Starting a Livery

[JBM]

Hi not sure what thread to put this in ?
Thinking of starting a livery I have my own land and fields. Would need to build a stable and arena. Tack room and such. Was hoping for diy/assisted diy. Would include haylage in the price so around 40 a week? Is this reasonable? I would feed haylage in morning as I would be feeding my own anyway and I’m happy to turn out and feed in evenings but you would be responsible for mucking out and feeding any mash and extras
Does this sound affordable? A good price? Would I charge lower or higher.
Does anyone know about any grants in Ireland to help start livery’s?
I would be looking for maybe just 6 horses nothing huge maybe get bigger over time
They can buy their own bedding or bulk buy with me I don’t mind ??‍

 

[The Xmas Furry]

Firstly, check to see if you are permitted to run a business there. If so, the buildings will need to be possibly rated.
Then you'll need to have public liability insurance, buildings and property insurance to quite a high level to cover for all eventualities.
You'll need to check if income will bring you into any form of tax levels, but even if not, it's best to set up a business account to handle income and expenditure for the livery business, keeping it separate from your own finances.
Do you have experience, qualifications etc? Very useful unless you are going to pay a YM instead.
The above are just the 1st steps, then stables, storage and arena will likely set you back a conservative 50k from scratch.

 

[JBM]

Firstly, check to see if you are permitted to run a business there. If so, the buildings will need to be possibly rated.
Then you'll need to have public liability insurance, buildings and property insurance to quite a high level to cover for all eventualities.
You'll need to check if income will bring you into any form of tax levels, but even if not, it's best to set up a business account to handle income and expenditure for the livery business, keeping it separate from your own finances.
Do you have experience, qualifications etc? Very useful unless you are going to pay a YM instead.
The above are just the 1st steps, then stables, storage and arena will likely set you back a conservative 50k from scratch.

Hi! Thank you for the response
We already run a yard here (milking farm and sheep) so we already have a business here and a herd number so that should be covered. I personally don’t have any experience but my dad is helping me and he has built multiple farm buildings and such so cost should be reduced by us doing most of it by hand. But insurance is definitely a big one

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

It is a BIG decision and it sounds like you might have to put in a considerable amount of financial outlay to get your buildings up etc.

Have you sought any permissions? Or can you convert your existing buildings? I'm in Devon (Conservation Area!!) and the Planners get very twitchy here if you start doing anything that will "change the outline" of buildings!! I'm presuming you are in the UK?

Also, yes, there is insurance to consider; and that ain't cheap!! But if you are handling other people's horses you will need "CCC" (Care Custody & Control) insurance. For this reason I stipulate that the livery I offer is Strictly DIY and I do not handle other people's horses.

I think you need to sit down and think about what you can offer and then do some research around your area to see what other people are charging. Then make your decision as to what you will offer i.e. "Assisted" or "DIY". If you have room for a good few horses and are offering "Assisted" then do bear in mind that if you are on your own AND running a farm (which I think you are??) then frankly you are going to struggle! You are likely to need to consider employing a Yard Manager and/or other staff - and you will need to take this into consideration when setting your prices.

Finally, I would counsel you to be very VERY picky about who you have as liveries! A good livery is a precious thing and they are to be valued!! Conversely, if you get a bad'un who causes trouble and infects everyone else on the yard with their poison plus tarnishes your good name, you'll be sorry you ever saw them! If you can, do a little research about people and/or their horses before they come to your yard - this is where you need a good network of local equine people who have their ears to the ground and can suss out potential liveries for you!

Anyway, good luck!

 

[[153312]]

It is a BIG decision and it sounds like you might have to put in a considerable amount of financial outlay to get your buildings up etc.

Have you sought any permissions? Or can you convert your existing buildings? I'm in Devon (Conservation Area!!) and the Planners get very twitchy here if you start doing anything that will "change the outline" of buildings!! I'm presuming you are in the UK?

Also, yes, there is insurance to consider; and that ain't cheap!! But if you are handling other people's horses you will need "CCC" (Care Custody & Control) insurance. For this reason I stipulate that the livery I offer is Strictly DIY and I do not handle other people's horses.

