Would you pay for retirement livery?

[TopTotty]

Hi, Just wondered if you would pay for your horse to be on retirement livery (on a yard dedicated to this) and if so how much would you expect to pay and what services would you require?

 

[Holly Hocks]

I recently seriously considered retirement livery for my 20yr old TB. I contacted loads of places until I found a place in the South West which sounded ideal, and the owner responded to all my e-mails and explained the whole set up to me. Even though it was the furthest away (I am right up in the north west), I felt it was the right one for him. My main concern with a lot of the retirement homes is that the horses are turned out all year and as he is an old, arthritic horse, I didn't want him to go somewhere cold. So the place in Cornwall was ideal as it has warm weather all year round. My other concern was that the fields were flat, as steep hills and old horses just don't go together. I also wanted him to have at least one hard feed per day in summer and two in winter. The lady was fantastic and explained that they also had stables if they had to bring them in and was very encouraging at getting me to go and see them and have a look round. The only reason I didn't go was because I think my horse has another year or two in him and my concern at the moment is that if he stopped work completely he would get too bored. The place I looked at also provided ridden work, if required by their daughter who was well qualified. I think they quoted me £145 per month which I thought was really reasonable, and it is definitely the place I will be contacting when I feel that he is really ready to give up ridden work completely. The price included feed, dentist, and farrier.......

 

[Farma]

Hi - i considered this for my horse also - i ended up putting her on grass livery which gave me the option of an occassional stable for when the farrier came or if you wanted to bring them in for a groom or whatever. This was seriously no frills and was £20 per week - the other places i looked at would have included ad-lib hay aswell and they wanted about £35per week so it was reasonable.
What i gathered when looking is that there are very very few places that offer this type of service so grass livery was my only option that was still close(ish) to home. Its very hard to find the basics for your horse to live out which i think is adequate shelter, good water supply, decent fencing and decent amount of grazing per horse - all of those dont seem to go hand in hand.