Lack of response from Y.O's and cost of extras!

No sadly I can't review my supplements as he needs each one, two of which are for health reasons, and the other I have taken him off twice and he has reacted really badly behavioral wise so he cannot really be off that one either. He can't be bedded on straw for health reasons, my vet has said it would be unwise to do so. I have the same winter rugs that my previous horses had (even pts/died in) and live at home and Mum and Dad will not put my tack on their home and contents insurance. I am going to not bother insuring next January and save the money into an account for him instead. I do my best to save money, I have always been really careful with it, i.e. never had HP or a loan, or even a credit card. My bank literally had to force me to take a debit card :)
 
If you think these people are getting rich doing this - set up your own yard and run it - you can't afford that or don't have time? In that case you have to pay to do that and there is a price to having someone available to do the jobs you can't.
If you hired a free lance groom to do it it would cost more, if you don't have time to do the work, and can't afford to pay someone to do it then you need to review having a horse - DIY is priced so taht people do it themselves, if they did everyones 'quick' jobs it would soon add up to them doin ga lot of free labour!
 
sport horse said:
I think the 'real' cost of having someone available to carry out these odd tasks is not being appreciated. Assuming the yard employs someone full/part time, they have to pay NI and do a proper payroll - it is now quite complicated and I for one actually pay an accountant to run this payroll.

Regular staff are entitled to 28 days holiday per annum minimum by law. This has to be costed into any prices charged out to liveries.

Very soon anyone employing even one person will have to run a pension scheme for staff - that will cost.

So, are you expecting the YO themselves to be available, at any moment/day, to pick up the bits you do not want or are unable to do on a DIY basis? Why should they do that for no proper reward? They also should be declaring any such income for tax purposes.

Are you expecting freelance people to be available in each yard to pick up the bits that you find yourselves unable to do? Are you expecting such a person not to charge for their travel and time while travelling?

Are you expecting that all this work be done on the blackmarket? ie cash in hand with no tax being paid? That is illegal. A proper freelancer should be self employed and paying their tax etc.

DIY means Do it Yourself. If you cannot because you have work/ family commitments. then it should be part livery.
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Very well said. This is exactly the reason I now have to employ staff as the paperwork side of running a proper, legitimate yard now takes as much time as I used to spend on the yard. These are the hidden costs of running a yard that customers rarely, if ever, consider.
 
I just pay up to be honest. I put my horse on full livery during the week in winter so he gets put out and brought in with the others and his stable is done so I can enjoy riding (as much as you can at -10c).

I pay to get him put out at the weekend too as I like a lie in. Yes I am lazy but I pay their fees so they do it. I do his stable at the weekend and bring in sometimes bring in another horse if it's late to help them out.

They do a great service and the man who runs the place has pulled my horses mane and plaited it for free despite my horse dragging him and a teenage worker around the stable as he hates his mane being pulled (he did give up eventually when he realised they didn't care about what he was doing). I think for that the yard owner is a saint so yeah I will pay his prices. He actually once the night before a show plaited everyone's horses and tidied them up and i dont think he charged anyone. Yard owners like him are rare now I think.
 
I'm on DIY with assisted and pay £2.50 to have someone turnout or bring in which due to my job meaning I leave my house at 5am I think £12.50 a week on top of my regular bill is good value? Well its value to me as it saves me not only half hour of time driving to/from and the 10-15 mins at the yard at silly o'clock at least!
 
applecart14 said:
The chap that I spoke to all those years ago was just setting up the yard and we were in email conversation about me possibly being a livery. When I sent him a list of my requirements for my horse which were quite basic really (turnout, bring in, chuck a tub of hay over the door) he sent me a price list itemizing each item and other items as well. I emailed back and said I was sorry but felt he was too expensive for my needs and he replied that he had looked at other yards in the area and based his prices on that. I knew that was a lie, so I sent him a polite and chatty email back telling him how much they charged for the same thing at two other yards within a three mile radius. but still he felt he was justified in charging £3 for a tub of ready made up soaked hay to be chucked over the door, and an additional £1.50 for picking out a foot on top of the £2.00 he was already charging to bring the horse in! (On my previous yard I asked that they left my horse with legs unwashed and feet unpicked. They got the horses in at 3pm and I got there just after five pm by which time his legs were dried off and I could brush the mud off and save myself the money and pick out his feet too).

