Yard owners horses, private paddocks

Enfys

Enfys

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YO's or livery owners can answer this one.

As a Yard Owner do you keep your own horses separately from clients horses and have your own private paddocks? (or do your YO's have their own private paddocks?)

Just curious as to what people do, all bought about by someone viewing my yard today and asking if I could move my stallion so that she could have the nice paddock by the house so I could watch her horses all the time. Polite answer was "No, sorry, that is my private paddock and his home" I got the impression the answer didn't go down well and she won't be applying to come here (swings and roundabouts, if I feel someone won't 'fit' then I give them the names of yards which I think will suit them better than mine ;))

Ah well, such is life :)
 
I think I'd have been laughing too hard to have answered that one properly... :D

My livery is a working farm... The YO has their home fairly close and their horses are stabled at the back of their house and turned out in a field to the side or over the road...

We use a large area of land for turnout that is only for livery horses... It is shared with few of the 'pet sheep'... :) Can't fault them for having their own horses close to hand...
 
Unless they want a seperate paddock, they are put in with my two gelding ponies who are very laid back and wouldn't harm a fly! They wouldn't have a choice though where it was! lol. I only have one or two liveries as its at a private home and I like them to live out so don't have enough land for more.
 
I dont put any of my horses in with liveries did it once but kept having to do her horse so stopped . My horses have there own field and I wont move them for anyone if they want things like this they need to buy their own place.
 
My YO has his own paddocks for his horses and we as liveries have are own paddocks as well. Nobody uses each others and everybody is happy. However the only really annoying thing is that my YO will graze his horses randomly on ' spare' patches of grass. ie a strip in front of our paddocks, or my stables which is a pain as we have to ask him to move the horses every time we want to bring ours in or out.

I feel that if you are offering livery, you should set aside the paddocks you want to rent out and let people decide if that's what they want.
 
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My horse goes out with the YO's horses.
She also uses one of her horses as a pal for a horse new to the yard to judge how friendly it is. Depending on outcome, she will try and pair it with an existing livery.
 
I keep my horses totally seperate from the livery horses. i did have some in with mine, but it caused me so much hassle as I ended up having to do them and think carefully about which of my horses I wanted to ride because of the liveries that I would never do it again.
 
Over the years have had a mix, but my stallion paddock has always been that - mine :)
As also the 2 diet paddocks right by the yard, but they have been used by others only with permission if needed for special circumstances.

Enfys - if a livery had ever asked, they would have been met with amazed looks (and they prob would not have asked if they had been on yard v long!)
 
Good question, and one which I can answer from both sides. In all the livery yards where I have been a client, the YOs have kept their horses separate from the liveries in their own (superior) paddocks, close to the house. I only minded this at one yard. This was when I lived in leeds and kept my horse on a very large yard. The liveries went out in two mud holes during the winter. Around 25 horses on around 4 acres without a blade of grass. The YOs horses went out in nice grassy paddocks. In the summer they all went out in huge summer fields, so that was okay.

Now I run my own yard, all horses get treated exactly the same. Currently my two are kept together, but only because the mare they share with is heavily pregnant and has her own paddock. She will go back in with my mare at weaning time. All horses get rotated around the paddocks so they all get the same amount of grazing.
 
I have to say, Enfys, that potential livery probably isn't the type I would have on my yard. That question alone speaks volumes about what a pain they would be. You have probably had a narrow escape!
 
Mine have a mix, I have a couple that are just companions so the livery horses are not usually turned out alone, it works well as no horse ever needs to be left without company.
If a livery wants to be on individual turnout it gets whatever is currently available, I would not expect to move mine to fit in with them, why would they think you want to look at their horse all day in preference to your own:confused:

I had one lady, on grass livery as a favour short term as I dont usually take grass liveries, she felt her mare was treated badly as it was in a starvation paddock and lost weight, it was obese, laminitic and in real danger of getting it again when it arrived, by the time it left it was slim and healthy but I was in the wrong:confused:
 
My YO has their own paddock next to their house. I've never given it a second thought and i wouldn't dream of turning up at a yard and demand people move paddocks to suite me :eek:

There are a few people who have their own paddocks and I've always assumed it's because their horse is antisocial, expensive competition horse or different livery rota to the rest of us but I'm happy for my tank to be chucked in with anyone that isn't intimidated by his size!!

If i had my own yard then i would keep my horses separate from the liveries mainly as my horses are my hobby which needs to be kept separate from my work, even though my work would be horses.
 
My horses and the livery horses [12] are all kept together, even the stallion, tho he is only in paddocks next to geldings. Paddocks near the house are used in rotation with the others. Everyone has their own 3 ish paddocks which they can shuffle their horses around in as to circumstances ie resting, diet, fertilising, out 24/7 etc and we all discuss as a final result who is next to who so there are no over the fence arguments [horses...not clients!] Seems to work just fine, tho takes a bit of negotiation!
 
