huge livery ask!

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purdypig

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Hi guys,first post!
I am considering setting up a livery yard/riding school.
And I'm also considering a tack shop.
If I am honest I would like both😂
Obviously I can't.
If you have any experience in any of these please comment any advice,help or perks or anything of either job:) thankyou very much x
 
I have money, but it won't be a posh yard or anything. It will start on a field ect. Just want the practicalities of it, is it a drag? The tack shop,I have found a nearby commerical propety to rent
 
I hope you have lots of money, if you do be prepared to spend plenty of it, if you don't then you will find it difficult to get any of the ideas started.
Riding schools have very high overheads and tough to start up, livery is not too bad if you have good facilities in place and are in a good area, tack shops are losing out to online shopping so unless there is a real need it would be a lot of expense to set up and have every chance of failing within the first 12 months like so many new businesses do.

Do your research, have a good business plan and make sure you don't throw too much money at it.
 
I'm going to have to have a think, and the pros&cons as having both is my fantasy. I most likely will not get either.✋
 
I'd think about the business rates. Council tax is complex for these things. I.e commercial space is split into storage or office space and rateable value per sq ft is different.

You say a nearby commercial property - is it an A1 classified space? If not using it as a shop is difficult and requires planning permission to change usage.
 
It's not just the money for a livery yard, you never have a day off, you are responsible for everything, nobody will look after the place as well as you, the list goes on. Do you have any friends with livery yards? I think the tack shop would be a better business idea. Have your own private yard with maybe space for a select friend or two
 
Running a livery can be very expensive and extremely time consuming. If you run DIY, you have to manage different people, all of whom will have different ways of doing things. If you do rest/retirement livery as I do or a standard full livery, you have to do everything. I have 9 horses here and it's just me looking after them and it is doable for me around a full time job, but ONLY because I can work from home. If I had to go out to open a shop for a particular time, it just wouldn't work. You are not just responsible for horses, you are responsible for someone else's horses, so there's no feeling a bit rough on a Sunday morning and being a bit late going to do them as people are paying you for a service and it is your responsibility to stick to the agreed terms. For me, that's 4 daily checks, at least one of which involves removal of rugs (or feeling under and running hands all over if it's too wet) to keep an eye on their condition and check for any nicks, cuts or bite/kick injuries. They're a well established herd now but I still check every day. At least one check a day involves checking the feet and picking out as necessary. Every day means one good field check, which means a good 25 minute walk around the edge of the field to check the fencing and hedging and make sure it's all ok. It might not sound like a lot to do, but it HAS to be done and when you've had a few winter months of horrid weather, the fields are wet, it's driving rain or gale force winds and it all looks ok from the gate, it can be easy to just put it off, but you really can't do that.

If...and that's a big IF, the horses are all fine and the fence is all fine, the big check takes me about 70 minutes in the morning and the other 3 checks take about 20 minutes each unless I need to do anything extra. That's just the 5 boys. The other 4 also have 4 x daily checks and they take up about 2.5 hours of the day in total. So, that's over 4.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, whatever the weather at a bare minimum to look after them all. If one rips a rug and decides he doesn't want to be caught, but the weather is about to turn, then if you have to stay in the field for 4 hours until you can catch the horse, you have to do that. If one decides he's a houdini and has got out of his rug before you do late checks, it's dark, driving rain and you can't find the rug and he's a clipped horse, you have to be prepared to handle a wound up, cold 17.1hh warmblood that doesn't want to leave his friends to get him to the stable for the night, dried off and settled despite it being 10pm.

I'm not for one second trying to say that you can't or won't be able to do all of that and more OP...not at all, plenty of people do...but I do know through well over 30 years of experience in the horse world that many many people think running a livery is fairly easy. It really isn't. It's actually very hard to make money and if I worked out how much I get from it...it comes to approx £120 a month. Luckily, I'm not in it for the money, but it's a serious consideration. If you want to make money, you're going to need to spend lots to start with as grass livery starting with a field will make you next to nothing.

It's definitely something that can be done, but you need to research really well, do the sums, work stuff out and take it from there.

Good luck and remember to factor in all of the associated costs to safeguard yourself and the horses.
 
Thank you all.
I have a friend who started hers with 10 acres. One acre was the yard, 2 acres were riding fields and 7 were turnout. On the yard acre there was ty-ups, stables, portacabins and things. NOT luxury but got £25 a week from 10 people and didn't cost a fortune to run.
Probs not suitable tho ahaha
 
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