Anyway yesterday I rang the same chap (I had kept his phone number) just to see if he had found out through lack of liveries that his prices were indeed much too high and he informed me that the yard hadn't worked out and he had left and was now working in London. I am guessing it was because he was not competitive and his prices were too high which is what I had tried to tell him in the first place.

I will be considering part livery, but around here this can mean many things depending on the yard and person.
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If you use facebook, have a look on Warwickshire and Worcestershire Riders Page, there is a new yard opening, it looks nice from the pictures.
 
applecart14 said:
I expressed surprise in my initial post at the cost of extras that can bring a £38 DIY livery up to over £75 per week. I did not slate YO's (who have to earn a living) or anyone else for that matter. I personally would not have my own livery yard, I have seen to clear how people struggle to cope running them, and to make money.
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SusieT said:
If you think these people are getting rich doing this - set up your own yard and run it - you can't afford that or don't have time? In that case you have to pay to do that and there is a price to having someone available to do the jobs you can't.
If you hired a free lance groom to do it it would cost more, if you don't have time to do the work, and can't afford to pay someone to do it then you need to review having a horse - DIY is priced so taht people do it themselves, if they did everyones 'quick' jobs it would soon add up to them doin ga lot of free labour!
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Susie T I already stated I wouldn't run my own yard as I know how much things cost, read my replies before you rudely reply to me please.
Besides which I absolutely adore my present job and would not want to leave it for anything.
 
popsdosh said:
Im with you AA those that want DIY get what they want if you want more use part livery.

Im sorry to have to point out the obvious AC but you are the sort of owner who has led to a lot of YOs calling it a day to be honest you sound like a nightmare. If you run a DIY yard in all honesty you dont want to be doing all the extras thats the whole point of it. We used to run a DIY yard wih 35+ horses and to be honest the best day was the one when the last one left !!
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Totally unnecessary to call the OP a nightmare, how rude!!
 
applecart14 said:
Susie T I already stated I wouldn't run my own yard as I know how much things cost, read my replies before you rudely reply to me please.
Besides which I absolutely adore my present job and would not want to leave it for anything.
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I'm no sure that your are fully aware of the costs though, hence your unwillingnes/inability to understand why a primarily DIY yard charges a premium for supplying services and making themselves available during the working day. If the services you need equate to part livery, and that would work out cheaper, then I suspect that would be the best route for you.
 
YorksG said:
I'm no sure that your are fully aware of the costs though, hence your unwillingnes/inability to understand why a primarily DIY yard charges a premium for supplying services and making themselves available during the working day. If the services you need equate to part livery, and that would work out cheaper, then I suspect that would be the best route for you.
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YorksG

If you can honestly say hand on heart that you think that £3.50 to bring a horse in from a field (leave its rug on) and just pick out its feet is a good price here in the Midlands, and if you can honestly say that you would be happy to pay £3.00 for someone to throw a tub of wet hay (already bought from the yard and pre-wet by the yourself) and not even emptied out of the tub onto the floor but just dumped on top of the bed- then so be it, but I can't see how it should come to a surprise that most people would see that as a little pricey. That was all I was saying.

Oh, and none of the three YO's who I left messages have come back to me, two I left a second message with yesterday.

I am staying where I am until such time notice is given to us all and the house and yard is sold.
 
