ester
Not slacking multitasking
I mostly turn my horses out so that they have free interaction with other horses and the opportunity to move more. Not for them to eat the grass, I kind of thought that was why everyone did?!
I mostly turn my horses out so that they have free interaction with other horses and the opportunity to move more. Not for them to eat the grass, I kind of thought that was why everyone did?!
I mostly turn my horses out so that they have free interaction with other horses and the opportunity to move more. Not for them to eat the grass, I kind of thought that was why everyone did?!
I find the horses interact in a kicking each other sort of way when food is scarce, mine can preen each other over the interconnecting door when in.
Ad lib hay is the best thing to prevent ulcers which i have no experience of other than seeing a few x racers that seem prone to them
This makes me sad. My liveries go out all day, every day - and I sort the fields out come spring. I would NEVER let convenience get in the way of horses being able to go out and move around/interact/be horses. It takes 5 minutes to drag one in and knock a bit of mud off so I can ride. Mine have ad lib hay in the field, as I turn them out for their mental health, not for the grazing.We are at a friends yard and could turn out 24/7 if we wanted, instead our three horses go out Saturdays only for around six hours which is plenty
I muck them out myself and have a routine that cuts the work to a minimum giving me plenty of time to ride.
Not sure why you would want a horse out any longer there is nothing in the grass for them and wading through mud in the dark to ride of an evening probably would not happen
What is this obsession with having lush green fields for grazing? It causes so many problems. I'd rather have mine out in a weedy, patchy field of grass and supplement with hay when necessary.
If you can make it work for 6 hours on a weekend, I can't see why you can't make it work without someone getting kicked on the other days.I find the horses interact in a kicking each other sort of way when food is scarce, mine can preen each other over the interconnecting door when in.
Ad lib hay is the best thing to prevent ulcers which i have no experience of other than seeing a few x racers that seem prone to them
Or monoculture. Unless you're in the wonderful position, and I hope you are, of having now rare species rich meadows which support an abundance of birds, bees etc in addition to grazing animals.It's called farming. Or good husbandry, and it only causes problems if you don't do the former.
Or monoculture. Unless you're in the wonderful position, and I hope you are, of having now rare species rich meadows which support an abundance of birds, bees etc in addition to grazing animals.
Or monoculture. Unless you're in the wonderful position, and I hope you are, of having now rare species rich meadows which support an abundance of birds, bees etc in addition to grazing animals.
Dont think it is being tight I think it has a lot to do with availability. You seem to pay your money and take a chance on whether or not you are getting what you are paying for. Some yard owners/managers are purely in it to collect the money have no interest in the land or animals on it others at the other extreme are OCD controlling dictators and everything in between. There seems to be a lot of both extremes going by threads on here otherwise once you were on a yard you would never leave unless you were moving house or area.
how many times do we see people moan about the cost of livery though? perhaps if YOs could charge more, they'd not need to overstock.
A livery contract should be in place with the exact conditions of livery and it should be impossible to change that contract without consent from both parties. It would allow both to have a record of what is expected on both sides. It would then be a case of choice if you dont want that service you shop around to find a contract you do want or not have a horse at all it is fairly simple
I find the horses interact in a kicking each other sort of way when food is scarce, mine can preen each other over the interconnecting door when in.
Ad lib hay is the best thing to prevent ulcers which i have no experience of other than seeing a few x racers that seem prone to them
whereas my YO was very much out unless dangerous (icey) to get out there which was true. However hadn't mentioned they all had to come in at 2pm .
As a DIY livery, I would happily pay a lot more to have a yard owner that was professional and valued me as a customer, daily turnout with no restrictions in the winter and 24/7 in summer, a useable schooling area, and a nice yard environment. The trouble is that there is no place that offers that - there is always one of those things missing. It is a definite gap in the market!!!
I am dead chuffed that I seem to have found the holy grail... almost, anyway! I actually had to tell YO I didn't want mine turned out in the snow recently, everything else went out as normalAs a DIY livery, I would happily pay a lot more to have a yard owner that was professional and valued me as a customer, daily turnout with no restrictions in the winter and 24/7 in summer, a useable schooling area, and a nice yard environment. The trouble is that there is no place that offers that - there is always one of those things missing. It is a definite gap in the market!!!
There probably aren't any because people who are wealthy enough that they don't need to worry about the cost of stable, yard, arena and field maintenance, don't need to offer livery in the first place.
Big companies offer excellent customer service because its a way to differentiate themselves from the competition and therefore attract more customers. Offering horse livery doesn't really fall into the same category unless they struggle to fill their stables and even then, they may prefer to have stables empty than offer livery to people whose horses have specific needs which are going to be too difficult to accommodate. With livery you're talking about 10s or hundreds of pounds, with yard ownership and maintenance you are most often looking at thousands. For example, just revamping an arena, aside from all the other usual maintenance work costs around £20k and lasts perhaps 8 to10 years before you need new fencing and another new surface. (I'm talking roughly here, I'm sure other people have done it for a lot less or a lot more).
I would certainly never tie myself into an ultra tight contract which gave me no flexibility at all to manage my land, I just wouldn't want to take that risk, it would never be worth it as a landowner. As someone else above said, there will always be a degree of subjectivity about weather / ground conditions / sufficient grazing anyway.
When I had liveries I did my best to accommodate 24/7 turnout for as much of the year as I could which was appreciated by 95% of my liveries. I would say the horses stayed in for maybe 10 days a year on average. Unfortunately its the other 5% which spoil it for everyone else because it seems that whatever you offer isn't good enough for them and some of them don't complain in a way that is constructive or enables you to move forward with the relationship.
This thread was about the YO keeping horses in due to bad weather conditions for one day or maybe two days, which I don't think is unreasonable. We had the snow which thawed one week, followed by a week of really heavy rain /hail showers which is quite unusual conditions. If you have the odd livery whose horse can't keep off the ground even for one day over the winter when the ground is suffering, then I think really they need to do whatever is necessary to get their own place somehow. I don't think most liveries would be too worried about the odd day tbh.
What is this obsession with having lush green fields for grazing? It causes so many problems. I'd rather have mine out in a weedy, patchy field of grass and supplement with hay when necessary.
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