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

JFTD said:
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Not quite sigmoid but...
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so by year 11 they are as barking mad as they are ever going to get, so when looking for livery maybe a question should be how long have you been a yard owner? then if it is over 11yrs then what you see is what you get and there should be not much change.
 
hollyandivy123 said:
so by year 11 they are as barking mad as they are ever going to get, so when looking for livery maybe a question should be how long have you been a yard owner? then if it is over 11yrs then what you see is what you get and there should be not much change.
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Yes, I think after a decade of being mad and dealing with mad people and their mad animals, most folk have pretty much peaked in their level of insanity. There may always be the odd outlier though...
 
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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That is a bit harsh blaming all yards because a select few fall in some of the maintenance, I see some owners carrying hay across the yard instead of wheelbarrow and I just grit my teeth and only one owner who when she drops hay and does not notice gets a please pick the hay up you dropped a bit or I do it myself. If it is a few strands I don't comment, so really you should have said some livery yard owners to be correct.
 
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On the dropping hay front ....

My YM bans any livery from topping up their horses hay because no one can be trusted not to drop hay on the yard! So YM does it and charges us for topping up hay. I'm being deadly serious. But at least fencing is good and fields aren't overstocked - it does however require me to bite my tongue on a number of occasions!!!
 
Surely they start with a high degree of madness, as you'd have to be batsh ** t crazy to want liveries in the first place.

I feel like I find all the crazies.

There is the one who thought my horse was unsettled at her yard because her coat was "too shiny," which meant "her blood was too hot." Obviously.

Or the one who did things like lunge my horse without my permission because I said, in a text, written down and unambiguous, "Horsey was off on her left fore this afternoon, please leave her in her stall tomorrow and I'll come by late morning to check her." YO decides, somehow, that this means she should lunge my horse and send me a text pronouncing, "Did you know your horse is off on her left fore?" (no sh ** Sherlock!).

Or how about the one who went ballistic at me because I took my horse to a two day clinic and left her in their stabling overnight instead of dragging her back and forth. YO wasn't fussed by me going to clinic when I said I would be bringing horse back overnight. But I changed my mind when it took me more than an hour to load her in my friend's death box (aka one horse trailer), so once I got to the clinic yard and horse seemed happy and settled there, I sent YO a message saying, "Given her behaviour about loading, she'll be staying in the clinic's overnight stabling as she is happy here and the stabling is safe and nowhere near other horses." YO was so pi$$ed.

I'm sure there are lovely, sane, reasonable yard owners out there. But where are they?
 
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Mine is a lovely little old lady. The YM -not so much. You talk about broken rails? None to be seen. The management on my yard is EXCESSIVE. Stupid things are getting done and it's very annoying. YM is a teen boy relation of the YO and liveries are leaving because of him. I'm on my last straws and am looking for my own place, can't cope with it. My yard is not plush either, basic, almost run down. I wish I was left alone!! Edited to ad YM has no people skills and no horse skills - things are dangerously done. We have thin strong almost cheese wire running through the electric fence. Electric fencing will snap if my houdini pony runs into it, wire doesn't. Hes been well known to climb through and get his hind legs stuck in fence, so what would happen if he did it now? He would probably break his legs.
 
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It is not a job I would do for love or money!!
I have a slightly strange view as I have my own space at home for ponies, but I keep my horse on livery up the road for their facilities and the company.
It is a big yard and yes there are things that need doing, but the poor YO has a FT job and a family as well as having to deal with a yard full of crazy women!!!
I do my best to get on with stuff myself and only bother him when I need to. But some liveries are constantly on the phone to him at all hours having a moan. He has even had to deal with the aftermath of a physical scuffle between two liveries!!!
So yes, mad as a box of frogs - for even doing it in the first place, but thank goodness they do!!
 
I'm one of the lucky view who have a dedicated, very knowledgeable and lovely yard owner/manager. There's not a single thing that I would want to change on the yard. I work ridiculous long hours every day and hate the fact that I can't be there as much as I used to on my previous DIY yard, but I can't contemplate how I'd be able to cope going back to DIY with work being so ridiculously time-consuming. I have complete peace of mind that my horse is in expert hands and couldn't ask for a better yard owner.
 
Ohhhh, I know. Our yard said she'd never have more than 15 on for the 30 acres they have and that the other barn would in time become an indoor school. We now have 28 horses, the others being in the barn that was meant to be an indoor school. If it rains in the summer, we have to move back into the winter field but her horses go out in that same summer field all winter... Dtives me mad cos the winter field is a 20 minute round trip, if it's near the gate!!
 
I have a small, quiet yard with a few spaces that I am advertising and can honestly say that I have never, ever met as many rude, ignorant horsey people in my life. The liveries that I have just now are all lovely but some off the people that come to view the yard are absolute bampots.
They can take the time to message several times about coming to view. I arrange the viewing, they come have a look, say they will think about it and thats the last you hear. I have taken time out of my day to show them about and they dont even have the decency to say thanks but no thanks.
So please dont tar all YO with the same brush, just think on as to what we have to put up with.
 
My yard owner is great, haven't got one single thing I dislike about my yard. The relief of being somewhere there is no bitching, everyone looks after their animals wonderfully and there is maintenance !
 
I once had the mother of crazy yard owners (if I named her, which I wont, she was very well known in years gone by). She once absolutely ROASTED me because when I arrived at the yard, she was chatting with the hay man - who happened to be an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen for a long time. I said hello to him far too enthusiastically apparently and she took great offence to this (????). She used to feed apples to my horse and make me get down on my hands and knees to scrub the slobber from the floor which he had made. And if a horse pood on the yard it had to be immediately washed and scrubbed. She would make me late for work every single morning as I had to hang on putting my horse out until hers were out (she lived there and knew jolly well what time I would be there so could have easily put hers out 10 mins before). She tried accusing me of stealing hay - turned out she hadn't counted it properly. To another livery (thankfully not me) she changed the goal posts after they had been there about 12 months and said the arrangement was for a stable only, not grazing, so the horse had to be turned out on the arena every day. Honestly, I could go on. Absolutely bonkers. Such a shame as she is an absolute genius with horses and I did learn an awful lot - just couldn't bear her ways so I left in the end.
 
The best yards are ones with solid rules, that do not change randomly without good cause. Have open communication, and understands not all liveries are physic / have access to crystal balls!
 
Notimetoride said:
I once had the mother of crazy yard owners (if I named her, which I wont, she was very well known in years gone by). She once absolutely ROASTED me because when I arrived at the yard, she was chatting with the hay man - who happened to be an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen for a long time. I said hello to him far too enthusiastically apparently and she took great offence to this (????). She used to feed apples to my horse and make me get down on my hands and knees to scrub the slobber from the floor which he had made. And if a horse pood on the yard it had to be immediately washed and scrubbed. She would make me late for work every single morning as I had to hang on putting my horse out until hers were out (she lived there and knew jolly well what time I would be there so could have easily put hers out 10 mins before). She tried accusing me of stealing hay - turned out she hadn't counted it properly. To another livery (thankfully not me) she changed the goal posts after they had been there about 12 months and said the arrangement was for a stable only, not grazing, so the horse had to be turned out on the arena every day. Honestly, I could go on. Absolutely bonkers. Such a shame as she is an absolute genius with horses and I did learn an awful lot - just couldn't bear her ways so I left in the end.
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Oh my goodness she wasn't well, not surprised you left.
These sort of YO stories fill me with horror
 
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