Livery Yard Dealbreakers

I've had my horses in barbed wire fields (years ago) with no drama! now I would choose against it but if there was nothing else, i'd go for that option and run electric fencing along the top of the fence posts! I've seen horses injury themselves more on other types of fencing! I always found they respected the barbed wire.
 
Missidi said:
I'm relocating and finding that the livery yard search is incredibly stressful! I have seen a few yards so far but have discounted them all for one reason or another. Would you put up with these things or are they dealbreakers? I'm worried I'm being too picky and I know I will need to compromise on something!

Yard A: individual turnout in a paddock a fair distance from other horses
Yard B: barbed wire fencing
Yard C: 10ft x 12ft stables
Yard D: short opening hours when liveries are allowed to go to the yard
Yard E: only four hours of turnout max in the winter and some days in completely
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A - Dealbreaker. I don't mind IT but they need to be able to at least socialise over the fence in my humble opinion.
B - Not a dealbreaker depending on a few factors which would be - could you electric fence it yourself (costly and time consuming but if yard was otherwise perfect I'd be prepared to put the effort in), what is the field like otherwise? A good sizes field with good grazing, horse is less likely to go looking for trouble versus for example a smaller field or with sparse grazing "grass is greener over the fence". And the temperament of your horse - I have 1 that would just graze and not bother with fencing, another 1 would manage to kill himself in pretty much any environment that wasn't completely safe-proofed!
C - Depends on other factors, namely size of horse and how long they would be stabled. Anything 16hh and under, only stabled say 6pm-7am in winter? doable.
D - Depends on the hours and if you can make it work for you. 8am-4pm no absolutely not. 7am-8pm, potentially reasonable providing you can fit it around your working hours.
E - I think that's an individual thing and you'd need to know more about the yard. Ours often only go out 4-6 hours in winter but they are out every single day unless it's extreme conditions (50mph winds/storms), come April they are out for 16 hours overnight. Other yards yes I would be concerned that this would mean winter turnout was almost certainly heavily restricted and also want to know what 'winter' was - it can often mean September-June if you're not careful.
 
Are you happy with E apart from turnout? That turnout wouldn't concern me as mine gets pretty fed up being out on mud with no grass. After 4 hrs she would be asking to come in. And I don't mind occasional duvet days, as long as they are only occasional. Is turnout the rest of the year good?
 
All would be for me except B if I could put up an electric fence in front of it.

Precisely why I moved 200 miles to buy my own place because I couldn’t cope with livery options available. One of the first things I did was build massive stables and rip out all the wire fencing. Horse still managed to kill herself though so maybe I’m too paranoid.
 
D and E definitely!

Most yards I have ever seen have some sort of barb or stock fence unless its a high end upmarket -no hay on the floor kinda yard 🤣
I have barb on top of my fences but I babyfy my field to keep him back from it, its not my choice of fencing but its not my place all I can do is protect my boy as much as possible 🥰
 
Thank you all so much!!

I feel much better now that something will come along, but nothing I've seen so far will work for us. I'm lucky that I'm not in a rush to move but as someone said upthread the whole process is so stressful!
 
Muddywellies said:
Are you happy with E apart from turnout? That turnout wouldn't concern me as mine gets pretty fed up being out on mud with no grass. After 4 hrs she would be asking to come in.
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The answer to that isn't for them to come in though, it's to give them grazing with grass?
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