Why are all Livery Yard owners as Mad as a box of frogs?

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mums the groom

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Just that, owner who obsesses over hay being dropped on the yard but couldn't care less about over stocking the field or not fixing the fencing
 
Mine avoids insanity by keeping things entirely DIY and going on as many holidays as is humanly possible. I don't blame him at all.
 
mums the groom said:
Just that, owner who obsesses over hay being dropped on the yard but couldn't care less about over stocking the field or not fixing the fencing
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The link to both things you mentioned there is money. Wasted hay costs money, and fixing fences costs money. I've been lucky in that most yard owners I've met are business people who whilst they love animals, do have to watch the purse strings, not mad, just sensible.
 
Hah, I think it's years of sniffing manure, sends em batty. Either that or dealing with us annoying and even more bonkers livery owners!
 
I was having this conversation with my friend on Saturday, we did think that maybe they need to make an income from their land but REAAAALLY would rather not have to... Otherwise I don't know, but IME it's the yard OWNERS that are difficult rather than yard MANAGERS that maybe rent off the owners...
 
FfionWinnie said:
Dealing with horse owners would send anyone round the twist.
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Lol ... absolutely.

I've recently moved yards and the YM (she leases the property from a farmer) is the most awesome YM I've ever had the pleasure to encounter. Sane, sensible, competent, knowledgable .... Without exception, all the others have been odd, bonkers, neurotic or otherwise of questionable sanity.
 
I have been going to a yard for 4 years and not once have the gutters been cleaned out and are growing a small forrest. However the grass verges are manicured to perfection and no feet are allowed near. The whole place is swept several times a day but broken fence rails are still broken after 2 years. Stables are kept immaculate but poo picking does not happen very often and the fields are full of ragwort, which is only pulled during the BHS ragwort week.

Some people have different priorities to others.
 
A series of boxes of frogs spurred me into getting my own place. Now I can hang haynets round the yard, turn out whenever the hell I like, leave tools around, and mend my own damn fences (if only I could afford to!)
 
Landcruiser said:
A series of boxes of frogs spurred me into getting my own place. Now I can hang haynets round the yard, turn out whenever the hell I like, leave tools around, and mend my own damn fences (if only I could afford to!)
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Twenty five years of dealing with, for the most part, incredibly difficult horse owners made me shut up shop and sell my yard. And still people say to me "oh it's so inconvenient that you no longer take liveries". As the saying goes, you don't know what you've got till it's gone ...
 
Horse owners are generally bonkers. Therefore YOs who associate with these people are generally driven bonkers. If the YO owned their own horses to start with, they were bonkers at the beginning and exposure to bonkers clients results in their own bonkersness becoming multiplied by the exposure-to-bonkers effect. And then you really have problems... :rolleyes3:
 
My first yard owner was a witch. We had to lug bucket after bucket of water to fill the field troughs as we weren't allowed to use a hose pipe. And the buckets had to be lifted over a fence and poured into the trough as well. Not much fun in the winter when you edged up with wet arms.
 
My experience is you have the ones that are good with people and the ones that are good with horses, very rarely both.

The 2 I knew that were both gave up working with horses and went to do something less likely to send then round the bend.
 
Our YO is quite literally a spanner short of a tool box. Having just spent part of the weekend cannabilising parts of wheelbarrows so that we have three working ones rather than five broken ones and mending parts of the electric fencing I can categorically vouch for his inability to put anything useful back where it belongs or undertake the most basic maintenance tasks. I think I'm the one as mad as a box of frogs - I'm paying for the privilege of doing this stuff!
 
JFTD said:
Horse owners are generally bonkers. Therefore YOs who associate with these people are generally driven bonkers. If the YO owned their own horses to start with, they were bonkers at the beginning and exposure to bonkers clients results in their own bonkersness becoming multiplied by the exposure-to-bonkers effect. And then you really have problems... :rolleyes3:
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Yes, it's exponential.
 
