Livery yards on farms?

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dede

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Are people interested in keeping their horses on a ex dairy farm. The yard would be full DIY, all year turnout, no arena but fields for riding and flat fields with jumps aswell as road hacking and includes shavings and hay
 
Yes, but....

Dairy farms tend to have rich grazing and horse owners are getting more switched onto grasses and land management.

Depending on the grazing and acres, but you'd have to perhaps look into some alternative set ups like track systems.

I've kept horses on farms a few times in the past and I wouldn't turn out on lush fields of rye again (grandads cattle farm 😏) even if they were stripped.
 
I have done in the past and really enjoyed it. Yes you have to be a little bit careful with grazing but the best point is that the fields are well managed and you don’t have to worry about that. Mine lived quite happily in 10 acres with the cows for a while too!
 
Having been in a situation for nearly two decades (on and off) of being on a super yard which is ex dairy I would strongly advise that ex dairy grazing can be very rich. My horse repeatedly had spasmodic colics until I strip grazed his paddock.

I think you should therefore get soil analysis as it will be very high in nitrogen and see if there is a way of negating that somehow. Also allow for people to strip graze if they feel the need to, luckily our y.o allows for this.

I would also be extremely cautious (based on my own experience) of foreign newly imported horses grazing as well as they are likely to be adversely affected by this, it needs careful introduction that's all. A girl whose new imported arrived on our yard, she was preparing to chuck him in the paddock for the day, I advised her to just turn out for a couple of hours until he was used to it. She ignored my advice and the horse that day went down with colic. He was okay but it could have been adverted.

However, all these things can be solved with careful grazing management and the use of strip grazing, which having tried grazing muzzles and restricted turnout hours was the only thing that helped Bailey. Lari managed fine, but he is like a garbage cart and eats anything I fed without consequence.

I'm moving back to the yard (and hopefully my paddock) as soon as I get the next horse but intend on strip grazing to start with.
 
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I kept mine on an ex dairy farm for a few years, and agree with the others, the grazing was mega lush! It was fine for the baby, but my older ones needed their grazing managed. I was on top of it, but quite a few others got very fat and laminitic very quickly. That's the only thing that would make me think twice about it.
 
My Family own and live on a Dairy Farm. They have 2 horses and 3 ponies all in competition work. Dairy fields are rich because that is how they need to be for the cows and a lot of work, fertilising and rotating the herds is essential. However our horse fields are not managed in the same way at all and we have never had a problem with the horses having too much grass.
 
Chiffy said:
My Family own and live on a Dairy Farm. They have 2 horses and 3 ponies all in competition work. Dairy fields are rich because that is how they need to be for the cows and a lot of work, fertilising and rotating the herds is essential. However our horse fields are not managed in the same way at all and we have never had a problem with the horses having too much grass.
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Hi Chiffy that's interesting. Please can I ask are they warmblood types or are they native bred?
 
i prefer being on a farm. although i wasn’t happy yesterday when i had cows in my field, and i was trying to fix all my fencing whilst they gleefully shot through it from one side to the other🤣 you’ll have happy liveries as long as you don’t put livestock in their fields with electric fencing!!😂

in all seriousness, we have no issues with the grazing as we don’t have enough land for it to be lush all the time, YO isn’t horsey in the slightest but if something breaks he can fix it, and he’s got the equipment and know-how to manage the land - he’ll roll and fertilise etc at our request, and he harrows the arena more often than any other yard i’ve been on despite having no interest in the horses! his blasted sheep chewed through my energiser completely but he fixed it, he bends the metal spike on my fence posts back straight, greased the jockey wheel on my trailer, just generally very very useful!😂 its not a flash modern place by any means but i think a farmer yard owner is invaluable😂
 
I had one of mine on temporary livery on a farm - I was still there 3 years later! The farmer was a lovely, sprightly, semi retired elderly pensioner who had an obsession with ancient tractors. He'd randomly start them up when you and horse were least expecting it...they sounded like Spitfires roaring into life! As I said, he was a lovely fella but not at all horsey, and although there were no cattle left on the farm he liked to see the horses out in the fields looking decorative. We had such a difficult job convincing him that horses exposed to lush grazing in 20 acre fields really wasn't good for them, and he would object if we tried to section them into smaller, sensible and more manageable paddocks. Sometimes we had to make smaller turnout areas out of sight of the farm house kitchen window where he would be perched most of the day keeping an eye on things. There was no arena, but he didn't mind us riding around the fields (bless him ...). Also the stables were lovely, converted farm buildings. Great big barns were sectioned off into stables, and each stable was huge but cosy, and most of them had extra windows, and each one individually shaped.
I really enjoyed my time there, although I did miss access to an arena, but the lovely safe hacking made up for it. There was so much space and character to the place - I loved it and so did the horse.
 
