Why do some yards...

[[69117]]

I think if you have a YO with a similar lovely attitude as Starzaan then you're onto a winner and regardless of type of livery it will be a lovely place to be. YO sets the tone

Aw, thank you - that's really sweet of you!

 

[Cinnamontoast]

My yard is a riding school with full livery and DIY, plus the YO's own horses. All are in different areas and no-one appears to worry or get on each other's nerves. The RS horses are in a different field to the liveries. A friend lets her horse be used for occasional leadrein lessons for a reduction in fees. It seems like a good set up.

 

[leflynn]

Aw, thank you - that's really sweet of you!

Tis true I'm lucky and have the northern version managing our yard and caring for the ned

 

[EventingMum]

This is always assuming two things - that the DIY liveries have left a mess, we're not all irresponsible, lazy slobs . . and that the YO's house is right in the middle of the yard - my YO lives on-site, but on the opposite side of the (large) car park separated by a large fence/hedge - he and his family have enough of a life outside the yard not to be worrying about the odd strand of straw not swept up.
I said any mess they may have left, not that they are all irresponsible, lazy slobs - as I said further on there are good and bad liveries.
My house is beside the yard, sadly I can't move it , the planning authorities dictated where it had to be built however one of their reasons reason for it being where it is so we could see everyone arriving at the yard for security reasons.


Fair enough on space . . . but as a DIYer I already know what my horse is being fed b/c I buy it and give it to him . While you're making generalizations about DIYers I think it's worth pointing out that a friend of mine moved her horse from a full livery set up to DIY b/c the YO changed her horse's feed without discussing it with her.
I'm not generalising at all, OP asked why yards didn't offer DIY, I'm giving the reasons why I don't. It's a case of different yards suit different horses and ownners and as I said I discuss feeding with my liveries



I would argue that MOST DIY liveries adhere to the stipulated worming programme . . . there are ways of making sure it's done, including egg counts, even on a DIY yard. The assertion that DIYers are somehow less worried about their horses' health is anathema.
Please read what I said: "whilst I’m sure many DIY liveries adhere to the stipulated programme on a yard I have heard of those that won’t/lie about doing so." I didn't say that most didn't merely that I had heard of ones who didn't.




As good grazing is at a premium on this overcrowded isle of ours, I suspect you're not alone in having to manage your grazing carefully . . . and effective grazing management isn't restricted to full livery yards. We manage to apply weed killer and fertilizer with YO's help with little fuss - he simply puts a note on the board saying "fields being done X day, please move your horses to the temporary/allocated fields on Y day" and it's done. Not difficult.
At no point did I say effective grazing management is restricted to full livery yards.



First, horses quickly become accustomed to ANY routine and ours know that first up in the morning feeds the whole yard - that way all get fed at the same time in the morning . . . and then they all settle back down for a post-breakfast snooze until their owners arrive to turn them out. Nobody weaves or stresses - the whole lot of them just chill. My own horse, who can be a proper stresshead, is quite happy for other horses to be turned out before him and knows roughly when to expect me - how I don't know. Second, wouldn't you like to not be up at sparrow's fart and then not to bed until late? Liveries can be trusted to open up and lock up . . . while our yard is ridiculously secure (based on the number of gates and double locks and alarms it's like Fort Knox) but we have an "any hours" policy and YO relies on the liveries to open up the yard in the morning and lock up last thing at night. We've never had the yard left unlocked - after all it's our horses and equipment we are protecting by locking up. We are obviously respectful of the fact that we need to drive past YO's house on the way in and out, but he and his family and his two dogs seem to cope just fine.
Obviously horses become accustomed to any routine however I still maintain our regular daily routine plays a large part in the fact that new horses settle easily here.
I would still need to be up to do our own horses and to do things like level the schools outwith the times clients want to ride (which are done daily).
I also like to know my home is secure at night and perfer not to have too many people in possession of the main gate keys - my choice, at no point did I say liveries were not to be trusted, I do trust them to switch off lights and lock the tack room if they are last on the yard.



