Letter of the Week H&H Magazine

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Does anyone else think they are having a laugh??!!! At £110 per week 'clients don't want to pay what they should for livery' how much do they think people earn?
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I am both a full time groom and a paying livery at another yard but I don't think there are many jobs outside the horse world (except lawyers, vets, footballers etc...) that provide wages to accommodate this sort of price for livery, let alone more - or is it a North/South thing? I'm sorry but if livery yards start thinking they're owed this kind of money they're not going to stay in buisness very long. As for their poorly paid staff, my bet is they're not paying them enough because they're spending all the livery money on competition entries and on tons of horses of their own - only a guess though based on past experience. Interested to know what other people think.
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I can tell you that a friend of mine pays a hell of a lot more than £110 a week. I do actually think that that is more than reasonable - if cheap.........
 
Mine is full livery, but no excerise. TBH I think it's a reasonable price, but I have excellent facilities and care. Having had my horse on DIY mostly, by the time I paid DIY then added on everything else along with petrol time etc, there's not a great deal in it.
 
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At £110 per week 'clients don't want to pay what they should for livery' how much do they think people earn?

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If providing a quality livery service, with staff paid a reasonable wage, and proprietor owning the premises, anything less than £100 cannot be profitable for a equine business.
A DIY rental box can cost £25-£35 a week, then add on forage, bedding. feed, etc so £50 a week basic DIY costs.
A tenner a day for all the work involved is cheap.
If they charge less, they won't stay in business very long, as their outgoings will exceed thier income
 
I think £110 is very cheap and agree that full livery charge doesn't really reflect the true and reasonable cost.
If you take your car for a service you might get away with a labour charge of £35 an hour plus parts.
So lets assume that the livery yard has to spend 45 minutes per day on a horse. Thats 5 1/4 hours or in garage terms £183.75 just for labour. Add in cost of feed/hay etc and £200 a week starts to seem reasonable to me.
 
Cost is not just determined by what *most* people can pay, it's determined by the cost of providing the goods and services involved. Yes, there are market forces but they tend to act more on quality and profit margins - you can't just phone up your feed merchant/energy provider/insurance company and say "give me the same grain/power/coverage at a lower price because my liveries are complaining about costs." You can buy less, take lower quality or go without to bring down costs but then that will be passed on, too.

Plus, profit should be an expectation - otherwise what's the incentive to stay in business? What it gets spent on is one's own business. Would anyone like it if their boss suggested less pay because they have "extra" to "waste" on a horse . . . ?
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No one has speicfied if this is full, part or DIY livery for £110.

I can get full liver for around £80 per month without exercise in my area. DIY is generally £15 per week.

But you can pay up to £45 per week DIY depending on the location and facilities.

If its DIY then its a rip off but for full livery then its not!
 
The posh equestrian centre down the road charges £165/week for full livery (that includes 4x exercise sessions weekly, plus grooming, plus tack-cleaning). They have very good facilities, regualr competitons, etc, and are chock-a-block full. .

I don't think you have to earn a corporate lawyer's salary to be able to affford £110/week for livery, plenty of people seem to manage it and the country isn't awash with lawyers.
 
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No one has speicfied if this is full, part or DIY livery for £110.


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It was for full livery - including excercising - on (what I read to be) a competition yard - or at the very least where competition horses are kept.
 
I'm on a well run yard, with competant staff, large all weather outdoor and sensible year round turnout - part livery £56 per week, full livery (no exercise) £68 per week. Maybe I'm just lucky but I'm shocked at these prices that are nearly double and I'm surprised many people can afford them.
 
I've paid £120 per week for full livery and up to £250 a week for full livery including exercise (by someone that can ride lol) so £110 sounds very reasonable/verging on cheap to me!
 
I haven't read the replies, so I don't know what everyone else is saying, but where I am from, £110 is probably quite cheap for Full Livery. Around my way, a good yard offering Full Livery, exercise etc, would be about £150.

And a lot more than lawyers, footballers etc, earn enough to maintain that sort of cost.
 