I think you need to sit down and think about what you can offer and then do some research around your area to see what other people are charging. Then make your decision as to what you will offer i.e. "Assisted" or "DIY". If you have room for a good few horses and are offering "Assisted" then do bear in mind that if you are on your own AND running a farm (which I think you are??) then frankly you are going to struggle! You are likely to need to consider employing a Yard Manager and/or other staff - and you will need to take this into consideration when setting your prices.

Finally, I would counsel you to be very VERY picky about who you have as liveries! A good livery is a precious thing and they are to be valued!! Conversely, if you get a bad'un who causes trouble and infects everyone else on the yard with their poison plus tarnishes your good name, you'll be sorry you ever saw them! If you can, do a little research about people and/or their horses before they come to your yard - this is where you need a good network of local equine people who have their ears to the ground and can suss out potential liveries for you!

Anyway, good luck!

OP says Ireland.

 

[JBM]

It is a BIG decision and it sounds like you might have to put in a considerable amount of financial outlay to get your buildings up etc.

Have you sought any permissions? Or can you convert your existing buildings? I'm in Devon (Conservation Area!!) and the Planners get very twitchy here if you start doing anything that will "change the outline" of buildings!! I'm presuming you are in the UK?

Also, yes, there is insurance to consider; and that ain't cheap!! But if you are handling other people's horses you will need "CCC" (Care Custody & Control) insurance. For this reason I stipulate that the livery I offer is Strictly DIY and I do not handle other people's horses.

I think you need to sit down and think about what you can offer and then do some research around your area to see what other people are charging. Then make your decision as to what you will offer i.e. "Assisted" or "DIY". If you have room for a good few horses and are offering "Assisted" then do bear in mind that if you are on your own AND running a farm (which I think you are??) then frankly you are going to struggle! You are likely to need to consider employing a Yard Manager and/or other staff - and you will need to take this into consideration when setting your prices.

Finally, I would counsel you to be very VERY picky about who you have as liveries! A good livery is a precious thing and they are to be valued!! Conversely, if you get a bad'un who causes trouble and infects everyone else on the yard with their poison plus tarnishes your good name, you'll be sorry you ever saw them! If you can, do a little research about people and/or their horses before they come to your yard - this is where you need a good network of local equine people who have their ears to the ground and can suss out potential liveries for you!

Anyway, good luck!

In Ireland just Thank you that is all very helpful. It would be me and my dad running it and we have a few people running the farm. I’m not a big farmer so I don’t do much of that ?. The CCC is a very good tip tho!
Hopefully it would mostly just be people we know of and such as I live in a medium sized town so it’s kind of a people know people area. But there’s obviously bad seeds everywhere
This advice is all great! I’ve first emailed about grant possibilities before starting to begin planning permissions but I’d mostly be leaving that with my dad as he has done this all before for previous buildings. There is one building we could convert but we would have to see as a lot of our buildings are used for sheep and cows during lambing/calving season.
I will take this all back to my dad as for the moment it’s just an idea. I know most about horses but dad knows the most about building and people.

 

[Parrotperson]

As to building an arena you’d need a decent one with lights.
A friend just signed £50k on this alone. Now of course you could do it for less but arenas that flood because of poor drainage or ride v deep because of a cheap surface means no liveries staying long term imho

 

[JBM]

As to building an arena you’d need a decent one with lights.
A friend just signed £50k on this alone. Now of course you could do it for less but arenas that flood because of poor drainage or ride v deep because of a cheap surface means no liveries staying long term imho

I was looking at a sand fiber mix as I know someone who has one and it holds great in our weather. but hopefully people will like our quiet roads I love them for hacking and our fields are big so you can use them in summer for schooling and a lovely place to canter/gallop

 

[JBM]

We could I suppose even do a few grass liveries in summer as we have plenty of land

 

[stangs]

A livery I really liked had a long interview/chat (over an hour) with liveries beforehand asking everything from would you be getting insurance, to how often you'd be coming up, to your general opinions on horse training etc. YM said that she was very selective about who joined but that those she rejected were only rejected on the basis that they wouldn't have fit in with the yard. Apparently, most people were quite understanding.

If you do end up starting a small business, that might be one way of going about things?

 

[JBM]

A livery I really liked had a long interview/chat (over an hour) with liveries beforehand asking everything from would you be getting insurance, to how often you'd be coming up, to your general opinions on horse training etc. YM said that she was very selective about who joined but that those she rejected were only rejected on the basis that they wouldn't have fit in with the yard. Apparently, most people were quite understanding.