Completely agree that horses thrive on routine - and the horses on our yard all have one . . . they are all fed together in the morning, and then all the horses know when to expect what from their owners every single day . . . each horse knows when it's going out, who it's fieldmates will be, when it will come in, when it will get its tea and be put to bed. Because there is always someone on the yard from about 6.30 a.m. until 9.30 p.m. (liveries) there is always someone with an eye out . . . I found out GD had broken his stable windows from a fellow livery who put him out in the field for me and picked up all the glass she could see both ourside and inside the stable before ringing me at 7 a.m. People have noticed escaped horses, missing feeds/hay, potential colic, symptoms of a bean in the sheath and acted accordingly and appropriately.
That's fine on a yard like yours that has people about all day however I have heard of yards where all the liveries work during the day and so the horses do not have an eye kept on them during the working day.



Just as there are all types of liveries, there are also all types of YOs . . . and I don't recall anyone implying that you (or any other full livery YO on here) were somehow perceived as superior . . . and, yes, it's your job to look after your liveries' horses as though you were then own . . . but just as some DIYers don't look after their own horses they way YOs would like, some full YOs/managers don't always look after other people horses the way the liveries would like. There's no wrong or right here . . .

Maybe a bad choice of words on my part, what I meant was that I was not implying that my knowledge was superior than that of any liveries and I was therefore better able to look after their horses just that I considered it my job to look after livery horses to the best of my ability the same way as I look after my own.



This I completely agree with . . . I wouldn't want to be on a yard that mixed full with DIY. Recipe for disaster IMHO. But I can't agree that full is better . . . in the same way that I wouldn't say that DIY is better either. Depends on the horse, the owner, the yard environment and a whole host of other things.
I didn't say full is better than DIY, just that I won't want to do DIY on my yard - what I do works for me but every yard is different and as I said the horse world is full of conflicting ideas, probably more so on a DIY yard where each owner keeps their horse according their own idea whereas on a full livery yard all the horses are kept according to the YO ideas



And this is how it should be . . . your yard, your rules. Works for DIY too, though .

Of course it can work for DIY but I chose not to go down that route and was answering OP's question as to why not

 

[englund]

I recently bought my own yard, 8 stables school ect and over the last 4 weeks have had at least 12 people ask me for DIY as their present yards are stopping DIY. I have no interest in ever having any type of livery due to past experiences which did involve a DIY so I can see why yards are stopping it as there is no money in it. However I did have my horses on full livery before I got my own yard and it was awful. They were incompetant liars who did not even feed as they should do so I can see why people dont want certain others to look after their horses. This is definately going to become a big problem in the future but it will resolve itself as alot of therse livery yards are totally incapable of running a successful part/full livery yard so will have to revert back to DIY.

 

[Renvers]

I recently bought my own yard, 8 stables school etc and over the last 4 weeks have had at least 12 people ask me for DIY as their present yards are stopping DIY. I have no interest in ever having any type of livery due to past experiences which did involve a DIY so I can see why yards are stopping it as there is no money in it. However I did have my horses on full livery before I got my own yard and it was awful. They were incompetant liars who did not even feed as they should do so I can see why people dont want certain others to look after their horses. This is definately going to become a big problem in the future but it will resolve itself as alot of therse livery yards are totally incapable of running a successful part/full livery yard so will have to revert back to DIY.

Congrats on getting your own place.

As much as I like being on Full Livery, I am at a place where you can arrive anytime and know that the horses routine is as we are told, and I feel my luck in having that.

Near to me there is a well known competition venue with a full livery yard onsite where what you pay for and what you get are very different and you were deterred from coming onsite at certain times of day. But if you did your horses would have just eaten its lunch/hay/just been bought in...

It's worrying that places are stopping DIY, it works out cheap on Full Livery for me as mine are stabled but for those who have 24/7 t/o it becomes a much more expensive option.

 

[Marydoll]

As a DIY'er I do sometimes feel second rate. At my yard now, its only DIY and we are small. My last yard did the whole package but dependant on what you were, depended on your fields/stable.

DIY'ers had their own run down barn, with crap hay and field fenced with barbed wire. Parts had better stables but still went in the same fields, but Full had a state of the art stable block, brilliant fields and the best hay and shavings money could buy!

