While in a perfect world it would be great to have every horse watched for the slightest unusual sign, it's just not realistic. I say that as long as the horses are checked on a regular basis then it is not necessary for a yard to be manned 24/7. Even if someone does live onsite there's no garuntee they would be there if something actually happened. As a previous YO said they could be at the supermarket or a show or a parents evening or any of the other "real life" things that people do. Of course you could have someone employed simply to stay on the yard on the off chance... but I don't see anyone really wanting to pay the livery fees that would attract!!!
Requirement for livery yards to have someone living onsite
- Thread starter Mr_Ed
- Start date
hellybelly6
Well-Known Member
I thought it was a requirement by law or at least for insurance purposes.
luckilotti
Well-Known Member
I am a YO and i dont live on site. I live 4.2 miles away or on average 7 minutes drive (faster if needed!) away.
However, my yard is on a private estate and there are 3 cottages near to the main yard/indoor, the main house, and the gardeners caravan by the other stable blocks.
There is also electric gates that are shut at night and CCTV around.
I think my clients are happy with that, they know that i often pop down later at night (i dont promise to do it every night but they know i do it now and then, i wouldnt promise every night incase i had to miss a night!) they also know that if anyone from the cottages or main house spots the lights on later on/early morning, they come out to see whats going on. The stable mobile phone is manned 24/7, never gets switched off, always with either myself of my business partner.
If i HAD to live on site, i would have to rent one of the cottages on site and that would mean an additional £16 ish per stable per week to cover my rent... yes i could get rid if where i am now, but it would still work out that i would have to charge liveries extra, I personally would love to live there but practacalities have to come into it.
However, my yard is on a private estate and there are 3 cottages near to the main yard/indoor, the main house, and the gardeners caravan by the other stable blocks.
There is also electric gates that are shut at night and CCTV around.
I think my clients are happy with that, they know that i often pop down later at night (i dont promise to do it every night but they know i do it now and then, i wouldnt promise every night incase i had to miss a night!) they also know that if anyone from the cottages or main house spots the lights on later on/early morning, they come out to see whats going on. The stable mobile phone is manned 24/7, never gets switched off, always with either myself of my business partner.
If i HAD to live on site, i would have to rent one of the cottages on site and that would mean an additional £16 ish per stable per week to cover my rent... yes i could get rid if where i am now, but it would still work out that i would have to charge liveries extra, I personally would love to live there but practacalities have to come into it.
sav123
Well-Known Member
I've been on both sides of this, and ideally, yes, it is better to have someone living on site. However.....
While a late night check of the stabled horses is fine, no-one can be expected to go round all the fields to check on those out at night, so any problems with them still wouldn't get picked up till morning anyway. I have had someone complain before that a cut on their horse hadn't been treated. Well, the horse certainly didn't have this cut when I turned it out at 5pm, so no, it wouldn't have been looked at until she got the horse in at 8am the next morning. What do they want? Me to go round the fields at night to check the horses, scaring both them and me witless in the process?
Also, a lot of liveries expect someone living on site to be available all the time, regardless of whether their working day has finished. Fair enough if it's an emergency, but not for something trivial that can either wait till the next day or be left in a note. And if it's my day off but I'm out doing my own horse, let me have a day off!!! I got sick of hearing "I know you're not working, but...." If you want us to live on site, then you've got to respect that it's our home aswell, and we like to close our front doors on the outside world just as much as everyone else. And that goes for unnecesary phone calls "out-of-hours" too - big businesses may offer 24 hour call centres, but livery yards don't!
I don't work in a yard at present, but I keep my horse at a small non-commercial yard, rented with a few other people. All of us work full-time, so there is not even anyone there all the time during the day. The family who own the property live in a house at the top of the drive, and do keep an eye out for any dodgy comings-and-goings, and look out for the horses when they are in sight. However, in common with most yards, not all the fields are visible, so again, having someone there all the time is not going to necessarily pick up any problem straightaway.
I agree that having someone living on site is better than not, so long as liveries accept that the person does have a life, is not chained to the yard 24/7 so there will be times when no-one is there (
), is not on-call 24/7, and cannot be expected to be looking at every horse every minute of every day.
**and relaaax
**
While a late night check of the stabled horses is fine, no-one can be expected to go round all the fields to check on those out at night, so any problems with them still wouldn't get picked up till morning anyway. I have had someone complain before that a cut on their horse hadn't been treated. Well, the horse certainly didn't have this cut when I turned it out at 5pm, so no, it wouldn't have been looked at until she got the horse in at 8am the next morning. What do they want? Me to go round the fields at night to check the horses, scaring both them and me witless in the process?
Also, a lot of liveries expect someone living on site to be available all the time, regardless of whether their working day has finished. Fair enough if it's an emergency, but not for something trivial that can either wait till the next day or be left in a note. And if it's my day off but I'm out doing my own horse, let me have a day off!!! I got sick of hearing "I know you're not working, but...." If you want us to live on site, then you've got to respect that it's our home aswell, and we like to close our front doors on the outside world just as much as everyone else. And that goes for unnecesary phone calls "out-of-hours" too - big businesses may offer 24 hour call centres, but livery yards don't!
I don't work in a yard at present, but I keep my horse at a small non-commercial yard, rented with a few other people. All of us work full-time, so there is not even anyone there all the time during the day. The family who own the property live in a house at the top of the drive, and do keep an eye out for any dodgy comings-and-goings, and look out for the horses when they are in sight. However, in common with most yards, not all the fields are visible, so again, having someone there all the time is not going to necessarily pick up any problem straightaway.
