Yards emptying out ?

Penny Less

Penny Less

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10 March 2009
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Our local horse shop is awash with ads for DIY livery etc. Either there are lots of people setting up new yards or lots of horses being sold, never seen so many vacancies. Our yard is half full at the moment and we are nearly always at least three quarters full. If the new horse tax goes ahead, there will be even more spaces and more horses being abandoned
or neglected. Several horses been sold off our yard with owners not replacing them
 
Our yard always has a waiting list but suddenly has 7 vacancies! This was caused by a couple of people with multiple horses leaving as they had bought their own places but when the YO ran round the wait list no one was interested.
 
My yard is full (touches wood) and we have a waiting list of 10!!!

I think we do well becasue we are cheap (at least £10 cheaper than anywhere else, weekly) the boxes are big, and it is a small yard (14 horses) with great hacking, woodchip floodlit arena which isnt perfect but does a job, and nice people.
 
We had a waiting list begining of summer and now have 2 spaces which have been empty for 3months had odd person look round but still wanted 2 keep horses out for long and might call when weather changes.
Think lots of people are have there horses out 24/7.
 
There certainly seems to be more yards and advertised vacancies around us at the moment, not sure if it's people selling up, or people who have bought their own land and decided to have a livery or two to go alongside their own horses tho.
 
There are about 4 boxes empty on the yard I'm at, they've been empty for a few months now. Our local tack shop has loads of yards with vacancies advertising on their notice board. When I moved to the area a few years ago i struggled to find a single place for my horse.....times have changed.
 
Our yard is full and has a waiting list. YO is currently putting up a few more stables too. Probably because we have fab facilities and lovely YO! Not many others of a similar standard nearby either (and those that are good are also full!) They only do full livery, no DIY, and that doesn't seem to be putting customers off.
 
We have spaces where we have been full in the past but YO is apparently being much pickier about who he will allow onto the yard. Has said he would rather have empty stables than trouble makers, something we're all thankful for.
 
The yard i'm on at the moment is full and it is very very very very rare for a stable to be empty for more than a week or so. I am actually leaving in a few weeks as moving an hour away and I know when I handed my notice in YO said she had just turned someone away wanting full livery due to no boxes and so would be contacting them saying she now has a space. Also YO is very very picky with who comes on the yard which is one of the main reasons I have been there 8 years. There is only one person I sort of dislike and I can even bare them most of the time
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The yard i'm on is nearly always full, there is only 13 boxes and some people have been on the yard for 8 or more years. Recently three horses left at once as one was sold and the other two moved to Germany as owner was moving over there. Those boxes were quickly filled, and by people who had left for various reasons, such as horse going lame and being turned out full time all year round and another lady having babies so moved her horse to a field where she could live out also. They are both now back and so is another girl who kept her pony there when she was younger and is now back 10 years later with her new horse. A stable is never empty for long and people tend to stay for a loong long time
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I think they are at the moment.
Left my last yard as part of a big exodus but the places various people have moved too also have spaces.

I think once you have spaces around then people are more likely to move looking for a better deal or if they are not happy. When everything was full a year/18 months ago people stayed put as they didn't really have anywhere to go easily.

We've got a couple free on the yard I've moved to but not been there long enough to know if that's normal and it's one of those places that don't really advertise and you only get to hear about it word of mouth.
 
I don't know much about livery yards, as I rent my own place, but I have noticed that for years there has been a lot of grazing (no facilities) available to let in my neck of the woods which has been empty for as long as I've been there. But suddenly, in the last 6 months, every one of these fields has been taken over by someone or other, even with the lack of facilities.

It really does look to me as if many people are having to "downgrade" to fields such as these in this recession, simply to try and cut the costs of keeping their much loved horses.
 
Our yard is full, but it is small and friendly people dont seem to leave, i got my space about a year ago, and i was the last new stabled livery in. But i have noticed suddney increase of livery availble cards on my local tack shops board
 
Some livery yards are great- but so many of them are pretty awful

It must be one of the few places where customer service is often a "what's that?" these days - in some yards you pay your money - quite a lot of it - but often you get cavalier, unaccountable and downright irresponsible management of your horse, being treated like an inconvenience, having to put up with the cr*p service and mouldy hay you get, rotten fencing, leaky stables, sodden schools, your contract being worth about as much as a piece of used loo roll.....

