Livery price advice

[honetpot]

Sit down work out how much haylege a horse eats in a day from that work out how much that’s going to cost a week .
The same for bedding .
The same for grass management and the management of all weather surfaces .
Work how many hours a day it’s going to take you to what is needed and then how much you are going cost your Labour then work out what that costs .
Then work a cost for maintenance for each horse you will have on the yard that’s wear and tear to the infrastructure .
Work out the cost of the water and divide by the number of horses .
Work out what electricity will cost divide by the number of horses .
Then divide the rent and or the cost of any borrowing into the number of horses .
Then consider what return you could reasonably get on any capital you have invested if you where making it work for you and add that in .
Then work out what return you except for your investment and risk .
There are going to be other things so think hard then add it up and divide by the number of horses .
That’s what you need to charge .

To give some idea, I have spent £2000 on fertiliser, spraying and £700ish on having my hedges flailed. Muck away is £190 each time for a specialist company. My insurance which covers DIY livery, land and buildings, but not the house is £350. I have no liveries this is just how much it costs to keep it ticking over. Oh I forgot water, I have five at home, and it £250-300 a quarter, and then there is electric, which is a separate metre so I know just on the basics, no hot water that is going to be at least £500.
DIY dad is my workman, and is constantly fixing, harrowing and mowing, we have an old tractor and the going rate to hire someone is now £35 per hour.
So I would find out at least your basic costs are, and what you need to maintain it, and decide what you need to charge. Hay and bedding is going to be such a problem next winter, I wouldn't want to put a price on providing it.

 

[Muddywellies]

I would never include haylage. Some people give their horses mountains of it, and it ends up on the muck heap.

 

[teddy_]

I am currently paying £195pcm for DIY with year round turn out, access to floodlit arena and XC course in the summer (South East).

Haylage can be supplied by the bale (not sure on cost as I don't feed it, but this does stop wastage as people have their own bales). All liveries buy in their own hard feed / hay and assistance is provided by separate arrangement.

This seems to work very well for the YO, no blurred lines.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Forage storage will take up a lot of space, especially if liveries buy and use their own supplies, even if they have to buy it from you. I can't remember, OP, if you have a separate forage storage building or whether it's all to be kept within the American barn?

 

[JBM]

Forage storage will take up a lot of space, especially if liveries buy and use their own supplies, even if they have to buy it from you. I can't remember, OP, if you have a separate forage storage building or whether it's all to be kept within the American barn?

There’s a separate storage away from barn for fire safety reasons
should be enough space as it’s a decent size and tall, we have our own machinery on site to stack and move pallets

 

[mariew]

We use to put a weekly order for hay in and pay when delivered or shortly after when I saw the farmer. That worked quite well, as liveries only needed to store enough for their weekly use rather than each one having a winter's supply. Of course the farmer had a big pile he took from for everyone.

 

[Spotherisk]

The fact that you aren’t paying for the use of the land is probably irrelevant. Unless the landowner is so well off that they can afford to not earn from the land, but instead have it costing them money (in harrowing, rolling, reseeding, hardcoring gateways, repairing fences, fertilising etc etc) then you need to factor in a cost. If you are doing this for a job, even part time, then you need to factor in a wage. Think about your financial worth to the business - if you’re ill, how much will you need to pay others to do the work. If the liveries say they’ll do it then you’re losing income from them and they might want a decrease in their livery bill…

 

[JBM]

The fact that you aren’t paying for the use of the land is probably irrelevant. Unless the landowner is so well off that they can afford to not earn from the land, but instead have it costing them money (in harrowing, rolling, reseeding, hardcoring gateways, repairing fences, fertilising etc etc) then you need to factor in a cost. If you are doing this for a job, even part time, then you need to factor in a wage. Think about your financial worth to the business - if you’re ill, how much will you need to pay others to do the work. If the liveries say they’ll do it then you’re losing income from them and they might want a decrease in their livery bill…

Was just meaning that I didn’t have to pay the extra cost of rent we do most of the land management ourselves but even this year we have decided that fertiliser is not worth it at 500 a bag
All good points on the wage I will definitely look it over

 

[JBM]

My problem with haylage is that we usually make big bales so not sure it would be appropriate to sell that to the liveries as the bale would go off before they use it and small bales are too expensive to make
But I could see about bulk buying in haylage in small bales and then selling them to the liveries

 

[Spotherisk]

My problem with haylage is that we usually make big bales so not sure it would be appropriate to sell that to the liveries as the bale would go off before they use it and small bales are too expensive to make
But I could see about bulk buying in haylage in small bales and then selling them to the liveries

who loses out financially if small bales are punctured gone off etc? I wou,d let them buy their own.

 

[AmyMay]

My problem with haylage is that we usually make big bales so not sure it would be appropriate to sell that to the liveries as the bale would go off before they use it and small bales are too expensive to make

You just open one bale as needed and charge a flat rate per horse weekly.

 

[HashRouge]

90 a month?? That’s insane that wouldn’t even cover the loan repayments for building this place

I should ignore that comment (without being rude to the poster!). They said "used to" so who knows how long ago that was. I mean, I "used" to pay £18 a week for DIY back in 2010 and that included am feeds, turnout in winter and a 10pm check (when you could get another hay net put in). Seems utterly ridiculous now!

 

[HashRouge]

You just open one bale as needed and charge a flat rate per horse weekly.

I would do this too, but just make sure that you assume people will feed ad lib and charge accordingly!

 

[JBM]

I should ignore that comment (without being rude to the poster!). They said "used to" so who knows how long ago that was. I mean, I "used" to pay £18 a week for DIY back in 2010 and that included am feeds, turnout in winter and a 10pm check (when you could get another hay net put in). Seems utterly ridiculous now!

I am aware but they also said that 50 a week was a bit much so it seemed to me like they were comparing the two prices. I wasn’t meaning to be rude or anything

I would do this too, but just make sure that you assume people will feed ad lib and charge accordingly!

To be honest it never even occurred to me that people would waste haylage as we were all pretty good about it in my old yard so I will definitely need to think about the feeding situation

 

[AmyMay]

To be honest it never even occurred to me that people would waste haylage as we were all pretty good about it in my old yard so I will definitely need to think about the feeding situation

It takes a bit of getting right, but providing a weigh scale is available everyone should be encouraged to weigh their nets. The aim for those wanting ad lib is obviously only to have a very small amount left in the morning.

 

[AmyMay]

And also to add - hay goes in the stable - not the field….