In Surrey...that would be cheap!!! I tend to only go by monthly prices...so not sure how that is worked out.
I have paid £800 a month before now...that was years ago as well...and yes it did break the bank and I was being ripped off and I left!!!
 
What is considered full livery varies so much. I am wondering if it gets to mean less for your money the further north you go! I previously lived just outside Edinburgh and there full livery always means everything except riding and grooming. However up here in Aberdeenshire I was astonished to learn that full livery hardly ever includes hard feed, holding or bringing in for vet or farrier and strangely at my not to be for much longer yard, hay or straw (added on to basic cost of £75 for 7 days) and even rug changing (although the YO changed that once I had moved there).

So £110 a week at a competition yard that included say 4 exercising sessions a week I would be happy to pay, as that would be very useful to me, my horse would be fit and I would be getting a high standard of facilities and turnout help if I needed it. But to pay the same for full livery that doesnt even include rug changing, hard feed and is basically a quick once a day muck out with t/o and b/in, I wouldnt'be happy at all.

I also think the attitude of some livery yard owners is appalling. There are some yards which just want the money but see the actual liveries as a nuisance. I have been told at my yard where there is nowhere to hack, that I cannot use the paths through the small wood belonging to it, in case I churn them up! So I would say to the livery yard owners who want to charge huge prices, make sure you are really providing a quality service, because just doing t/o, bring in and a quick muck out and providing hay and straw doesnt cost that much to do.
 
I pay £90 for full livery which includes mucking out,hay/hayledge, rug changing (not mine as he unclipped) turnout, leg wash, use of sand school.Extras are hard feed I pay 2 a week for that. Lessons are £18 (or you can have an outside instructor) exercise/schooling £18 per session. Other possible extras are clipping and tack cleaning or lunging £8 per session.This is pretty well top wack for where I live.
 
I go to several different yards in my area and I would say the average for what I call part livery (everything except exercising, grooming and tack cleaning) is about £95 a week. Full livery which is absoultely everything including exercise at least 5 days a week is anything from £150 - £280 per week depending on faciliites and the standard of riders available to do the schooling/exercise etc.
 
I would say that was cheap and have paid a lot more than that when I had mine on full livery. And no Im not a lawyer or a footballers wife! I agree, people should expect to pay for a quality service, just like anything else in life. I would have no problems with it.
 
£110 pw would probably only just cover box rent, all feed and bedding, general yard maintenance and paying a groom national minimum wage to look after the horse.
 
I'm really sorry but I must agree with the the letter writer - I think a lot of horsey folk like to have things cheaper - Have you sat down and worked out exactly what overheads are involved in running a livery yard, especially a competition yard with facilities? It's just so difficult to balance the books and the only way that they are able to do this is by charging more - Livery prices haven't really moved much these past few years, and yet the minimum wage has almost doubled!!!
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So... how would you expect someone to look after your horses, whilst paying minimum wage to a couple of grooms (who obviously want more than minimum wage?) That's £500 + a month before you've even started on anything else...
Kate x
 
That's quite cheap for Full Livery around here, where wages are known to be lower than any other part of the country.
 
Where the yard is located £110 per week is very cheap. Everything else in this area is at least £150 - £200 a week for full livery and there are waiting lists. I have read the advert again and it does say later on "if it's full livery we also have to provide a competent rider" so not sure whether this is full livery or not.
I agree that most places have to charge decent prices to be able to make a living but this is also the horsey world and from my experience most people who run these businesses don't make a profit!
 
I totally agree with the letter & I have said so on many occasions when people moan about horsey jobs not paying enough money. Until horse owners change their attitude & 'pay' for a decent service, YO's etc will have no alternative than cut corners. Apart from trying to pay above NMW in order to attract good staff, we need to consider that these staff are also entitled to holiday & sick pay. If staff are off due to injury from someones horse or whether it is just a simple dose of flu. Then of course the insurance & commercial rates need to be covered plus god knows how much you have invested in a place with enough land. I think when people complain about livery costs they should start to think about buying there own place & see how that pans out.
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