I'm surprised how many DIY YOs don't seem to want to do services. I appreciate not everyone does but all yards Ive been on services have been offered as standard and most people made use of them. I pay to have my horse brought in every morning to help with his weight and skin issues and pay £2.50 for him to be brought in and fly sheet/mask off. I also pay for 2 full livery days in the winter to give me 2 days a week to spend with family/friends. I pay a premium for it, but I'm happy to do so as I feel it's a fair arrangement. I imagine it would be a good earner for those who run a yard themselves, assuming of course that is their main source of income.
 
£3.50 for a bring in (sans rug change) and pick out feet seems reasonable to me on the basis that 1/ YO has to ensure their presence at the yard at bring in time. 2/ The act of brining in can be risky, ditto, picking out fee.

If you work on the basis that the walk to the field, catch horse, bring in, settle in stable and pick out feet might take 5-10 minutes (if no shennanigans) factoring in the risk and inconvenience factor then I'd say £3.50 is about right.

£3 for chucking in a mde up feed I do think abit steep but if it saved me getting up to feed my own horse then I'd pay for the convenience.
 
Wow I do DIY. I used to go up twice a day and feed and turnout, then the YO offered to put mine out for a small charge on my weekly livery as mine was going out at 6.30am and the rest weren't happy he was being fed and turned out without them. I leave a feed, he is fed, turned out then brought in with the others at night in winter as YO prefers not to leave a horse out even though he and My horse are fine with it.

I wouldn't class this as assisted livery as its at his convenience. Yes I pay for it ( a very small amount) but he isn't changing rugs or doing anything other than tossing a feed bucket over a door and the putting a horse in a field.

As usual people are berating others just because their understanding of a term isn't the same as theirs. Part livery to me isn't going to be the same as someone else, neither is full and I worked in a full livery yard for years.
 
Stockers said:
£3 for chucking in a mde up feed I do think abit steep but if it saved me getting up to feed my own horse then I'd pay for the convenience.
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It was during the day when I was at work not when I wanted a lie in. And it wasn't a made up feed that saved me getting up to do my horse, it was hay that he needed during the day whilst stood in the stable after coming in from the field overnight i.e. his lunch time hay.
 
saddlesore said:
I'm surprised how many DIY YOs don't seem to want to do services
......assuming of course that is their main source of income.
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^^ this. May be a bit of an assumption. My yard is on a working farm, the YO has another unrelated business and also mucks in with the farm. She will do services with a bit of advance notice (like if I have to stay away for work) or in an emergency, but it might not be exactly at the time I'd prefer etc... because she has other responsibilities.

but the clue's in the name - it's a DIY yard ;) I'm supposed to do it meself :lol:
 
applecart14 said:
YorksG

If you can honestly say hand on heart that you think that £3.50 to bring a horse in from a field (leave its rug on) and just pick out its feet is a good price here in the Midlands, and if you can honestly say that you would be happy to pay £3.00 for someone to throw a tub of wet hay (already bought from the yard and pre-wet by the yourself) and not even emptied out of the tub onto the floor but just dumped on top of the bed- then so be it, but I can't see how it should come to a surprise that most people would see that as a little pricey. That was all I was saying.

.
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I guess in depends on how they structure their prices. Yards I've been on have a fixed charge for bring in/turnouts which includes feet picked out, legs washed off, rugs changed, putting on/taking off turnout boots etc. You effectively pay for that enhanced service whether you use it or not. Prices between £2.50 and £4.00.

I know of one which charges a lower bring in/turnout price with add on charges for feet picking out, rugs, boots and leg washing, which would be better for someone like you but this approach seems less common round here than the all in approach.

So at the weekends (when it's a higher rate) I do pay £3.50 for a catch in, but it would include giving feed and for the one that needs it, soaking his hay before putting the net in as well as any combination of rugs etc I decide to use.
 
Although it hasn't really resolved the OPs issue, this is an interesting thread. To me personally, I'd pay more for some kind of enhanced DIY livery- If I could buy the elements that i needed such as bring in change rugs and give (pre-made) evening feed it would take a lot of pressure and worry off me in the winter months. We tend to do do favours for each other at our yard, it mostly works well for everyone.

