How much would you pay.....

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horsefeed

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I run a small yard and wondered how much people would expect to pay for this type of set up....

* No stables but have few different yard areas/pens all with a shelter of at least 12x12 (apart from 1 which I use for 1 of mine or a hold pen at feed times etc)

* Each yard has self filling water trough

* 8 horses and 2 donkeys in total on yard so very small

* biggest herd is 6, then 3 and 1 on his own due to special dietary requirements.

* some tackroom storage, each person gets small chestfreezer each and saddle rack, happy for people to buy and put up own shed as have room for that.

* Adlib haylage provided when in yards which is stored outside

* Caravan for tea/coffee etc which I normally supple

* 1 small feed provided a day which consists of 1 scoop soaked beet, 1 scoop budget pony nuts and 1 small cup linseed. Storage if owner wants to buy own or add to this.

* Turnout weekdays for a minimum of 4 hours (no haylage fed in field during this time as just so muddy get trambled in and wasted) There is some grass left and field changes when runs out.

* Every owner is reasonable for all the yard chores for all 10 - 1 week day a week which saves everyone fuel and time if they want a days off.

*Everyone meets saturday and sundays and does chores together

* If you are a busy owner it is possible to only come down 3 days a week so yes on 1 day you do everything but then save you 4 days.

* No school or anywhere to ride when dark

* tiny gravel area which you can lunge on up to trot to keep ticking over during week along with turnout

* Reasonable to good hacking once you get off a very busy road

* Based Wiltshire, just north of Swindon

How much?
 
I have no idea what you could charge but it could prove difficult to find someone on those terms, you are expecting someone competent enough to deal with 10 other horses, turning out and getting in, albeit only once in the week, the new horses need to fit in well as living in a yard and sharing a small shelter can be risky, there is access to a very busy road so not suited to anyone nervous, young or worried about traffic.
I think you may need to be a bit more flexible as not many people have a free day during the week to commit to looking after the yard, to muck out that lot while they are turned out for at least 4 hours means being there a fair part of the day, most like to see to their own every day rather than leave them to others however busy they are, you may be better doing DIY or a full livery rather than a bit of both with the risk that someone is either unreliable or not capable and something goes pear shaped while you are not there.
 
Same as BP from my perspective. If it was me, I'd baulk at having to do 10; as I'm working there is no chance of that being a possibility and it's a lot of responsibility as well. Plus you're relying on others doing your horse the way you would.

I think this set up would work well for people who were already good mates (or family perhaps) as there would need to be flexibility.

Round here, on a DIY basis for just the yard/haylage with no school you'd be looking at £20 per week to poss £25 based on adlib haylage - I know that's not much, but you can get part livery with a good school and adlib haylage for £40.
 
I think will all the facilities you're looking at about £25-£30 a week, maybe more depending on the location! If its quite near the city it might be more, how far away is it from the city or a busy street? X
 
Agree with be positive. Especially as most people want to see and ride their horse more than once per week they will be at the yard anyway, so might as well do chores every day rather than once a week for lots of horses. Perhaps you could rearrange it so that people once have to come once per day and not twice, so they cover for each other either morning or evening? Many friendly DIY yards seem to end up with this sort of rota, either formally or informally.

Also I think the feed on offer is restrictive and many people will want an alternative - are you prepared to reduce the bill if they supply their own?

Apologies and I will admit I am wrong if you already have liveries who like this set up but I don't know anyone who would go for this... especially with the busy road thrown in and no school. Sorry. Maybe you could get it to work for some sort of retirement livery where most of the owners don't want to either hack or school?
 