In fairness, I pay livery to a friend who rents a whole yard. The YO seems a bit extreme now & then, but when you think about it, she's great. She knows her horses & lets us get on with it.

I found Dave bothering her the other week when she was pottering in the field & asked if he was getting in the way. "Oh no! I'm pulling nettles ready for the hedges to be set. He's helping by eating all the nettles & weeds I'd have to take back to the yard!"

Got to love a hungry Exmoor!
 
Dave's Mam said:
So it's true.
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Not quite sigmoid but...
 
Its not the exposure to horse owners thats the problem it the taste of power .They find out that horse owners dont like moving and suddenly they think they are Kim jong un!
 
Mike007 said:
Its not the exposure to horse owners thats the problem it the taste of power .They find out that horse owners dont like moving and suddenly they think they are Kim jong un!
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Well that is exposure to horse owners - if they weren't exposed to them, there would be no sense of power...

But yes, Kim Jong Un! :D
 
FfionWinnie said:
Dealing with horse owners would send anyone round the twist.
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I sold the farm, and the liveries ;) two years ago, I have just about stopped thinking "Oh for *******s sake! Now what? " when someone knocks on the door.

I actually think that all liveries should be made to run a yard, by themselves, for a week in summer and a week in winter, kind of walk a mile in my shoes. YO's can be a livery at their own place too, both experiences would be enlightening perhaps.
The owners that drove me battiest were the ones that had never actually had to maintain anything larger than a garden, never had to contend with broken pipes, power outages, storm damaged fences and barns, fence trashing horses, horses that couldn't be put in together for one reason or another, hauling hay, stacking hay - sourcing hay ... all you yard owners know what I mean ;)

There are lovely livery owners, and completely certifiable ones, same as YO's ... it's a symbiotic relationship, not a servant/employer one, some people (on both sides of the rent cheque) would do well to remember that :D
 
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Enfys said:
I sold the farm, and the liveries ;) two years ago, I have just about stopped thinking "Oh for *******s sake! Now what? " when someone knocks on the door.

I actually think that all liveries should be made to run a yard, by themselves, for a week in summer and a week in winter, kind of walk a mile in my shoes. YO's can be a livery at their own place too, both experiences would be enlightening perhaps.
The owners that drove me battiest were the ones that had never actually had to maintain anything larger than a garden, never had to contend with broken pipes, power outages, storm damaged fences and barns, fence trashing horses, horses that couldn't be put in together for one reason or another, hauling hay, stacking hay - sourcing hay ... all you yard owners know what I mean ;)

There are lovely livery owners, and completely certifiable ones, same as YO's ... it's a symbiotic relationship, not a servant/employer one, some people (on both sides of the rent cheque) would do well to remember that :D
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At least they knocked on your door. At the yard I am at ,there is no point .YO is completely out of touch And yo,s OH is a complete control freak who knows absolutely nothing about horses. I only stay there because of my fellow liveries.Edited to add that I truly believe that i could run the same yard blindfold with one arm tied behind my back.
 
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A yard I used to be at, the YO (who was one of the saner ones ...) used to interview potential liveries thoroughly before allowing them to move in, often said no to people even if there was space on the yard, and has a reputation for asking people to leave if they don't subsequently fit in and toe to line. It's a hard line approach but resulted in a yard of reasonable, well behaved people with manageable horses with the consequent preservation of her sanity.

I've never been lucky enough to own my own place and so have always had to be a livery, and it's easy to see that difficult and demanding owners with "special needs" horses are the ones who drive YOs/YMs bonkers. The constant effort of trying to keep everyone(and their horses) happy and find a way balance so many conflicting requirements and demands would drive the most sensible person nuts.
 
I am lucky, thankfully my yard owner is as crazy as I am, but we are the good kinda crazy not the "I want to eat your soul" crazy!!! :D

(I have been on yards where YO's have been the bad crazy... I used to be yard staff so I have also been on the receiving of the liveries....)
 
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