Yards with no owners on site

[fishy]

Just wondering how many (if any) stable your horse on a yard that doesn't have anyone living there? so when you leave thats it until you go back the next morning. If you do what security do you have in place? Do you leave your horses out overnight? What areas of the country are you in? (just county) Sorry for the questions but a friend has been offered a yard like this. Thanks

 

[stormox]

Yes, at 2 different yards,in Beds and Northants.. Never even thought about it, I know people who own their own field/stables away from their homes too.

 

[Mongoose11]

I kept mine at a rickety yard (Bedfordshire) with no owner on site and everything was fine. I think horses can get stolen from anywhere, anytime and they can also injure themselves in the night whether someone is on site or not. I prefer an owner in site but it's not a deal breaker for me.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

There is a DIY yard at the end on my lane, it's tucked away down a private road with owner living next door so not on site. They have been broken into so many times I wouldn't even consider it even though I could walk there in a few minutes.

My current yard has horsey owners on site and one of the cottages they rent out overlooks the yard. It's 3 minutes away in the car so still close but the place won hands down because they are there.

My neighbours on the other hand keep their 3 in a field in the middle of nowhere and have never had any problems.

 

[Hannahgb]

I did once, they had CCTV on the entrance to the yard. However, in a storm the roof on a block of stables came off and smashed along the stables. My horse and 4 others were left all night with debris/ roofing in their stables until the yard owner turned up the next morning. They were petrified. I moved after that. Never again.

 

[Luci07]

Now I am on a yard with the owner on site and it does offer a massive peace of mind. However, this is not that easy to find (surrey) and I had years of knowing there was no one near to hear if anything went wrong. I had a horse who managed to hang his front leg in a haynet which had been attached to the wire. He sawed his leg so badly it took the best part of a year to recover.

 

[Damnation]

Yes, at 2 different yards,in Beds and Northants.. Never even thought about it, I know people who own their own field/stables away from their homes too.

Yep, my current yard. We have all gates and doors padlocked with a combination code as there is a public footpath next door. There are two houses right across the single track road so if anyone rocked up in the middle of the night they would come out and check.

If it is stormy at night and the horses are in, I will go up myself and check them (we are a purely DIY yard anyway) and if there is something amiss I will put an SOS out on the yard group Facebook chat and just sort it out.

I may request some dummy CCTV camera's and "CCTV in Operation" signs to go up aswell. However YO has run the yard for about 10 years and never had any problems whatsoever. It is in the back of beyond so good luck to them finding it in the first place!

ETA: Also good luck trying to catch my horse from the field in the middle of the night, she is petrified of torches let alone car headlights!

 

[JillA]

Mine is. It is overlooked by 6 neighbours and in 18 years I have had one (failed) break in. I won't have padlocks, even on the yard gate - if there was a fire, the time it takes to get through a padlocked gate might mean the difference between life and death for the horses.
Nothing of any real value is ever left there and there is a security light on the entrance. I don't worry about horses being stolen - these days there is too little real value in them to be worth the risk, a good many of those allegedly stolen are actually escapees who have got themselves in serious trouble in hedges or ditches.

 

[Damnation]

Yes of course, a padlocked gate depending on your setup could be detrimental from a health and safety point of view. Our stables have an (unpadlocked) door straight out to the field so in an emergancy you could hop the gate, run in, open the field door, open all stable doors (they all go out together anyway) and the horses are straight out into a safe fenced space away from the burning building. The door to the actual stable building is never locked and again even from the other side we could herd the horses into the field via the arena.

But yes, depending on your yard layout does depend on the safety of putting up padlocks.

 

[Identityincrisis]

I do, I've been there 17 years (only yard I've ever been on) no security other than padlocked tack rooms, horses are either stabled or left in the field depending on the owner.

Touch wood we've never had any horses stolen and only had property (2 horse trailers) stolen and they were both the same night.

Recently we've had some unscrupulous looking men walking through (it's all private land) but they seem to have disappeared as the police have been around frequently looking for them (they were wanted by police) This left us feeling quite worried and unsafe but it is now a month since we last saw anyone dodgy!