Sorry not very clear, I have an agreement with 1 of the liveries (also my cousin) who works 5 mins away in a riding school she brings them all in every day during the week when she finishes work so always get 4 hours sometimes 6 or 7.
The biggest herd has a 12ftx30ft shelter and 20x30ft yard in front, so herd size is adapted to size of yard and shelter.
The haylage is put in bale at time so no topping that up most days. So it is literally poo picking 10 horses one day a week, hard feeds and then turning them out. Also because different owners horses share same space doing 1 day a week works out fairest way to make sure everyone does same amount of poo-pickin.
I can comfortable get poo picked (8 barrows a day on average), horses feed and 2 lunged in hour and half.
I am already full so not looking for more liveries, I have 3 lovely liveries that do day each plus i do 2 days in week and the 4th livery brings in everyday.
I just want to check what I am charging as I think I am undercharging and I am increasingly struggling to cover costs but I don't want to overprice myself. So wondered what people would expect to pay for this?
I charge under 14.2 £20 a week, under 15.2hh £25 week and over 15.2 £30 a week
 
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You already have liveries so it obviously works for some people.

If you are struggling to cover costs then you can't be charging enough.

Charging my height doesn't really work because a smaller pony may be a pig ans eat more haylage than a larger one.

I'd charge a fixed rate per horse.
Easily £20 per week plus.
Then charge haylage on top of that, just count up how many are used and decide it put the amount of horses in that barn.

Plus you need to take in to account the hard feed which soon adds up!
 
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I think at those rates you probably barely cover the haylage, most can get through almost bale a week if adlib and they are in a fair amount, add bedding, feed and time then you will be struggling to cover costs in the winter. The scoop of nuts will be the best part of a bag each week per horse, it is an unusual arrangement that works for you but it needs to be cost effective, some small ponies could eat as much as a big horse, if in together I think a flat rate would be fair, I would give the under 14.2s less feed and a discount, possibly, otherwise a flat rate of £30- 35 per animal.
 
I think you maybe sightly under charging as the facilities you have seem good. At my local yard lots of teenagers help out for free, as they just want to be around horses! If you would like help, you could maybe but some signs up!


At my local yard it's £75 a week!! So much of a difference.


If you got the time and the right amount of money, you could get a indoor arena. And believe me you will be able to charge much more!


I think you could put your prices up £5-£10 per category.
 
For full grass livery, ad lib haylage, with access to a barn, stables and floodlit school with great hacking, feed included, I paid £49 per week. So minus the school, stables, etc, I would say £30 a week is definitely fair. And I would agree with a flat rate, rather than staggered for size.
 
I brought haylage at a very very good price and my dad has petshop so feed is all at cost (luckily), I get through 1 bag of beet, 3 mix and 1/3 bag of linseed a week, if I take my fuel costs into account as well I cover my costs and keep my own horses slightly cheaper then I would as other allow me to bulk buy.
To be honest all pay me £20 at the moment as all under 14.2hh, I was thinking of increasing to £22 a week in spring and then £25 in autumn, do you think this would be fair as I can't increase it too much in 1 go? 1 livery has 2 horses which would add £40 a month on to there bill this is quite a big jump
 
horsefeed said:
I brought haylage at a very very good price and my dad has petshop so feed is all at cost (luckily), I get through 1 bag of beet, 3 mix and 1/3 bag of linseed a week, if I take my fuel costs into account as well I cover my costs and keep my own horses slightly cheaper then I would as other allow me to bulk buy.
To be honest all pay me £20 at the moment as all under 14.2hh, I was thinking of increasing to £22 a week in spring and then £25 in autumn, do you think this would be fair as I can't increase it too much in 1 go? 1 livery has 2 horses which would add £40 a month on to there bill this is quite a big jump
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I would prefer to have one increase. Multiple increases means you never know when another one might come!! I'd increase in one go.
 
It won't work regardless of facilities or anything else. You cannot ask other liveries to deal with horses that do not belong to them unless each horse has comprehensive insurance because accidents will happen and the proverbial will hit the fan when somebody gets hurt by a horse that they do not own. In the same vein what happens when a rude horse rips away from a novice handler and the horse is hurt.

We live in a (bet I can't spell this) litigious world and I honestly think your plan is a recipe for disaster.
 
I would be very happy with the setup if each person was responsible for their own horse and poo picking daily, rather than different people doing them all different days. I would rather provide my own hard feed (or not in my horse's case).
 