Hope the yard search (when it resumes) goes well and that you find a place that suits you! It is a minefield out there!
 
applecart14 said:
It was during the day when I was at work not when I wanted a lie in. And it wasn't a made up feed that saved me getting up to do my horse, it was hay that he needed during the day whilst stood in the stable after coming in from the field overnight i.e. his lunch time hay.
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You can't be there, though. It isn't an unreasonable cost if he has a captive audience who rely on him to do it. He has to stop what he was working on, traipse to your stable and throw the hay in. TBH I'd just give him a bigger double netted net.
 
Another take on it could be what's the equivalent cost in your own time?
For example, I've asked my groom to feed and move the electric fence on saturday morning so I can have a bit of a lie in and only make one visit to the yard.
I'm on a tight budget so considered whether I wanted to pay £5 for what will be 15/20 mins for the groom to do (including her travel time) as it's not essential to have her do it and it's easily done myself. However, if I add in the 20 minutes each way plus the 5/10 minutes on the yard, it definitely works out to more than £5, so it's cheaper than doing it myself. But it's more of a tangible cost than fuel (which is already in my car) and my time (although I earn more than £5 in 50 minutes) as I don't pay myself, and that's why it seems expensive.
When you're short on time and cash, you need to work out how much of your routine you can alter to do things yourself and how much you can't and therefore suck up the costs of having some-one else doing it for you when you can't.
 
milliepops said:
^^ this. May be a bit of an assumption. My yard is on a working farm, the YO has another unrelated business and also mucks in with the farm. She will do services with a bit of advance notice (like if I have to stay away for work) or in an emergency, but it might not be exactly at the time I'd prefer etc... because she has other responsibilities.

but the clue's in the name - it's a DIY yard ;) I'm supposed to do it meself :lol:
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Ha, ha, ha, very funny. You are actually incorrect. There is DIY and there is assisted DIY. DIY is purely you do everything yourself. Assisted means that you get help with turnout or bring in. I have never been on a purely DIY yard and never would.
 
9tails said:
You can't be there, though. It isn't an unreasonable cost if he has a captive audience who rely on him to do it. He has to stop what he was working on, traipse to your stable and throw the hay in. TBH I'd just give him a bigger double netted net.
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Well like I have explained about ten times I never went to the yard because of the extortionate costs, which everyone I spoke to agreed were extortionate. I would have given him a net or even a bigger net but the yard I was at previously insisted on tying nets about an inch above the floor which is why I used tubs there and why I wanted to go forwards, because I don't trust people to tie nets safely, you'd be amazed at how many tie onto hay racks for example, or stable bars and don't use a thinned out piece of twine. Either that or they don't tie the string through the bottom ring of the net and the horse tugs on the net and the net gets torn.
 
applecart14 said:
Well like I have explained about ten times I never went to the yard because of the extortionate costs, which everyone I spoke to agreed were extortionate. I would have given him a net or even a bigger net but the yard I was at previously insisted on tying nets about an inch above the floor which is why I used tubs there and why I wanted to go forwards, because I don't trust people to tie nets safely, you'd be amazed at how many tie onto hay racks for example, or stable bars and don't use a thinned out piece of twine. Either that or they don't tie the string through the bottom ring of the net and the horse tugs on the net and the net gets torn.
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If you can't trust people to tie a Hay net, I would say your only option is DIY.

Personally £2-3 to bring in and save me the journey is pennies, but if it is regular you should look at part livery, or DIY and find a freelancer to do the rest.
 
applecart14 said:
Ha, ha, ha, very funny. You are actually incorrect. There is DIY and there is assisted DIY. DIY is purely you do everything yourself. Assisted means that you get help with turnout or bring in. I have never been on a purely DIY yard and never would.
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good for you. However, my response was to another poster as quoted, wondering why DIY YOs don't do more services. It was just to mention that some YOs have other businesses and aren't available all day - that's why they run DIY yards.

