Livery and training prices broken down

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MissDeMeena

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Hi, I'm just wondering what people are happy paying for livery, services and lessons etc...
By services I mean something as simple as getting someone else to take you horse out to the field or change its rugs or pick its feet out etc. etc...
And when I say 'happy' paying, I understand that no one is ever happy paying bills.. but what do you think is fair, or what would you expect if you were doing it for someone else..
 
My horse hates stables, so lives out all year. We pay roughly £80 a fortnight for grass livery, but people are always happy to bring in/feed/turnout/remove or add rugs etc! Plus we have fab hacking, an outdoor floodlit school and a small field.
 
I pay £35pw DIY with stable and good floodlit arena in cambs.
BI/TO no rug change £1, with rug change £2
Big services, eg whole day livery, holding for farrier are £10
Other things are somewhere in the middle!
 
Just wanting to know if I was in the right ball park.. i'm charging £8 per day for full day care.. but I've upped the cost of all the little things that you'd normally do in a full days care, so that they add up to more than £8 per day.. Surely business sense, ie bulk buy, and it's cheaper.. anyway, everyone got in a strop with me.. so just wondering if i'd done the right thing..
I charge £1 BI/TO, £1 rug change, £1wash legs, etc etc... Which all looks pretty similar to what you're paying.. I don't think i'm being greedy?
 
I think that is probably the right approach. I had a horse on DIY at a yard that mainly did full and part livery. If I had been paying for him to be brought in or turned out every day let alone any mucking out, then it would have been cheaper to put him on part livery. The DIY was admittedly expensive compared to most DIY yards as it wasn't really a yard that did DIY as such.
 
MissDeMeena said:
Just wanting to know if I was in the right ball park.. i'm charging £8 per day for full day care.. but I've upped the cost of all the little things that you'd normally do in a full days care, so that they add up to more than £8 per day.. Surely business sense, ie bulk buy, and it's cheaper.. anyway, everyone got in a strop with me.. so just wondering if i'd done the right thing..
I charge £1 BI/TO, £1 rug change, £1wash legs, etc etc... Which all looks pretty similar to what you're paying.. I don't think i'm being greedy?
Click to expand...

Sounds more than fair. Let them strop, they will get over it.
 
I pay £7 per day for part livery, which includes stable/grazing, a TO or BI each day, adlib hay, 1 bale of shavings per week, rug changes if needed, feet picked out, legs washed when horse is BI. Full livery is £12 per day and includes mucking out, TO/BI the opposite end of the day, hay nets and feeds made up. Exercise if £10 a time, whether hacking or schooling.

Based on how much my yard charges for full livery, you could argue you are on the cheaper side at £8 so not sure your liveries have much to complain about!
 
Sounds more than fair to me. On my last yard my friend paid £2.50 for turn out and £2.50 for bring in. Rug change was another £1. Chucking in a made up feed or haynet was another £1 and water fill was £2. If they start to strop, tell them to do it themselves :)
 
Do they have a strop at Sainsbury's when the prices go up? Do they ask to take a pay cut rather than their employers enacting inflation increases?

Yes, okay, you have to take into account what the market will bear but, in order for the business to remain viable, you have to cover costs, including a wage to yourself. (Not much mucking and riding is going to get done if you starve to death!) So work out what you *have* to charge and charge that.

Now, if the market won't bear that price in your area, that's a problem. But keeping your prices below a viable level will mean the eventual end of the business and your clients losing their livery anyway!

Depending on how you run your yard is run and what sort of relationship you have with your clients, you could provide them with a breakdown. I know that's not the done thing in horses but the other option is to simply present the prices and let the chips fall where they may. I hate to say it, you may even lose clients over it but if they can find concentrate care at a price you can't reasonably match then there isn't much you can do snot that. More likely, they will make a choice to downgrade their care level for budget reasons. Again, not much you can do.

They're stroppy now because no one likes to pay more. Do what you have to do and the ones worth keeping will get over it.
 
I pay £370 per calender month, full livery on a lovely yard, with horsewalker, huge school and good turnout including all weather turnout pens. This includes adlib haylage, shavings, wormers and basic feed.
 
I have 5 day livery - so all week they turn out/bring in, muck out, adlib hay/straw and change rugs and all hard feed (Saracen/Hi Fi). Sat/Sun they either turn out or bring in and I do vise versa and muck out.
Works out to be £82 a week.
 
I on e got charged £16 for turnout!! YO, offered to turnout so I could have a lie in, implied it was a favour, then I got to yard to find a invoice for £16!! I never asked again lol and left pronto!
 
I pay £7 a day for grass livery, includes adlib haylage, hard feed, check and feed twice a day, rug change if rugs are left out, use of a stable (my boy doesnt tie up well), use of floodlit school and great hacking.
 
At my old (large DIY) yard it was a couple of quid for each turn out/in/rug change which I think is fair. I keep my horse on a friends private yard now, DIY so do it all myself but we help each other out by bringing in/feeding/rug change for each other. Depends a lot on the type of yard I think!
 
I think you've got your answer already that your charges are not unreasonable, but in case it helps: I'm on full livery now, but when on DIY upgrading to full for a day is £10, and at my previous yard where you did more pic and mix of the little jobs it was 1.50 to 2.50 for each of them... THere are quite a few yards which publish their entire price lists for stuff online so I reckon if anyone who got a cob on about it went away and did some googling they'd soon realise theyr'e being unreasonable...!
 
I pay £80 for everything - rugging/bring in and turnout/muck out/hay/feed/bedding 7 days a week - works out at 11.40 a day.
At my previous yard which was Assisted DIY I paid £189 pcm which was for feeding/bring in and turnout and rugging 7 days a week. If I needed him done for the day it was an extra £4 but only because I was on the "very assisted" package, otherwise it would have been £9.
 
Sorry I've been slow catching up with this thread...
But thanks for the replies everyone!!!!
Looks like i'm slap bang in the middle for prices. Which I think is about right..
Thanks again for the help!!
 
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