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

Honestly applecart if you think those prices are expensive it's not bad in comparison to what a livery yard near me wanted to charge me if i put my horse there. £400 a month for FULL livery. Ok not bad that is slightly higher than average for the area but it's a posh place.

But wait... I said full livery right? You would expect that to include mucking out, turn in turn out, rug change etc. No no no. They wanted an extra £7 a day for the privilege of doing that.

I could have understood if they were maybe just confused but diy livery existed there too and was £200 a month. But i am actually thinking maybe that didn't even include a stable... i have no idea as i left soon after hearing the prices. For a posh place too the stables were pretty disgusting looked like they hadn't been properly cleaned in a while and all of the fencing was just the white tape electric fencing. I knew my horse being the housing he is would escape that with little trouble so it's wasn't worth the price and potential problems.

Plus it was made clear that anytime they wanted your stable for an event going on they would be using it and your horse would be out over night. Might not have been an issue if they kept the place clean but what if someone uses my stable and the horse has strangles? I doubt they clean the stable after so that's my horse screwed.

So basically there are worse places.. you just don't go to them. I found a much nicer cleaner place and it's closer to home. And the horse can't escape from the fields as it's proper fencing.
 
rachk89 said:
Honestly applecart if you think those prices are expensive it's not bad in comparison to what a livery yard near me wanted to charge me if i put my horse there. £400 a month for FULL livery. Ok not bad that is slightly higher than average for the area but it's a posh place.

But wait... I said full livery right? You would expect that to include mucking out, turn in turn out, rug change etc. No no no. They wanted an extra £7 a day for the privilege of doing that.

I could have understood if they were maybe just confused but diy livery existed there too and was £200 a month. But i am actually thinking maybe that didn't even include a stable... i have no idea as i left soon after hearing the prices. For a posh place too the stables were pretty disgusting looked like they hadn't been properly cleaned in a while and all of the fencing was just the white tape electric fencing. I knew my horse being the housing he is would escape that with little trouble so it's wasn't worth the price and potential problems.

Plus it was made clear that anytime they wanted your stable for an event going on they would be using it and your horse would be out over night. Might not have been an issue if they kept the place clean but what if someone uses my stable and the horse has strangles? I doubt they clean the stable after so that's my horse screwed.

So basically there are worse places.. you just don't go to them. I found a much nicer cleaner place and it's closer to home. And the horse can't escape from the fields as it's proper fencing.
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Yes on the one side of us she charges £160 per week and the other side charges £220 (top sj). I was lucky enough to be on that £220 per week yard when the SJ was living abroad and he'd rented it out to a woman who let me stay on there for £65 per week, had to supply own hay and bedding and horse hardly ever went out in the paddock if there was a whiff of rain in the air and used to be put on the walker for two hours a day I later found out! However lovely indoor and outdoor school and derby field. Wasn't happy at the turnout so we sort of compromised and I think he went out three days a week for a while, but it was very weather dependent. She was a compulsive liar to boot and would tell me my horse had gone out to my face but when I questioned the groom he denied that he had saying "too wet, too wet"! Nightmare. Then one day she said she wanted my stable for full livery and hinted she wasn't making enough from me. Think she thought I would pay more to stay. Don't think she anticipated how quickly I would leave but I was off like a shot within two weeks. Six months later the stable was still empty! I moved next door which is where I am now and loving it! :)
 
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I must say that I get rather annoyed when people suggest YOs should work for peanuts. I have run yards, though as a manager rather than an owner. It is not unskilled labour as a previous poster suggested. I trained and did exams just like any professional. The hours are long, the work hard. It is a great responsibility looking after other peoples precious animal. We are expected to be vets, first aiders, managers, trainers, turnout experts, agony aunts, people pacifiers, child minders etc. Expenses are high- insurance, feed etc. But we do it because of our love of horses.
A solicitor can charge £80 an hour, the lowest wages for untrained people with no responsibility is nearly £9 an hour. A poster above suggested that £18 an hour (at £1.50 to pick out feet) is way too much to be paid. I dont think so, although I dont know any yard owners who actually get that much.
 
stormox said:
I must say that I get rather annoyed when people suggest YOs should work for peanuts. .
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I never said that for one minute.......
I know you work hard if you run a yard, and you often don't earn that much when you take into account rent for the yard, lighting, water, maintenance of fields/arena, etc, etc. I wouldn't do it unless it was a very big yard and I had a lot of money to plough into it (like if I won the lottery or something!) :)
 
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applecart14 said:
I never said that for one minute.......
I know you work hard if you run a yard, and you often don't earn that much when you take into account rent for the yard, lighting, water, maintenance of fields/arena, etc, etc. I wouldn't do it unless it was a very big yard and I had a lot of money to plough into it (like if I won the lottery or something!) :)
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Irony at it's best.
 
A genuine question as my horses are not on a livery yard.
I have 2 horses that spend 24/7 in a field together. If you ride one and leave the other they will shout for a bit and then go back to eating and then they might call a bit more but then they are absolutely fine by the time you get back from riding. Would this constitute a horse that can't be left out by itself in a field when you are on livery?
 
LouisCat - it's more like when there are 20 horses in surrounding fields and suddenly there are none because all the others have been taken in, that's when a horse can get really anxious and hurtle around the field. They get used to having all that protection around them.
 
ester said:
No? a horse that cannot be left on it's own runs itself ragged and ends up a drippy stressy mess :p
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Mostly due to stressy owners who will not leave them to settle again. Its just basic management I never had any horse you could not leave on its own. There is no need for it.
 
How long do you propose you leave them?

Bearing in mind mine is 23 and it isn't going to do him any good to run himself ragged at that age. I am curious, I have left him for fair periods of time given how long adrenaline takes to be reabsorbed by the system and never saw an improvement and when they were at home it was easy to observe from inside so they didn't know you were there, though arguably he was always much better if there was someone about on the yard.
 
popsdosh said:
Mostly due to stressy owners who will not leave them to settle again. Its just basic management I never had any horse you could not leave on its own. There is no need for it.
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Curious how long you would have left mine? He was left for 3 hours alone as I was at work and unaware that he was on his own. I am not a stress owner and will often leave them and see if they settle. In this case It resulted in an extremely stressed, white with sweat horse who kept break out sweating for hours afterward, coliced later that evening and from that day forwards panicked when you started bringing anything in and started coming through fencing if left for even a minute.

Leaving him was nothing short of cruel and certainly leaving him for 3 hours on his own was cruel and resulted in long term psychological damage to what had been a well adjusted little horse
 
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