I agree that having someone living on site is better than not, so long as liveries accept that the person does have a life, is not chained to the yard 24/7 so there will be times when no-one is there (
**and relaaax
k1963
Well-Known Member
I would never keep a horse at an unsupervised yard - mine was at livery at a riding school , so there were plenty of staff about . Expensive though , but worth it to me .
That's how I feel , but I wouldn't criticize ( sp ? ) anyone for feeling differently .
That's how I feel , but I wouldn't criticize ( sp ? ) anyone for feeling differently .
welshiecob
Member
I've been on many livery yards. Some have had owners on site and others haven't. This has never really been an issue for me when lloking at new yards.
But where I am now the owner lives on site. There is another yard just a stones throw away from us which does not have an owner on site and is constantly being robbed. We have not been touched.
But where I am now the owner lives on site. There is another yard just a stones throw away from us which does not have an owner on site and is constantly being robbed. We have not been touched.
emma69
Well-Known Member
I ticked the 'not necessarily' option, but what I really mean is that I do not think it should be a legal requirement. If a person keeps a horse at a friend's house, would that friend suddenly have to be at home every night? It's the same sort of a thing that has caused issues with people giving friends lifts to shows - legislation targetted for major commercial businesses, that affects the one or two horse owner.
I think there is legislation I would rather see introduced first - mandatory smoke detectors linked to a monitoring centre, a mandatory distance between hay storage and stables, no smoking on yards, etc etc.
I once worked on a yard, and I would do sleepovers to cover while the boss was on holiday. In the winter months, I understand this totally, I could hear most of the stables, and the ones I couldn't hear, other horses would have been distrurbed by an emergency. In the summer, on the other hand, some of our fields were over half a mile away from the yard, so I am not sure my prescence had any safety use - I certainly wouldn't have heard an injured horse that distance away. The majority of the time there was a member of staff on site in the staff accomodation, but sometimes it was just the yard owner, who would happily sleep through the telephone, my banging on the front door, and my car alarm going off outside his bedroom window when he was asleep (and I needed to get in to where we kept the horse medicine in the house and he had double locked the door!)
What I am trying to say is that mandating that you must have someone 'on site' is not useful - you would have to stipulate a distance from the horses (and what happens if you have a yard that is spread out, with BHS-approved isolation boxes in use?), the fact that the person will be alert if something happens (so what happens if you, for example, had a deaf YO?) that the person is competent (and if that term is used, what it means) - would the YO 18 year old daughter, who doesn't hold qualifications but has been around horses her entire life be classed as 'competent'? What about a non horsey husband? What would happen if YO lived on site, but was taken ill or injured one day, and had to go into hospital (I am guessing not entirely that rare given that horses like to beat us up!) and had no one on site? Would insurance policies then refuse to pay out in the event of a problem?
I think the onus has to remain with the horse owners - if you want your horse on a 24/7 supervised yard, then select one - it isn't too hard to work out. If you feel that your horse can live in his stable or field contentedly without human supervision, then that is fine too. I personally would be far happier if my horse was out in a safe, well fenced field with secure gates and no 24/7, than in a stable at a sub-par livery yard, with a hayloft above him and a YO who smoked (but lived on site).
I think there is legislation I would rather see introduced first - mandatory smoke detectors linked to a monitoring centre, a mandatory distance between hay storage and stables, no smoking on yards, etc etc.
I once worked on a yard, and I would do sleepovers to cover while the boss was on holiday. In the winter months, I understand this totally, I could hear most of the stables, and the ones I couldn't hear, other horses would have been distrurbed by an emergency. In the summer, on the other hand, some of our fields were over half a mile away from the yard, so I am not sure my prescence had any safety use - I certainly wouldn't have heard an injured horse that distance away. The majority of the time there was a member of staff on site in the staff accomodation, but sometimes it was just the yard owner, who would happily sleep through the telephone, my banging on the front door, and my car alarm going off outside his bedroom window when he was asleep (and I needed to get in to where we kept the horse medicine in the house and he had double locked the door!)
What I am trying to say is that mandating that you must have someone 'on site' is not useful - you would have to stipulate a distance from the horses (and what happens if you have a yard that is spread out, with BHS-approved isolation boxes in use?), the fact that the person will be alert if something happens (so what happens if you, for example, had a deaf YO?) that the person is competent (and if that term is used, what it means) - would the YO 18 year old daughter, who doesn't hold qualifications but has been around horses her entire life be classed as 'competent'? What about a non horsey husband? What would happen if YO lived on site, but was taken ill or injured one day, and had to go into hospital (I am guessing not entirely that rare given that horses like to beat us up!) and had no one on site? Would insurance policies then refuse to pay out in the event of a problem?
I think the onus has to remain with the horse owners - if you want your horse on a 24/7 supervised yard, then select one - it isn't too hard to work out. If you feel that your horse can live in his stable or field contentedly without human supervision, then that is fine too. I personally would be far happier if my horse was out in a safe, well fenced field with secure gates and no 24/7, than in a stable at a sub-par livery yard, with a hayloft above him and a YO who smoked (but lived on site).
S_N
Well-Known Member
It would certainly have a knock on effect on planning laws......