How would you insure every owner does fair share of poo-picking when all horses are together?
Hard feed is a token gesture really for for what I charge most owners add there own Alfa A or Mix/balancer to it existing feed.
 
Like Honey the setup would be ok for my needs and is similar to what I do with my ponies now (all five in a large yard with shelter at night, field during the day), but it's more suited to a person with multiple horses ponies so they rent a complete pen and then do their own.

I wouldn't be willing to do others as well, on 'their' day do they do morning and evening? Nor would I want a get together at the weekend as I have other things to do

I imagine from the responses so far that the pool of clients who would fit in with these quite restrictive terms would be small and as such that limits what you can charge. I think £20 is very cheap with adlib haylage, £30 sounds more reasonable.
 
Question - what bedding do you use and how do you work out the charges?

One of the five in my group isn't mine and I never know what to charge her for her share of the bedding in the shelter!
 
Hmmm a rather complicated set up and I certainly wouldn't want to poo pick and turn out 10 horses on my day off......but obviously works for some.

It is also not grass livery and they are 'yard bound' for long periods but appreciate you are providing haylage and basic feed.

Without additional facilities such as a stable per horse. manege etc, I would think £25 - £30 per week tops.

Re the bedding I suppose you would need to work out what the annual cost for the shelter is per year, then divide this by 5, giving you an idea of what to charge.

How does your insurance work if a livery got injured by somone else's horse? Do you insist they all have their own insurance, as could be a legal minefield if a serious accident occured.....
 
As a comparison, the yards I know that offer hay as part of the livery package charge a) £43/week (but they do have a school and are not on a busy road) and b) £41; again they have good facilities and hacking.
 
I use bark over well draining hardcore so we just remove poo off the top and rarely disturb underneath, top them up once maybe twice a year and cost me £50 for tipper full so it a tiny cost. I also use a little straw in my shelter for a vetran as warmer to lay on.
We have been doing this for about 2 years now, liveries are either family or very good friends, we all have insurance individually. It seems to be working this thread was mostly to work out whether what I was charging was fair.
 
I pay £35 a week for two schools (one indoor, one outdoor) regular weekend shows, all year turnout, stables AND that includes my hay or haylege.

I wouldn't want to pay more than £15 a week.
(No offence, just my personal opinion)
 
I think it sounds like a nice set up for the horses, and a nice idea for the owners although wouldn't be for me personally. I don't know how any DIY type yard can operate charging less than £30pw and thats not accounting for money to go into the place for repairs etc. Cost of livery, at least up here, has gone up considerably in the last few years as people were running at a loss and could no longer afford to, particularly with the run of bad harvests we had.

Having your horses at somewhere you are happy is worth paying for IMO, chat with your liveries and stick prices up £5 or £10 pw. Can you do winter prices versus summer prices?
 
It wouldnt be a set up I would use but as you have happy liveries the only way forward is to ask them, as if they are happy they will pay a bit more and you can discuss with them what you want to do. I think you are already expensive year round for what you are offering but that is probably just me Mine live out 24/7 on well drained grassy fields I have one livery that I used to own so it is in my view a cheap deal for her as it is on full grass livery all feed, hay and poo picking included for 100 per calender month All she has to do is ride. even provide holding for the vet and farrier and rug checking and all care while she is away. So at the most I would only pay a max of 100 per calender month All this lot are free range and I wouldnt want mine penned especially if more than 2 were sharing a shelter and I pay for the field rent out of that and provide tack as It is my pony's tack she is using
 
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There is a yard not far from me that has the same set up and it's £90 per month. All horses are checked on twice a day and it's all done on a rota system so one person checks on all horses on their day.
They've got around 40 acres to ride round.
Sounds like a good set up and if it was a little bit closer, it would suit me.
 
Sounds lovely until u state responsible for all horses 1 day a week, 2 problems, I wouldn't have time round work for more than my own and I wouldn't want anyone else looking after mine in return - may need more flexibility to appeal.
 
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