, I nod and smile and agree wouldn't it be nice is 'someone' offered livery in the village- it won't be me!

 

[SantaVera]

I am lucky (and work hard!) to have my horses at home.

However, lots of local horse people I meet tend to mention indirectly how nice it would be if 'someone' offered livery in the village
They don't want much, just a DIY stable and field, they're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble.

I absolutely don't want to offer livery and definitely not for £30/week which seems standard around here.

That doesn't go anywhere near to covering insurance, stable maintenance, fencing upkeep, field maintenance, arena care.
Let alone having a horse here eating grass, creating mess in the field, owners turning up at all hours to see to their horse, interrupting the privacy of my home.
Even £100/week wouldn't be worth it for me and that's just DIY!

So when people drop hints, I nod and smile and agree wouldn't it be nice is 'someone' offered livery in the village- it won't be me!

My point exactly, I have people asking from time to time. Did livery years ago. Won't do it again.not worth the hassle.

 

[ycbm]

I am lucky (and work hard!) to have my horses at home.

However, lots of local horse people I meet tend to mention indirectly how nice it would be if 'someone' offered livery in the village
They don't want much, just a DIY stable and field, they're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble.

I absolutely don't want to offer livery and definitely not for £30/week which seems standard around here.

That doesn't go anywhere near to covering insurance, stable maintenance, fencing upkeep, field maintenance, arena care.
Let alone having a horse here eating grass, creating mess in the field, owners turning up at all hours to see to their horse, interrupting the privacy of my home.
Even £100/week wouldn't be worth it for me and that's just DIY!

So when people drop hints, I nod and smile and agree wouldn't it be nice is 'someone' offered livery in the village- it won't be me!

When I first moved in I got hints about how lovely it would be if people could bring their kids around to ride in my barn!
.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

I am lucky (and work hard!) to have my horses at home.

However, lots of local horse people I meet tend to mention indirectly how nice it would be if 'someone' offered livery in the village
They don't want much, just a DIY stable and field, they're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble.

I absolutely don't want to offer livery and definitely not for £30/week which seems standard around here.

That doesn't go anywhere near to covering insurance, stable maintenance, fencing upkeep, field maintenance, arena care.
Let alone having a horse here eating grass, creating mess in the field, owners turning up at all hours to see to their horse, interrupting the privacy of my home.
Even £100/week wouldn't be worth it for me and that's just DIY!

So when people drop hints, I nod and smile and agree wouldn't it be nice is 'someone' offered livery in the village- it won't be me!

I get the same, one even pointed out they could only see 2 on my land.... and several stables.
Nope, not doing it.

However, I am known locally for occasionally providing emergency temp livery for 2 to 4 weeks, but it has to be a dire emergency like flooding, fire etc.
But am not having any extra permanently on the land, particularly the way the last 2 or 3 winters have been!

 

[Lucky Snowball]

People tell me I’m ‘lucky’ to have my own place. They forget that I had 3 jobs and worked hard to buy land, get planning and build. 30 pounds a week doesn’t cover costs or trouble.

 

[MagicMelon]

It really depends where you live. Im NE Scotland and land prices arent as expensive as England from the sounds of it. I sell houses for a living and the vast majority of my buyers now are English folk moving up as they can buy so much more than they can down south. So Id expect livery down there to be far more pricey than up here although I have seen a couple of all singing & dancing yards offering what I think is obscene livery fees but clearly they only want rich folk there which I guess makes sense as they wont moan about any costs. Im lucky that I can keep my horses at home and have never had to livery, however Ive ridden peoples horses who were on livery so Ive experienced 2 or 3 yards. I really think it depends what facilities people want. If I were to go to livery, Id love an outdoor school, 24/7 turnout and immediate access to off-road hacking. I wouldnt want to pay for all the extra "luxury" bits people seem to like (fancy stables, indoor massive arenas, horse walkers etc.). If I had more land then I would LOVE to have a livery here, I wouldnt do it for the money, Id do it just to have company to hack out with and so we could help each other for holiday cover etc. It would be so beneficial. Im sure thatd be the case for loads of people with their own places but I guess red tape puts them off or the risk the person doesnt turn out well.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

I'm a smalltime YO and run a DIY yard at my home address.

I have two liveries: one pays £100 pcm; the other (slightly more facilities) pays £160 pcm. I do not provide feed or bedding. It is a strictly DIY set-up here.

I have had the muckheap taken away twice this year (think it has been twice); £100 a pop.

My insurance for both my dwelling house (Grade II listed which granted bangs the price up) AND the yard is as near as dammit to £1000.

Then there's gate repairs, fencing & weed control to be thought about, plus day-to-day expenses.

Don't need anyone to get the Abacus out to figure that I'm not doing it for the money.

 

[dominobrown]

I closed my livery yard last year, only got one kind of livery left (and tbh that's bad enough). Its not worth the hassle.... often it was more profitable to have empty stables. The running costs are just not covered by that people expect to pay. Livery yards are rarely run like a business.
I don't know what the answer is, but I am so glad I don't have a livery yard at the moment, its not worth it.

 

[shanti]

Growing up as a teen in the 90's, we always kept our horses on someone's farm/block of land.
In Australia traditional livery yards was very rare (I think there was only 1 in my area, and it was a top-level competition yard)

I recently went back to my hometown for a visit and EVERY single farm or block of land where I, or one of my friend's, used to keep their horses had been developed into housing estates or shopping center's, all of them!
I mentioned it to a friend and asked where on earth people keep their horses now? She responded that unless you have your own land you just don't have horses.

 

[SEL]

I get the same, one even pointed out they could only see 2 on my land.... and several stables.
Nope, not doing it.

However, I am known locally for occasionally providing emergency temp livery for 2 to 4 weeks, but it has to be a dire emergency like flooding, fire etc.
But am not having any extra permanently on the land, particularly the way the last 2 or 3 winters have been!

The lady who owned the land before me got persuaded to have some "temporary" liveries. She put up some stables (on skids) for them in the end because she liked the company. So I have 7 stables for 6.5 acres of grazing - 4 of which is sodden in winter with an underground spring coming up.

I'm forever being asked if I'd take a livery but it would trash the land. My 3 live together as a herd and I can move them around as I wish. My first winter here we still had the old boys and the fields suffered with 5.

I just couldn't make it pay either.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

The lady who owned the land before me got persuaded to have some "temporary" liveries. She put up some stables (on skids) for them in the end because she liked the company. So I have 7 stables for 6.5 acres of grazing - 4 of which is sodden in winter with an underground spring coming up.

I'm forever being asked if I'd take a livery but it would trash the land. My 3 live together as a herd and I can move them around as I wish. My first winter here we still had the old boys and the fields suffered with 5.

I just couldn't make it pay either.

I have 5 stables on the yard plus a big shelter beside it that can be converted back to 2 stables and hay barn that's 20 x 11, plus another 2 shelters further up, on 4.5 acres.
Just the 2 bumbling around is fine, I can swap them around easily and land never trashed even when they are out 24/7
Gone are my days of 8 to 12 animals (I did have another 7 acres next door that I rented).

Livery did cover their costs, but that was in the late 80s when I charged £25pw for stable and field and had wait list, it definitely wouldn't pay now tho!