Livery yards being closed, banned from seeing our horses

Pippity said:
Third option: Ban everyone, and give DIYs the option of their horse being turned out 24/7, and given daily checks in the field without extra charge.
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This is just not workable in all cases. I’m a DIY on a farm, there isn’t a YO to do any of those checks and additionally one of mine has EMS and the other is a recovered but at risk laminitic. Neither can be turned away because after a few weeks I would have two dead horses.
 
Well this has been an eye opening thread ????
I genuinely feel really bad for those who have been prevented from seeing their horses, I really do.
But do you know who I feel MUCH, MUCH worse for...??? The parents who are banned from seeing their children in hospital, the parents whose children have DIED WITHOUT THEIR PARENTS.
The people whose loved ones have died ALONE. The people who have lost someone and cannot even comfort each other because of lockdown.

And before anyone bites me, I lost my daughter just before her 7th birthday, she died peacefully in my arms with her favourite people around her. It absolutely breaks me that others are unable to do this because of the circumstances. I also suffer from mental health problems so I know how hard things can be.
This is genuinely aimed at no-one in particular but we all need to man the f uck up and be bloody grateful that we are none of those people.
 
This thread also highlights that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach that can be applied to every horse and every yard set up. All people can do is make a judgment on whether or not they need (rather than want) to be going to the yard based on their own individual circumstances. Of course if you are DIY with no services you must go to care for your horses whether you turn them away or not and nobody is saying you shouldn’t.
 
Lindylouanne said:
This is just not workable in all cases. I’m a DIY on a farm, there isn’t a YO to do any of those checks and additionally one of mine has EMS and the other is a recovered but at risk laminitic. Neither can be turned away because after a few weeks I would have two dead horses.
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The post I was responding to talked about mixed yards, so your situation wouldn't apply. I nearly added, "Of course, this wouldn't be suitable for everybody, either," but thought it was obvious.
 
SatansLittleHelper said:
Well this has been an eye opening thread ????
I genuinely feel really bad for those who have been prevented from seeing their horses, I really do.
But do you know who I feel MUCH, MUCH worse for...??? The parents who are banned from seeing their children in hospital, the parents whose children have DIED WITHOUT THEIR PARENTS.
The people whose loved ones have died ALONE. The people who have lost someone and cannot even comfort each other because of lockdown.

And before anyone bites me, I lost my daughter just before her 7th birthday, she died peacefully in my arms with her favourite people around her. It absolutely breaks me that others are unable to do this because of the circumstances. I also suffer from mental health problems so I know how hard things can be.
This is genuinely aimed at no-one in particular but we all need to man the f uck up and be bloody grateful that we are none of those people.
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I do so agree with you. I have struggled with this thread. The jealousy, disregard for the main problem and the total self absorption of liveries and the contsant carping at YO's who are mostly trying to do their best. This is why I would never, ever have a livery in y yard again and I guess after this episode more yards will close. The modest profits for huge capital investment and masses of hard work are not worth the huge sense of entitlement of so many people.

I am so sorry for the loss of your daughter. I lost my husband very young and just one year later my neighbours lost their teenage son. We too know and sympathise with th suffering that is around us at the moment and frankly I could not care a toss if the YO does not quite muck out to your standards, or your horse is a bit warm etc etc. Get over yourselves you are really not with the world.
 
sport horse said:
. We too know and sympathise with th suffering that is around us at the moment and frankly I could not care a toss if the YO does not quite muck out to your standards, or your horse is a bit warm etc etc. Get over yourselves you are really not with the world.
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Surely it depends, absolutely compared to sickness or loss, poor mucking out and rugs rubbing isn’t on the same scale.

but if yard has a full complement of heathy staff, and no direct health concerns and have stopped full liveries visiting to check their horses or do extras, it is reasonable Yard should do decent job on the basics!

Non smelly bed, fresh clean water, not rubbed by rugs are pretty basic and failure to provide is pretty unacceptable when have the full staff complement needed to do the work.

Made worse by preventing owners from checking their own horses.

Im lucky I trust my current yard. But I’ve not always been lucky.
 
A little late, but the yo has now given us time slots to ensure social distancing. To be fair, we’ve not ensured it since lockdown! It’a going to properly put the cat among the pigeons, probably like many yards where liveries treat it as their social life, or it is their entire social life and only normality right now.

