Do I take on another livery.... ??

[MissGee]

So my husband and I have a spare stable...

Private yard, 8 stables. 5 horses of our own and 2 liveries.

Debating on whether to offer the empty one for livery but I'm so scared of getting the wrong horse/owner...

Because we have such a small herd and they are all together they all go out/come in together so becuase of this it's only really feasible to offer part/full livery.

We have a mixed her of 6, 3 mares and 3 geldings (my old boy who is now 32 is on his own). So would have to be a horse that is nice and easy going so not as to disrupt the calm or another oldie who could share with my old boy and when I say oldie I mean "oldie" as the mixed her contains horses who are 20, 21 and 22 lol!

We have a floodlit school which isn't brilliant but does the job and absolutely fantastic hacking...

Could do with the extra income but don't want any hassle... So what do you think... do I take the risk?

 

[DragonSlayer]

You can always put up an advert and just say what you want! You don't have to take the first person who comes along....just word it along the lines of livery available for an OAP....horse, not person!

Your yard, your rules...

 

[Greylegs]

Could you give us an idea of area please ...

 

[MissGee]

Yeah NG16, does that help?

 

[Greylegs]

We're the other side of Derby so a bit too far, sadly. But thanks for posting. Good luck whatever you decide.

 

[MissGee]

Thank you

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

Mmmm.. difficult one this.

There's a sense in which I would say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". i.e. if your yard/livery balance which you have at the moment is working for you, and for the liveries involved, I'd say leave well alone.

However, if you feel you really REALLY need the £££ that an additional livery would bring, then you need to bear several factors in mind, among them how will the new livery get on with the existing ones; also how another horse will fit into the existing herd, and this is where things could go very badly wrong IME. Coz horses can be flippin difficult things when they're presented with a new herd and if horses don't get on, friction between owners inevitably develops.

Do be very careful too of who you mix in with oldies. They (like people) tend to like predictability and you could send everything totally t!ts up by putting another horse in there. You've obviously got a good mix and personally I'd be hesitant to do anything to disrupt that.

Re. your spare stable/space...... just an idea; but maybe you could offer it as "storage" space or something? Could it be locked up to provide secure storage? Coz a lot of people want that. But you'd need to check with your house insurance, and check with them as to the value of what they're storing, also check out exactly WHAT they want to store (if you go this route) as we had someone here who wanted "storage" and it turned out he wanted to store about 20 calor gas bottles!!! Not flippin' likely.

Also..... sometimes if people are moving house, they may want somewhere just to bung things while they sort themselves out. So I don't know if there'd be any mileage in say putting a little advert out to see?

 

[horsehappy]

its just a matter of waiting for the right livery to come along- when we first opened our part/full livery yard we had lots of people wanting to come but i just didnt like them or think they would fit in so didnt let them come! yes its taken me 6 months to fill 10 stables (probably could have filled it in 6 weeks) but we have brill liveries- everyone is of the same mind set and gets along, no no-it-alls, no 'looking down on happy hackers types' and i can honestly say we have all become friends

just put an advert saying what you are offering, let people view but make it clear someone else looked at the stables earlier in the day then you can always say the stables been taken

good luck x

 

[ester]

only if the right person turns up . We have small yard and YO will only take on horses/people that she thinks will fit in the mix.

 

[MissGee]

Thanks everyone for all your help and advice - it certainly helps.

We (as with everyone eles) have had a terrible winter so have decided to shelve the idea, at least for the time being...