I quite agree that assisted DIY is different... but that's not what the post was about, by definition.
 
applecart14 said:
YorksG

If you can honestly say hand on heart that you think that £3.50 to bring a horse in from a field (leave its rug on) and just pick out its feet is a good price here in the Midlands, and if you can honestly say that you would be happy to pay £3.00 for someone to throw a tub of wet hay (already bought from the yard and pre-wet by the yourself) and not even emptied out of the tub onto the floor but just dumped on top of the bed- then so be it, but I can't see how it should come to a surprise that most people would see that as a little pricey. That was all I was saying.

Oh, and none of the three YO's who I left messages have come back to me, two I left a second message with yesterday.

I am staying where I am until such time notice is given to us all and the house and yard is sold.
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It would cost me considerably more than that to have hay put in at lunch time, as I would have to pay a freelance groom to travel to our yard (no public transport), do the job and travel to their home again. The issue is that if you can't do it yourself, for whatever reason, then you are somewhat at the mercy of the YO and you are paying for their availability, each working day.
 
YorksG said:
It would cost me considerably more than that to have hay put in at lunch time, as I would have to pay a freelance groom to travel to our yard (no public transport), do the job and travel to their home again. The issue is that if you can't do it yourself, for whatever reason, then you are somewhat at the mercy of the YO and you are paying for their availability, each working day.
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Dont you know they are sitting about doing nothing ,waiting for the next opportunity to earn a few pence!!
 
The problem with assisted DIY is that they are never going to know who is going to use their services and when. Some days no-one may require any services but someone would still have to be there and be paid to be to there in case someone did need something. The price has to take into consideration days where not much assistance is required and the groom still has to be paid even though there is no income from assistance.

Yards with high prices for assistance may be yards where not many people normally require help so they have to keep the prices for assistance at a rate that covers the costs of someone being there in case someone needs assistance. Alternatively they make keep assisted prices high to deter people from asking for too much help if they don't want to offer much assistance or to encourage people to take up part livery where it is easier to work out what is going to be needed and when and easier to allocate staff time.

If you know you are going to have the same routine of assistance every week then you might be able to negotiate a better deal than if you use ad hoc services as the yard will know that the income is going to be coming in on those days. If you are able to plan so you have the same assistance each week you could see if you could pay a set price, for example if you know you need turnout out every day five days a week then they give you a weekly all inclusive price but with this you might still have to pay the price even if some days you could turn out yourself for example if you were on annual leave.
 
On the general topic or DIY vs. assisted DIY ...

I think (and am sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong!) that many yards are purely DIY and don't offer extras because they are part of a farm and are allowed to rent out livery space for DIYers ... but these days, if they start offering 'services' (even turning a horse out) their business rate would change?

If this is true, I presume if a yard does offer assisted livery places or charge 'extras', they're either banking on no one saying anything, or have registered a change of use with the local authority along with gaining any relevant permissions ...

May well be wrong, but just mulling it over ...
 
There are insurance implications as well. DIY yard insurance is much cheaper as the YO is not responsible for horse care. As soon as you start offering services (assistance, part, full) then the YO has some to all responsibility for the horse and the yard insurance increases.

I don't offer DIY but if I did my insurance cost would go down as I would be responsible for fewer horses. It also goes up the more horses are under one person (usually ok up to about 6/7 then it gets crazy as they want you to hire someone to spread responsibility) so assistance for one YO on a yard of 20 horses can make a huge insurance bill compared to pure DIY.
 
Nearly all the yards I have been on (including one on a farm) don't hire staff and provide services directly. The yard manager is self employed and offers a service to the liveries directly. So it means each month I pay a stable rent to the yard and then a separate payment for livery services to the ym.
 
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