Can’t lie, I’m a little disappointed, I was going to start spending more time with the boy, but he’s retired and literally comes in, goes out, really easy horse.

I feel really sorry for the yo, she is going to struggle with the ones who insist they can’t possibly cope, especially if those who have more than one horse. It’s an hour time slot, no way will people manage to catch in, ride, rug up, feed, get hay from the barn in an hour. Some horses need exercise and will go loopy without it.
Already had messages from one person who reckons she can’t turn out in 30 minutes, field is literally a 3 minute walk. ?
 
I think slots are a good idea but an hour is quite tight. I would struggle to groom (we still have mud), tack up, ride and untack in an hour. And feeding, I have missed many trains waiting while a tb takes his time eating his feed, 20 minutes is not unusual.
 
A local yard (Bury) has given 2 hour slots, so I think that will be the yardstick, we’re very linked with them, people move between the two, staff and liveries. I think the idea is that there’s no riding. Shame when a new arena just went down!
 
The place where I agist has up to 1 hr slots for non riding visits and 1.5hr slots for riding. It's tight but it's a big centre so catering for many clients. It is working well and people are following the schedule because we all want it to continue for as long as possible. The next stage will be no agistors able to visit, we haven't reached that point yet thankfully.
 
I wonder if there is another service industry that has to deal with such self serving, ignorant, arrogant, uneducated and rude customers than livery yard owners. It is little wonder that yards are becoming more and more difficult to find when owners/managers are so obviously untrusted, undervalued and disrespected. How many yard owners and potential yard owners read threads like this one and decide not to even consider going into the livery business.

When we come out of the crisis, there will be many yards out of business, many horses on the market, many jobs lost, many companies gone to the wall. Many years will be needed to return to some sort of normality. Prices for food, human and equine, will rocket due to no planting be done in autumn. Fresh foods will be less plentiful and will be left to rot in the fields because no one will pick them. Taxes will rocket to pay for the unprecedented amounts of money the government is currently spending on keeping us all alive.

At this present moment all of us have far more worrying things to stress over than a grubby water bucket.
 
AdorableAlice said:
I wonder if there is another service industry that has to deal with such self serving, ignorant, arrogant, uneducated and rude customers than livery yard owners. It is little wonder that yards are becoming more and more difficult to find when owners/managers are so obviously untrusted, undervalued and disrespected. How many yard owners and potential yard owners read threads like this one and decide not to even consider going into the livery business.

When we come out of the crisis, there will be many yards out of business, many horses on the market, many jobs lost, many companies gone to the wall. Many years will be needed to return to some sort of normality. Prices for food, human and equine, will rocket due to no planting be done in autumn. Fresh foods will be less plentiful and will be left to rot in the fields because no one will pick them. Taxes will rocket to pay for the unprecedented amounts of money the government is currently spending on keeping us all alive.

At this present moment all of us have far more worrying things to stress over than a grubby water bucket.
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At long last there is someone I can relate too. Have all the posters on here failed to notice that the BEF, BHS and all member bodies have recommended that you DO NOT RIDE. Which bit of that is not clear? It is to protect those poor folks that are working their butts of in the NHS, risking thier lives and do not need self entitled, stupid horse riders falling off and needing treatment.

The public opinion of horse riders is that they are wealthy, arrogant etc etc. Sadly the public are so right.
 
AdorableAlice said:
I wonder if there is another service industry that has to deal with such self serving, ignorant, arrogant, uneducated and rude customers than livery yard owners. It is little wonder that yards are becoming more and more difficult to find when owners/managers are so obviously untrusted, undervalued and disrespected. How many yard owners and potential yard owners read threads like this one and decide not to even consider going into the livery business.

When we come out of the crisis, there will be many yards out of business, many horses on the market, many jobs lost, many companies gone to the wall. Many years will be needed to return to some sort of normality. Prices for food, human and equine, will rocket due to no planting be done in autumn. Fresh foods will be less plentiful and will be left to rot in the fields because no one will pick them. Taxes will rocket to pay for the unprecedented amounts of money the government is currently spending on keeping us all alive.

At this present moment all of us have far more worrying things to stress over than a grubby water bucket.
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i also have never known another service industry where you are expected to put up with sub standard service regardless of what is paid. How may steak houses would you pay for steak and be happy with scrag end and not say anything. Would you pay for a service on a car and find that they had blew the tyres up and done nothing more ? No you would not.