Livery in the UK can be such a poor cusotmer experience.
 
there are A LOT of yard vacancies on the local countrywide ad boards in b'north/newport/Ironbridge/brosely/shifnal areas- I think a lot of people cant afford the increased bedding/haying costs- at £7 per bale of shavings and £3.50 for a bale of hay its a lot so many are moving to fields rather than selling their horses altogether.
 
Our yard is normally full but has had 5 horses leave in the last 5 months 1 got sold, 1 moved to a different yard, The owner of 2 of them bought her own house with land and the last went to a yard that does full livery as his owner isn't well. We've had one person come in their place with a new horse and 3 are due to move from another yard shortly but that still leaves one empty box, the first time in years that's happened.
 
I'm on a grass livery only yard which has really filled up over the summer but IMHO a lot of the newcomers will be going back to DIY soon now that the days are shorter.

A lot of them were trying to save money but are now struggling with the lack of facilities (electric lights, whats them?
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) and feeling guilty about wintering theirs out. Some of the owners are also realising that it takes a long time standing in a field for their horses to eat 2 big feeds a day as they can't just put a bucket in a stable and leave them to it, nearly as long as mucking and turning out but lonelier and colder.

We also always get a few Parieli types every spring but their horses are usually sold by autumn.........
 
[ QUOTE ]
Some livery yards are great- but so many of them are pretty awful

It must be one of the few places where customer service is often a "what's that?" these days - in some yards you pay your money - quite a lot of it - but often you get cavalier, unaccountable and downright irresponsible management of your horse, being treated like an inconvenience, having to put up with the cr*p service and mouldy hay you get, rotten fencing, leaky stables, sodden schools, your contract being worth about as much as a piece of used loo roll.....

Livery in the UK can be such a poor cusotmer experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you so much!
I am currently looking for livery for my three - and yards want to charge me about £200 per horse per month for DIY, but behave as though they are doing me some huge favour.
S
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£200 for DIY - hope there is something pretty special for that as that is really OTT.

We had a space in our yard for about 3 days. People want to get on a small yard it seems and ours is nice. We only have 5 stables, two are occupied by my beasts, the YO old pony has another and these is another old pony who has been there years so the one stable that does come up is quickly snapped up.

I think good yards with good reputations will always be full with a waiting list but grass livery does seem to be at a premium in our area, probably due to people trying to save costs.
 
Urm - my current yard which has been full for years now has about 10 empty stables. Nothing wrong at all with the place its just you have to pay extra for using the schools and horses have to come in at night so many people have moved to fields. They did ask if the could have their horses live out but the yard owners did not think that grass livery and stabled horses would mix. We also have a couple of big horse owners on the yard - one family have 5 and i have 3 - so we are treated very very well (lol)
 
I am full to overflowing, have a waitlist as long as your arm and like others getting phone calls on a daily basis, most of these are for people who are moving off of part and full livery to DIY. I have been full for 5 months now ever since my rotten apple and her cronies went, word went out on the circuit and I was full within the month.
 
i only do part livery and full. i am full to bursting!!! but we do have good turnout all year, fantastic hacking, a brilliant school all weather inc snow, lights and a walker!! all fat shiny and fit!! the majority of liveries have been here 8 years plus and no yard polotics!!just coffee tea cake, support and toomorow is another day! horses are great levellers (at all levels!!!!!!)
 
I think perhaps you are right about reputations too. Our yard had got a bad reputation but under new management now. However bad news does travel and certain people still may be putting the word round. We dont offer grass livery and I suppose this is the last refuge for hard up owners!
 
The yard I am on has both grass and stabled liveries and both sections are full.

However YO is lovely. She makes a big effort to be friendly to everyone and make them feel at home. She is a smart lady and has worked out that being nice and reliable costs nothing but the rewards are very high. It is an assisted DIY yard

Everyone who has visited has said it is the nicest yard they have been in terms of atmosphere and quality. My pony is on grass livery and lives in pony paradise.
 
I do think there is a big move towards keeping horses out a lot more and a lot of livery yards are finding that offering restricted or no turn out in winter isn't what your average horse owner is looking for anymore.

I don't know if this is due to the recession or to better awareness of horse welfare but I think the yards that offer decent year round turn out (all day in winter, 24/7 in summer) seem to be more popular.
 
Then you have obviously got it right and are one of the brilliant yards!

"no yard polotics!!just coffee tea cake, support and toomorow is another day!"

I can't imagine anythign like that from our YM - more like grouching, narking, and p*ss off if you don't like it!
 
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