Mine really struggled on ex dairy grazing - it was predominantly rye grass and it didn't help the farmer liked to see it looking bright green so would crack on with his high nitrogen fertilizer in Spring. I've never known a yard where horses had so many abscesses.
 
Birker2020 said:
Hi Chiffy that's interesting. Please can I ask are they warmblood types or are they native bred?
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One horse is a Thoroughbred and the other is an Irish Sports horse, very nearly TB.
The three ponies are all Working Hunter Pony/ Eventing bred. We do have their exact breeding of all three but it would turn into an essay!
Only one of the ponies is prone to put on weight but it’s easily managed by plenty of work. All 5 are in at night and out in the day in winter. The ponies swop to out at night and in, in the day, in summer.
 
Chiffy said:
One horse is a Thoroughbred and the other is an Irish Sports horse, very nearly TB.
The three ponies are all Working Hunter Pony/ Eventing bred. We do have their exact breeding of all three but it would turn into an essay!
Only one of the ponies is prone to put on weight but it’s easily managed by plenty of work. All 5 are in at night and out in the day in winter. The ponies swop to out at night and in, in the day, in summer.
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Thanks for that Chiffy
 
You say it is an EX-dairy farm, so presumably it will only be grazed by the horses? I suppose that means that the fields will gradually lose their potency if they are not fertilised again. I like livery on a farm - all that space! I school in the field. Though the farm I was on was an active sheep farm so I had the benefit of cross grazing and short sheep turf.
 
dede said:
Are people interested in keeping their horses on a ex dairy farm. The yard would be full DIY, all year turnout, no arena but fields for riding and flat fields with jumps aswell as road hacking and includes shavings and hay
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If it's been used recently as a dairy farm there will be very high nitrogen in the soil. Short term this would mean you'd need to restrict grazing quite severely. Long term there are ways of reducing the nitrogen, such as take successive hay crops without fertilizing in between or really blitzing it with a lot of sheep.
The fields are likely to be flat and weed free so making your own hay or haylage on site would be a good selling point.
If the hacking is all on roads people would want somewhere well drained to ride in winter, such as canter tracks or a course of some sort, if there's no school.
There will be a decent sized yard, so offer trailer parking as well as space to come and go in cars.
People will want to see to their horses very early in the morning and in the evening, before and after their work, so if you live on site you'd be better to have the parking not near the house, and make clear distinction about where your private areas are.
Internal stables in an airy barn with a high roof are great.
What are the fences like?- horses don't do so well with barbed wire, which would be normal for cattle.
What are the water troughs in the fields like? Farms seem to specialise in old baths with sharp edges! And look around for other sharp edges. Horses have much thinner skin and are more prone to cutting themselves than cows.
Take a look round for things that are poisonous to horses but fine for cows such as sycamore trees.
 
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Would reseeding a couple of fields be possible so you could have some less rich grazing? That would be more of a long term project but might be worth it if having liveries is something you’re keen to continue doing.
 
Tarragon said:
You say it is an EX-dairy farm, so presumably it will only be grazed by the horses? I suppose that means that the fields will gradually lose their potency if they are not fertilised again. I like livery on a farm - all that space! I school in the field. Though the farm I was on was an active sheep farm so I had the benefit of cross grazing and short sheep turf.
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Ours was used up to around 2003 as dairy but the grass is still rich. It had 100 head of cattle on it. The fields and paddocks are never fertilised but the grazing is still really good. It doesn't bother me because I know I can manage it now.
 
none of the fields are rye, so if we told the livery to practice strip grazing for a while and stopped fertilizing (only if they wanted it). Would that work?
 
I used to keep my old bird at a farm. It was great. If you have a lot of acerage you could look into making hay and selling that to your liveries and ask they only buy from you, not from outside. Just make sure hay is suitable for horses and doesn't contain ragwort.
 
mariew said:
I used to keep my old bird at a farm. It was great. If you have a lot of acerage you could look into making hay and selling that to your liveries and ask they only buy from you, not from outside. Just make sure hay is suitable for horses and doesn't contain ragwort.
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i am hoping to do that to give more space for liverys for their belongings as well as cutting costs. And might do that to strip the grass
 
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