There are some very good livery yards out there, but there are also a huge number that are not, yards that promise one thing and deliver the opposite always with some reason ie turn out every day you move then find out it is, except when it rains. Yet it is expected that you have to put up with it otherwise you are seen as a trouble maker.

As to being ignorant, uneducated and rude that works both ways.

Whatever I am asked to pay I do, set the prices to what is needed to make a successful business I have no problem with this at all, my problem is when i am asked to pay x for y and find i am paying x and not getting the service.
 
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sport horse said:
At long last there is someone I can relate too. Have all the posters on here failed to notice that the BEF, BHS and all member bodies have recommended that you DO NOT RIDE. Which bit of that is not clear?

.
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The latest statement I can find from BHS says 'itis up to the individual to decide whether it is necessary to ride'..... it does not say DO NOT RIDE
 
Our YO prefers an empty yard to a yard full of the wrong people. There are 4 of us on the yard at the moment and 6 horses (2 of which are mine). We have empty stables and have had people wanting to fill them but they haven’t been the right kind of people. That probably sounds awful, but on a yard where we effectively manage it ourselves, the wrong person could be (and has been) a disaster. YO isn’t around really, apart from dropping ok to collect post and do the bills. She likes that she can happily leave us to it and have no drama but know the place is being well looked after. As she is not actively involved in the horsey world anymore, she leaves it up to me and the other girls to decide who to have on the yard as we know the majority of the local horsey community, or can find out about people through various links.
We have no restrictions in place at the moment. We are just keeping our distance but there’s so few of us that we don’t really have any reason to be near each other. I have a barn to myself so I’ve been self isolating for years haha!
 
Gingerwitch said:
i also have never known another service industry where you are expected to put up with sub standard service regardless of what is paid. How may steak houses would you pay for steak and be happy with scrag end and not say anything. Would you pay for a service on a car and find that they had blew the tyres up and done nothing more ? No you would not.

There are some very good livery yards out there, but there are also a huge number that are not, yards that promise one thing and deliver the opposite always with some reason ie turn out every day you move then find out it is, except when it rains. Yet it is expected that you have to put up with it otherwise you are seen as a trouble maker.

As to being ignorant, uneducated and rude that works both ways.

Whatever I am asked to pay I do, set the prices to what is needed to make a successful business I have no problem with this at all, my problem is when i am asked to pay x for y and find i am paying x and not getting the service.
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It rained this year, just a drop or two and maybe you expected ad lib turn out and classed the lack of it as sub standard service perhaps. The yard manager/owner on the other hand took measures to protect the land for use of the liveries asap and will be actively, as we speak, harrowing rolling and rectifying.

Yard owners will be actively trying, in these unprecedented times we are living through, to ensure their own safety, that of their families and that of their clients. They will also be listening to guidance from government and adhering to it to prevent the spread of the virus and to play a small part in saving lives and supporting the NHS. Sub standard service or common sense ? I will leave that one with you.

Thankfully there are various social media platforms that land owners/yard owners can be part of to enable them to be warned of tricky yard jumping owners, thus ensuring they can avoid getting caught out and ending up with a rotten apple.
 
AdorableAlice said:
I wonder if there is another service industry that has to deal with such self serving, ignorant, arrogant, uneducated and rude customers than livery yard owners. It is little wonder that yards are becoming more and more difficult to find when owners/managers are so obviously untrusted, undervalued and disrespected. How many yard owners and potential yard owners read threads like this one and decide not to even consider going into the livery business.

When we come out of the crisis, there will be many yards out of business, many horses on the market, many jobs lost, many companies gone to the wall. Many years will be needed to return to some sort of normality. Prices for food, human and equine, will rocket due to no planting be done in autumn. Fresh foods will be less plentiful and will be left to rot in the fields because no one will pick them. Taxes will rocket to pay for the unprecedented amounts of money the government is currently spending on keeping us all alive.

At this present moment all of us have far more worrying things to stress over than a grubby water bucket.
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Basically this, with cherries on ???
 
AdorableAlice said:
It rained this year, just a drop or two and maybe you expected ad lib turn out and classed the lack of it as sub standard service perhaps. The yard manager/owner on the other hand took measures to protect the land for use of the liveries asap and will be actively, as we speak, harrowing rolling and rectifying.

Yard owners will be actively trying, in these unprecedented times we are living through, to ensure their own safety, that of their families and that of their clients. They will also be listening to guidance from government and adhering to it to prevent the spread of the virus and to play a small part in saving lives and supporting the NHS. Sub standard service or common sense ? I will leave that one with you.

