Shortage of grooms?

[windand rain]

Many riding schools are closing down because the custom isn't there. The cost have risen and there has been a cultural shift to a litigious society. Lessons in good esablishments have always been expensive half a weeks wages per hour in my day so not much different. Rates and land values and health and safety are killing the lower end
The tictok generation in many cases are horse owners rather than lesson or work finders. There are always some with the horse bug but going by observations many are screen addicts even demanding i pads and phones while at the field not really noticing the ponies except when on board messing about. It is also an observation that there are fewer children riding at show and showjumping the age demografic there is rising too. Classes are smaller especially in winter and even pony club have fewer people at rallies and shows etc. At one time jumping classes for under 60cm the classes would go from 9am to mid afternoon now the whole show is over by 1pm ish

 

[SO1]

I agree with with a previous poster. Most grooms are female and under the age of 30. The majority of women will decide to have children and childcare is extortionate.

Most of my female friends gave up work until their kids were in secondary school due to the costs of children. One of my friends said the childcare bill for 2 children in primary school to enable her to work 9-5 plus the commute to work would be 2k per month which was more than her monthly take home salary so she gave up work.

Sadly I think there is also an element of sexism if most grooms were men I expect the salary would be higher but that is the case with a lot of roles mainly done by women.

 

[rara007]

In the USA the barn I was at had an under the stables conveyor belt- there was a hatch at the front of the stable you mucked out into, then that carried the muck away and threw it onto a trailer. Massive straw beds with a team of 4 male non horsey mucker-outers. It was something like 50 box stalls they did before lunch in 3 hours. Crazy work rate - they had cheap straw (that was tractored into the middle of each barn). 2 guys emptying the stable of anything but perfectly fresh bedding followed by 2 replacing the bedding. Sub 5min a stable Id imagine, and done to the highest standard. Very impressive but totally impractical for our average lumpy bumpy, stables scattered in random places UK yard.

 

[MuckerOuter]

In the USA the barn I was at had an under the stables conveyor belt- there was a hatch at the front of the stable you mucked out into, then that carried the muck away and threw it onto a trailer. Massive straw beds with a team of 4 male non horsey mucker-outers. It was something like 50 box stalls they did before lunch in 3 hours. Crazy work rate - they had cheap straw (that was tractored into the middle of each barn). 2 guys emptying the stable of anything but perfectly fresh bedding followed by 2 replacing the bedding. Sub 5min a stable Id imagine, and done to the highest standard. Very impressive but totally impractical for our average lumpy bumpy, stables scattered in random places UK yard.

4 good grooms could muck out 50 boxes in 3 hours! But this does sound efficient, also sounds very expensive. I’m guessing they were huge boxes with huge beds

 

[Otherwise]

In the USA the barn I was at had an under the stables conveyor belt- there was a hatch at the front of the stable you mucked out into, then that carried the muck away and threw it onto a trailer. Massive straw beds with a team of 4 male non horsey mucker-outers. It was something like 50 box stalls they did before lunch in 3 hours. Crazy work rate - they had cheap straw (that was tractored into the middle of each barn). 2 guys emptying the stable of anything but perfectly fresh bedding followed by 2 replacing the bedding. Sub 5min a stable Id imagine, and done to the highest standard. Very impressive but totally impractical for our average lumpy bumpy, stables scattered in random places UK yard.

That doesn't seem crazy fast to me, it's about equivalent to 15 mins per box with each groom doing 12/13 a day although it does sound a lot easier than traipsing a wheelbarrow to the muck heap and back.

 

[SO1]

Maybe a trailer attached to quad parked outside stables. Skip out rather than full muck every day poos put into trailer and then driven to muck heap so you don't need to do so many journeys with wheel barrows.

I am on part livery but they don't do a full muck out with taking out the wet every day. It is skip out and tidy up bed, top up with new bedding once a week. I am not sure how often they dig out the wet but certainly not every week i think probably every few months but I have a very clean pony who poos in one place and always wees in the same place.

I also wonder if yards could offer term time only comtracts which might apeal to people with children and then use students during the school holidays. Childcare is a massive problem across most industries we lose a lot of the female workforce due to lack of suitable roles that can fit around school opening hours.

 

[teapot]

Just a thought , and this is probably a product of yards having insufficient grazing land to do anything else, but what has always struck me about the typical yard/livery set up is that a lot of manual labour and associated cost is created by the way the horses are managed, ie being stabled either overnight or during the day. if you in theory had a set up where they were out 24-7 (may not work for all horses granted and would have some requiring box rest) with appropriate shelter, you would have the poo clearance which could be managed with eg a poo Hoover (and other land maintenance of course) somewhere to stand in if necessary to be fed if couldn’t be done in field, got ready for riding , farrier etc, perhaps the time and costs of labour in vasts amount of mucking out could be reduced and time spent instead by employees checking, tending to and exercising horses (if that was included in the package), and the financial savings passed onto the wages Of those working there. If that was possible land wise, I don’t know if owners would go for it as it’s not a traditional set up, and maybe wouldn’t see the worth of paying a full livery fee for that. but I think there could be a great benefit for an owner knowing the health and care of their horses was being more individually attended to if those working on yard had more time to do that . I have probably missed out some considerations, you would have increased land maintenance costs , how to manage the turn out (groups, pairs, individuals) . Interested to hear what people think and whether that kind of set up could in theory make a caring for horses job more attractive. Maybe would just depend on what owners are willing to pay , and tbh that seems to be the problem already, that already it’s too little to be able to pay grooms a decent wage. At least there might be a bit less shovelling shit though.

What you save in bedding costs and perhaps business rates wise with fewer stables, you'd soon spend on grazing and fencing maintenance, gateways and tracks, shelters, etc (if you don't want to turn into a swamp). Managing good turnout is expensive and you need the land to rotate and rest too. You still need staff to oversee daily checks, haying, feeding etc, and the best poo picking option is by hand to be honest.

 

[rara007]

4 good grooms could muck out 50 boxes in 3 hours! But this does sound efficient, also sounds very expensive. I’m guessing they were huge boxes with huge beds

Yes- 6 figure race horses, beds past their knees!

 

[Keith_Beef]

ETA: Just to give you an idea of the prices for riding in my three 'local' riding schools, £75 per half hour private on one classical yard, £130 for a 1 hour beach ride at another that does trips out rather than lessons, and £60 for a private half hour or the same for a group hour at the third which is catered more to children.

I've only had a couple of individual lessons, and I only paid for one of those. I got the other one "for free", in that I didn't receive notification that our group class was cancelled so went up to the school to find an instructor who was there to work two horses, so he ride on one while teaching me on the other.

But the lesson I paid for cost me about €60. (I had another in the US, many years ago, but don't remember how much I paid, and of was through a kind of Groupon type thing so I don't count it)

My weekly group lesson works out at something less than €30 an hour.

I live just outside of Paris in what is generally an expensive area, especially for housing. Quite a few people here are in the diplomatic services of various countries, work at the OECD, in finance, law and IT.

 

[Snowpup]

I couldn’t believe the pay of the grooms on our yard, the youngest are getting paid £6.50 something an hour. This is on a very wealthy estate. One of them bought a drink from costa in her break for someone and didn’t get paid back. That cost her pretty much an hours work.

 

[Snowpup]

Dragged out of unpaid breaks too. I would willingly pay more for the grooms to be paid better. Ours are grumpy, unhappy and one is constantly shouting at the horses. If I could pay more to alleviate this I would.