I would say sorry I cannot meet your demands please dont let the door hit you on your way out.


my horses go in with the others dont have enough land to give separate grazing. A stallion different . But Horses need to be together herd animals . People like that you dont want.


I had someone viewing the yard once asking can you move the caravan so my box can park on hard standing instead of the field!! I said bye bye.
 
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It's like having a lodger view the spare room and them him asking if he can have your bedroom instead!

I don't have any liveries but if I did I would allocate a paddock and keep mine seperately.

My yearling is at a friends with her colt, she moves them around as she sees fit.
 
I've had mine where its been both ways. I can't imagine asking the yo to swop their horses round tho so my horses are next to the house! I've seen 1 or 2 yards where yo has a huge field for themselves & a tiny mud bath for all the liveries but it's not the type of yo I'd want to have anyway so I wouldn't be moving on anyway. Not that most yo's do that tho!
 
When we did livery we had four of our own and two liveries. They all went in together, but our ponies got bullied a lot by one livery, aand rugs got ripped. Had we had more than two liveries we would have seperated them off. Its like someone said, if you have a long standing, stress free herd that you can do what you want with, why add stress into the mix? In the end we just never replaced the liveries when they left and now its just us!
 
:D Update on this...

She did call back and say that she thought we could work things out and that she'd like to come, we could simply move that big chestnut from his paddock ......... :rolleyes:

I told her that I thought this wasn't perhaps the place for her and I gave her the number of a friend who has lots of individual/pair paddocks - I made the mistake once of taking someone I had doubts about and the yard atmosphere grew two heads and was awful. :(

It would be lovely if running a yard was as simple as taking money at the start of the month, perhaps my friend has it right, individual/same owner paddocks are the way to go. :)
 
Slightly different tack, but we had a potential livery who wanted us to move three existing liveries horses out of a block of four so her four could go in there!
 
We mix and match.

Some of our horses are in paddocks together and some mixed in with liveries. It's done in small amicable groups, not to do with owners but the horses and keeping them as happy as possible with suitable grazing buddies.

So I wouldn't move my own horses if they were in a paddock I was happy with and happy together for a silly request, same as I wouldn't chop and change other liveries needlessly around. However if there could be a good matching I'd mix them in happily enough.

Pan
 
Mines in with the Yo's Horses. We have 2 big fields, a medium field and a tiny feild for starvation/rest etc. 2 of Yo's Horsea are in the big field with mine and the other liveries Horse and her other 3 are in the medium field. The other big one is resting for summer
 
I keep 3 of mine separate from the liveries, the fourth goes out with 1 livery.
The liveries are turned out in pairs or individually, my horses have the paddocks nearest the yard :) I don't think it really matters though as there are no DIYs, so I am the person who fetches them in anyway.
 
This reminds me of a yard I know where a new livery wanted to move on. However the only stable as available were in separate areas which she said were no good. She had 2 horses.
The YO then moved a load of other liveries aroun, pissing lots of people off in an attempt to please the new livery.
A couple of the people she annoyed gave notice straight away......then the new livery lasted a month before deciding it 'wasn't for her'
So in trying to give in to demands the YO ended up with 4 spaces instead of just the 2 if she'd not taken the new livery!
 
glamourpuss said:
This reminds me of a yard I know where a new livery wanted to move on. However the only stable as available were in separate areas which she said were no good. She had 2 horses.
The YO then moved a load of other liveries aroun, pissing lots of people off in an attempt to please the new livery.
A couple of the people she annoyed gave notice straight away......then the new livery lasted a month before deciding it 'wasn't for her'
So in trying to give in to demands the YO ended up with 4 spaces instead of just the 2 if she'd not taken the new livery!
Click to expand...

When I moved house/areas I moved to a new yard.
I turned up horse in tow and put him in the stable I was told was mine, thinking nothing more of it.
A few days later I found out one of the other liveries had been ordered to move their horse to a smaller box to make room for mine. I was mortified. Thankfully the other livery didn't hold a grudge!
 
Ours is a DIY set-up and I keep mine separate from my livery's horses. Its easy to do coz basically there are two fields, separated by a road which makes a natural barrier.

My boy and "his" mare are kept "my" side of the road in with the sheep; and the livery keeps hers (with another mare) separate.

We find its much easier this way - livery is at liberty then to do with hers as she sees fit without worrying about taking one horse out and the other stressing out, she just comes and does hers and rides etc and gets on with it.

We've basically got two Herds in fact, both separate and both with a mare, and I strongly suspect there'd be carnage i.e. bitch-fight if we just bunged everyone in together. The situation works brilliantly as it is, and hey if its not broke don't go fixing it.
 
I keep my three horses together and my liveries all have a separate field each but i dont have a special field for my horses they just all rotate summer and winter. I think everyones happy !!
 
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