Thankfully there are various social media platforms that land owners/yard owners can be part of to enable them to be warned of tricky yard jumping owners, thus ensuring they can avoid getting caught out and ending up with a rotten apple.
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Your taking things to the extreme Ad lib turn out in the winter is not something most owners want, but to be able to have horses out for part of the day i.e. 8 til 2 is not an unrealistic expectation, if your not going to do turn out then say so but do not say they go out every day regardless then the owner finds out as soon as they move that they don't. I moved yards in the August and from September to April those horses went out twice. Twice. It nigh on killed me to keep them exercised. Some days the reason given was because it was raining, some because it might rain, and others because the ground may cut up because the horses would canter. Then on other days it was because the yard was too busy to turn out or then did not have staff to turn out and bring them in or they were clipping.

My hay bill was huge, but they could not be left stood in and hungry, they were supposed to be on Full Livery but if you did not do extra waters to leave outside stables they got nothing fresh till night stables. I used to cry when I drove down the track and saw the board was showing for not turn out was up it was a horrid yard. And it was approved by the BHS - oh and on that day it was being assessed all the horses had to stay in as well !

If this classes as tricky yard jumping then I am over the moon, that yard was hell on earth for those animals, and some did not go out of the stable from one week to the next and then were classed as nutty and shoved in a chifney as they were so fresh and the owners could not handle them under saddle.

Horse owners are the same they know the crap yards and some yards will always have spaces because they are awful and if i were such a rotten apple when I phoned my previous yard they would have told me to jog on, but they moved horses around to accommodate me and mine. Why, because I pay up front and on time and they do not hear a word from me when they uphold their part of the service contract.
 
It does seem staggering that the service was just fine until lockdown, when a convenient excuse was needed to justify moving.

I'm very lucky with my yard. We too leave boxes empty rather than have the wrong people. Spaces don't come up often though.
 
Leo Walker said:
It does seem staggering that the service was just fine until lockdown, when a convenient excuse was needed to justify moving.

I'm very lucky with my yard. We too leave boxes empty rather than have the wrong people. Spaces don't come up often though.
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Why on earth would you have to wait for a convenient excuse to leave a yard that is not looking after your horses ?

I suppose the wrong people on your yard are ones that don't hurl horses around schools by their mouths and laugh when the poor horse nearly impales itself into a wooden fence. So I can see why your yard would have spaces.
 
Gingerwitch said:
Your taking things to the extreme Ad lib turn out in the winter is not something most owners want, but to be able to have horses out for part of the day i.e. 8 til 2 is not an unrealistic expectation, if your not going to do turn out then say so but do not say they go out every day regardless then the owner finds out as soon as they move that they don't. I moved yards in the August and from September to April those horses went out twice. Twice. It nigh on killed me to keep them exercised. Some days the reason given was because it was raining, some because it might rain, and others because the ground may cut up because the horses would canter. Then on other days it was because the yard was too busy to turn out or then did not have staff to turn out and bring them in or they were clipping.

My hay bill was huge, but they could not be left stood in and hungry, they were supposed to be on Full Livery but if you did not do extra waters to leave outside stables they got nothing fresh till night stables. I used to cry when I drove down the track and saw the board was showing for not turn out was up it was a horrid yard. And it was approved by the BHS - oh and on that day it was being assessed all the horses had to stay in as well !

.
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when you run your own yard, as I do and from her comments I guess AA must do, you find out the reality of the situation, the fact you are the one responsible for sorting the damage caused by this long wet winter and the buck stops with you. Like many I had to make instant decisions as to whether they could go out on a particular day and the answer was often they couldn't. It was a constant worry when the horses cantered on soggy, wet, poached ground. Exercising also a worry. Days when it was supposed to be fine and they could go out and suddenly the heavens opened so it didn't happen.
My hay bill was also huge, with 9 that was not surprising but as you say they could not be left in and hungry. Like you I didn't anticipate that size of hay bill but life happened and it was a case of adapting as one always must do with horses.
I imagine life is very different being a livery and being the person responsible for it all.

It is very easy after reading this thread and similar to see why people with space totally refuse any liveries.

If it was such a horrid yard I don't understand why you stayed.



Off topic but I did just wonder if one can have more than one account on here and post under different names? Just curious.
 
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