If you do end up starting a small business, that might be one way of going about things?

That’s a great idea! Tho I might just make it more of a chat than a formal interview but I’ve already decided it’s going to be over 18s only due to the fact it’ll be mostly diy. I know someone who had trouble with diy with a mix of young children and naive parents

 

[dorsetladette]

Have a look at JJ farming and fodder solutions on facebook. They are a hay supplier local to me. They have just built a brand new yard with arena for DIY livery. They are advertising at £30 a week. Pricing really does depend on area, but they seem to be in a similar situation to you in that they did the building work themselves.

One thing I would recommend is all year round turnout. If your fields get particularly wet a couple of surfaced turnout pens would be ideal. Even if the surface was woodchip.

 

[JBM]

Have a look at JJ farming and fodder solutions on facebook. They are a hay supplier local to me. They have just built a brand new yard with arena for DIY livery. They are advertising at £30 a week. Pricing really does depend on area, but they seem to be in a similar situation to you in that they did the building work themselves.

One thing I would recommend is all year round turnout. If your fields get particularly wet a couple of surfaced turnout pens would be ideal. Even if the surface was woodchip.

Thank you I was thinking on all weather turnout but it would depend on what grant we could get as our fields are only suitable for sheep at this time of year

 

[JBM]

I was thinking of starting small maybe just 4 stables and building it up over time if we can’t get a grant. Stables with a good arena, tack room and feed room would be the basic with turnout in the drier months

 

[Green Bean]

It is quite eye opening reading about the expenses involved in setting up a livery yard. Just wondering if you are providing for 6 liveries, you would only receive around £1,000 per month less the cost of haylage (which is around £350 for 40 bales - not sure how many one horse would go through in a month). Haylage isn't suitable for all horses so you would need to consider hay as well. This would be fine if you had the infrastructure in place already, but just a simple wooden stable set up plus arena would take a large capital investment that you may not see a return on for quite some time. I can't imagine that there are government subsidy schemes for this set up. Good luck though, I know horse owners in general battle to find a good yard so if you are above the rest, you may well be able to charge a little more.

 

[JBM]

It is quite eye opening reading about the expenses involved in setting up a livery yard. Just wondering if you are providing for 6 liveries, you would only receive around £1,000 per month less the cost of haylage (which is around £350 for 40 bales - not sure how many one horse would go through in a month). Haylage isn't suitable for all horses so you would need to consider hay as well. This would be fine if you had the infrastructure in place already, but just a simple wooden stable set up plus arena would take a large capital investment that you may not see a return on for quite some time. I can't imagine that there are government subsidy schemes for this set up. Good luck though, I know horse owners in general battle to find a good yard so if you are above the rest, you may well be able to charge a little more.

We should be able to provide the haylage ourselves as we have about 200 acres and make a lot of bales a year so shouldn’t be too costly. I’d be including haylage in the price so not sure about people wanting hay as we don’t make it and hay needs it’s own well built storage while good baled haylage can sit outside. One of them would be my horses so would be around €800 a month which I’m fine with as this will be a side business not my whole job this is why it would be diy but if I invest in winter turnout I could make more as I would be the only livery around my area offering that service. I was considering setting up a survey and posting it in local horse groups to get an idea of interest

 

[LegOn]

So for Ireland, you have to have an equine premises number and have your premises registrated with the Department for Agri. Even though you already have a farm there - you have to have a seperate registration for an equine business.

You will also have to apply to the local council planning for change of use because of the addition of stables, out building and arenas - these all require planning permission and a seperate business licensing.

After that, once you have your insurance in place and your public liability then you are good to go!

Sounds like you have decent ground and facilities you can offer DIY. Just be careful if you dont have a full time manager (or you are not going to be running it full time) that things can spiral out of control very quickly with DIY's doing their own thing. I know your Dad will be around but he might be taken up with the farm as he is at the moment.

If you are very careful about who you have on the yard and have a decent contract in place that protects you and your liveries, it should help overall with any issues that might crop up! People can be bonkers so expect the unexpected!

 

[JBM]

So for Ireland, you have to have an equine premises number and have your premises registrated with the Department for Agri. Even though you already have a farm there - you have to have a seperate registration for an equine business.