I could never understand how as a DIY'er it meant my horse had to eat crap hay and risk injury? Needless to say, I didn't stay there long...

Because you chose to accept it !

 

[Marydoll]

But that reads to me that only DIY'ers cause squabbles, falling outs and nastiness! Believe me, full liveries can be just as nasty! We have a mixture of full and DIY, the last lot of unrest on the yard was because a DIY'er (me!!) had left a bucket of water by the water tank, and a Full Livery didnt like it there!

Agree,its a people thing, not a services thing.

 

[Marydoll]

This is always assuming two things - that the DIY liveries have left a mess, we're not all irresponsible, lazy slobs . . and that the YO's house is right in the middle of the yard - my YO lives on-site, but on the opposite side of the (large) car park separated by a large fence/hedge - he and his family have enough of a life outside the yard not to be worrying about the odd strand of straw not swept up.



Fair enough on space . . . but as a DIYer I already know what my horse is being fed b/c I buy it and give it to him . While you're making generalizations about DIYers I think it's worth pointing out that a friend of mine moved her horse from a full livery set up to DIY b/c the YO changed her horse's feed without discussing it with her.



I would argue that MOST DIY liveries adhere to the stipulated worming programme . . . there are ways of making sure it's done, including egg counts, even on a DIY yard. The assertion that DIYers are somehow less worried about their horses' health is anathema.



As good grazing is at a premium on this overcrowded isle of ours, I suspect you're not alone in having to manage your grazing carefully . . . and effective grazing management isn't restricted to full livery yards. We manage to apply weed killer and fertilizer with YO's help with little fuss - he simply puts a note on the board saying "fields being done X day, please move your horses to the temporary/allocated fields on Y day" and it's done. Not difficult.



First, horses quickly become accustomed to ANY routine and ours know that first up in the morning feeds the whole yard - that way all get fed at the same time in the morning . . . and then they all settle back down for a post-breakfast snooze until their owners arrive to turn them out. Nobody weaves or stresses - the whole lot of them just chill. My own horse, who can be a proper stresshead, is quite happy for other horses to be turned out before him and knows roughly when to expect me - how I don't know. Second, wouldn't you like to not be up at sparrow's fart and then not to bed until late? Liveries can be trusted to open up and lock up . . . while our yard is ridiculously secure (based on the number of gates and double locks and alarms it's like Fort Knox) but we have an "any hours" policy and YO relies on the liveries to open up the yard in the morning and lock up last thing at night. We've never had the yard left unlocked - after all it's our horses and equipment we are protecting by locking up. We are obviously respectful of the fact that we need to drive past YO's house on the way in and out, but he and his family and his two dogs seem to cope just fine.



Completely agree that horses thrive on routine - and the horses on our yard all have one . . . they are all fed together in the morning, and then all the horses know when to expect what from their owners every single day . . . each horse knows when it's going out, who it's fieldmates will be, when it will come in, when it will get its tea and be put to bed. Because there is always someone on the yard from about 6.30 a.m. until 9.30 p.m. (liveries) there is always someone with an eye out . . . I found out GD had broken his stable windows from a fellow livery who put him out in the field for me and picked up all the glass she could see both ourside and inside the stable before ringing me at 7 a.m. People have noticed escaped horses, missing feeds/hay, potential colic, symptoms of a bean in the sheath and acted accordingly and appropriately.



Just as there are all types of liveries, there are also all types of YOs . . . and I don't recall anyone implying that you (or any other full livery YO on here) were somehow perceived as superior . . . and, yes, it's your job to look after your liveries' horses as though you were then own . . . but just as some DIYers don't look after their own horses they way YOs would like, some full YOs/managers don't always look after other people horses the way the liveries would like. There's no wrong or right here . . .



This I completely agree with . . . I wouldn't want to be on a yard that mixed full with DIY. Recipe for disaster IMHO. But I can't agree that full is better . . . in the same way that I wouldn't say that DIY is better either. Depends on the horse, the owner, the yard environment and a whole host of other things.



And this is how it should be . . . your yard, your rules. Works for DIY too, though .

Thanks ps youve saved me a lot of typing.