Horses in a herd at livery- very large herd

It doesn't sound great for a DIY yard TBH. There are things that could help mitigate the issues, for instance a well-surfaced gateway area with a double gate "air-lock" type arrangement, but I would want a lot of re-assurance about how they manage things.

I used to work at a trekking yard that kept about 40 horses out in a big mixed herd on a large area very successfully, but they were a pretty stable herd and did everything together. They mostly only worked in summer when the whole herd came in together into the huge indoor school each morning, any that were wanted for work or needed attention were grabbed and stabled / stalled, and then the rest went back out. They were never rugged and were only shod when in work, so not over winter. They had normal stables / turnout paddocks for any that needed attention, rugging, extra hay etc.
 
I had that sort of set up as a kid. Riding stables, nearly everything lived out all year round. You got your horse in when you wanted to ride. 5 or 6 huge fields and it could take a while to find your horse and you always rode in bareback as you couldn't be bothered to walk. There was enough space that the horses formed sub groups of maybe half a dozen or so and very few injuries as there was enough space for horses to keep away from each other if they needed to. It was very muddy by the gates, liquid at some times, but no horse had any wish to hang around in the mud when there was perfect good grass elsewhere and you made sure you had good wellies to walk through.
 
It can work really well if set up well.

I know a trekking stables in Exmoor, herd of 30-40 that live out in a huge field. Each morning the yard staff call and the whole herd comes in together, loose, and each horse goes to its own stable for its breakfast.

My two geldings were, for six months, kept in a 30 acre field with 11 other geldings and 7 cattle. It was really interesting watching the herd dynamics and who played with who, and who paired up, and they didn't go feral, the horses were brought in for feed each day and I was easily able to catch mine to take them out for a ride too. The other owners were all sensible/laidback/like me, and that translated to our horses and that's one of the reasons it worked well. We didn't have any drama queens (equine or human or bovine).
 
I've been on one yard that was also a riding school where there were about 30+ of them generally all out together with the odd exception including RS horses, liveries and YOs own horses. In winter liveries & most of YOs horses came in overnight but RS horses stayed out with about 4 big hay rings in a "sacrifice field" that were refilled twice a week. In summer pretty much everything was out 24/7 and rotated around 3 or 4 big fields (or occasionally all of them were opened up). They generally all tended to stay together in winter but if they had access to several fields in summer then sometimes they would break into little groups. In Summer apart from it being a PITA physically going and finding them there was very little drama with regards to taking horses in and out (apart from that my pony at the time liked to go feral!) In winter they tended to line up at the gate and you had to bring the ones nearest in first to avoid being mobbed. There were field injuries but I wouldn't say the number was excessive for the number of horses and not all of them could be attributed to the other horses.

I'm currently on a yard where there's probably about 20 odd to 30 horses depending on time of year / people and horses coming and going. I'm currently the only livery although there's been up to about 6 of us at times but this does mean that as the rest of the horses belong to YO and his family they are quite a stable herd and a lot of them have lived roughly in the same herd since birth (He has other fields he sometimes sends some of them to for extra grazing / friends that he lends the odd companion horse to). At least half of them live out 24/7 year round. Some are in work, some aren't and there's a broad spread of ages (from a few less than a year old to one in her 20s (I think?) and breeds (Most are cobs but there's also a Cyldesdale, various types of Welsh pony, a few cows and a donkey and sometimes a few sheep as well, oh and the local deer population makes an appearance from time to time!) The only time I've had an issue with injury was when a gelding was introduced that had not long been cut and was a bit of a rude pest tbh. Mine took it upon himself to become sworn enemies and would actively seek out this other horse to have it out with despite them having about 70 acres in which to avoid each other... it did calm down after a few weeks and they did learn to tolerate each other before the other horse wound up getting sold anyway (they did end up being in separate fields next to each other for a little while which seemed to help them get over it) Nothing serious occurred, just lots of little cuts and kick marks on both sides! I don't tend to have issues extracting pony from herd unless he's playing the "I don't want to be caught" game although I do sometimes get his little gang of friends following me to the gate demanding his return!
 
Just to add to the above the first yard I was on about was compulsory full livery in winter so the gate hog issue was mainly avoided as the gate hogs just used to come in first and then the staff would go and get everything else in. I can see that groups of that number where everyone's on DIY and they all do have to come in overnight turning into a bit of a nightmare if you're one of the earlier people to bring in (only way around it I can think of is for the yard to bring them all up as one herd at a set time as part of livery package or for a decent no of them to be living out and happy about it.)

I've actually had more issues with gateways at yards where the horses are in small groups on DIY strangely as the horses waiting KNOW they're coming in soon and unless I was one of last down I couldn't do much other than try and chase them away for enough time to get mine out
 
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