You will also have to apply to the local council planning for change of use because of the addition of stables, out building and arenas - these all require planning permission and a seperate business licensing.

After that, once you have your insurance in place and your public liability then you are good to go!

Sounds like you have decent ground and facilities you can offer DIY. Just be careful if you dont have a full time manager (or you are not going to be running it full time) that things can spiral out of control very quickly with DIY's doing their own thing. I know your Dad will be around but he might be taken up with the farm as he is at the moment.

If you are very careful about who you have on the yard and have a decent contract in place that protects you and your liveries, it should help overall with any issues that might crop up! People can be bonkers so expect the unexpected!

Thank you! That’s extremely helpful!

 

[windand rain]

You must have turnout 365 days per year as shown by the other thread about livery requirements it doesn't have to be grass but it does have to be big enough for the horses to move around and get up speed. Unlikely they will gallop about but one might spook the rest

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Even as a private horse and land owner I have to be registered as an equine premises and any horses or donkey s on my land also have to have their microchip registered as being kept on my equine premises. They are getting very hot on all that here lately, so worth bearing in mind.

 

[JBM]

You must have turnout 365 days per year as shown by the other thread about livery requirements it doesn't have to be grass but it does have to be big enough for the horses to move around and get up speed. Unlikely they will gallop about but one might spook the rest

No livery around me does winter turnout at all ??‍ Really bugs me

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Even as a private horse and land owner I have to be registered as an equine premises and any horses or donkey s on my land also have to have their microchip registered as being kept on my equine premises. They are getting very hot on all that here lately, so worth bearing in mind.

Out of interest OP which area are you in? Some parts of Ireland are well catered for, others like my area are very thin on the ground

 

[JBM]

Out of interest OP which area are you in? Some parts of Ireland are well catered for, others like my area are very thin on the ground

I’m up Donegal area. Not sure what you mean by well catered for sorry ?

 

[Translationsneeded1]

My advice is to do the sums. By the time you put in the facilities and supply hay, water, electric (and fix stuff people break) it’ll take a loooong time to pay back.
I own a diy yard which I’m now winding down as the finances don’t stack up enough for me to continue.

 

[JBM]

My advice is to do the sums. By the time you put in the facilities and supply hay, water, electric (and fix stuff people break) it’ll take a loooong time to pay back.
I own a diy yard which I’m now winding down as the finances don’t stack up enough for me to continue.

Sorry to hear that! I’m hoping the fact we own the land and make the haylage will make it more profitable

 

[Cortez]

Speaking as someone who has run a livery and training yard, I think you're nuts. NOTHING would induce me to ever do such a thing again. Unless you particularly like being enslaved by demanding, neurotic, unreliable, and often downright insane people, not to mention their ill-mannered/dangerous, self-harming, destructive animals. You won't make money, not even if you manage to get people to pay on time - or at all.

 

[JBM]

Speaking as someone who has run a livery and training yard, I think you're nuts. NOTHING would induce me to ever do such a thing again. Unless you particularly like being enslaved by demanding, neurotic, unreliable, and often downright insane people, not to mention their ill-mannered/dangerous, self-harming, destructive animals. You won't make money, not even if you manage to get people to pay on time - or at all.

Would a contract help any?

 

[Cortez]

Would a contract help any?

Didn't make one whit of a difference with the really objectionable people. Two things - why do you want to run a yard? If it's for profit, forget it; you'll make more money in any job, with 1/4 of the effort/hassle. If it's for "fun", well, good luck with that....

 

[JBM]

Didn't make one whit of a difference with the really objectionable people. Two things - why do you want to run a yard? If it's for profit, forget it; you'll make more money in any job, with 1/4 of the effort/hassle. If it's for "fun", well, good luck with that....

I’d mostly be doing it for a small profit and to use the facilities myself..if it didn’t work out I’d use the facilities myself but I’d be strict about who I take. Generally up by me we all know each other anyway so people are generally nice..never met a mean livery so far and I’ve been around a few stables. Could just be the area I live in ??‍

 

[windand rain]

Horrifies me that there are still places with no winter turnout I would personally shoot my ponies if they had to be in more than 12 hours overnight preferably less than 12. I cannot understand why the owners are not prosecutd for cruelty too as they are not obseving the welfare rights of the horses. Guess it is because it is convenience to people and sod the animals rights