I'm in Durham (North East)

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

My yard is 3.3 miles from home. Have good padlock on front gate, all adjacent YO's and neighbours etc know where to find key.
Have detailing info in 2 places on yard with contact numbers & horse info on, in case am not there. 7 stables (now 5 as use a pair as a big double shelter).
I have 3 cctv (dummy) camera's and signage.

Over 37 odd yrs, have had headcollars pinched once (about 16 yrs ago) and 1 new zealand taken off a pony's back (in 1980) the day after it was brought and tried on at a local show (we were pretty sure who stole it, but couldn't get proof)

Otherwise, no damages.

Regarding horses/ponies; Maybe I have been lucky but have never suffered problems overnight, or indeed when being away during the day, with the exception of 1 x 2 yr old that decided to jump a fence, actually going over 3 to get into the stallion paddock, mid morning whilst I was out in the box collecting daughter from PC rally.
I DO throw mine out if weather very windy as have huge oaks right behind the yard. They have access to shelters in paddocks, but tend not to use these except in summer months from flies.

Edited to add: Those with people on site who work on site, thats great
Sometimes those who live on site have to go off site to work elsewhere or go off to compete for a long day, thus leaving the yard/fields for as long as place could be unattended at night.
Its not easy finding a middle way to cover animal care.

 

[ester]

It's not the horses it is the stuff that is the problem. I am amazed at what gets left on ours. I live on site but the stuff I can't afford to replace comes back in the flat

 

[wench]

I would think that most horsey "accidents" that happen overnight would still happen if there was someone living there or not, and the time taken to notice it will be virtually negligible with yo on site, and first person on the yard

 

[Jingleballs]

In the past most of the yards I've been on have had a Y/O on site but at my current yard the Y/O is often working away so not there every night. Similarly, one of my previours yards was a farm owned by the Y/M's parents - she lived off site and her parent's were old and not particularly horsey. If something was blatently obviously wrong they might notice but the Y/M generally left at 4pm - so after about 8pm when all the liveries had left that was it until the next morning.

In the past it would have worried me but horses can become ill/injured at any time and many yards, especially are actually empty during the day when things are just as likely to go wrong.

 

[Mad_Cow347]

Our yard has no one living on site or in the surrounding yards, *touch wood* we've never had any problems. We have a coded padlock on the gate but that's it, we just leave as little down there as possible, no tack or anything valuable of ours is ever left down there. It's pretty tucked away and I think most people either don't know it's there or think it's part of the yard the other side which can be seen from the road. I think if anyone came down to steal stuff they would be overwhelmed by the amount of cr@p our yard owner stores down there and what little horse stuff there is would be left.

 

[Hexx]

On my last yard, the owner lived in the bungalow at the end of the main barn - we still got burgled, twice - no horses missing, just equipment. She then put in CCTV after the second time.

However, despite being on site, she never did late night checks and would only come out of the bungalow for an emergency (if you could get her on the phone - you were strongly encourage NOT to knock on the door) or if a horse had colic and the owner couldn't check - then she would charge you and the "late night check" was probably at around 10pm. The last time my horse had colic - I slept in my car on the yard outside his box, so I could check him every 2 hours.

There was usually a livery or two on the yard until about 9pm, and we had one lady who came up at 5.30 am to muck out, so she used to notice if anything was amiss and would call the owner instead of the YO.

 

[millitiger]

I wouldn't consider a yard where YO didn't live on site and do late night checks.

 

[gunnergundog]

I would think that most horsey "accidents" that happen overnight would still happen if there was someone living there or not, and the time taken to notice it will be virtually negligible with yo on site, and first person on the yard

Accidents will happen regardless, I agree, but having people living on site and late night checks mean that things can be discovered/rectified/or acted upon SOONER rather than later and in some circumstances that can mean the difference between life and death. From my experience there is NO WAY that I would leave a horse on a yard where a) there was no-one resident and b) there were no late night checks (10pm +), assuming a 6am start at latest.

 

[JillA]

I've kept horses for 50 years + and for all of that time none have been checked on later than 7 in the evening, and then only at times. Never had any kind of accident or incident that became life threatening for want of attention in that time, unless the horse in question was in horsepital. I know the ideal is ideal, but not many of us are lucky enough to be in that position.
I can see that a YO who is available for every so-called emergency would never get any time to her/himself, so charging is a not unreasonable way to sort out the real emergencies from the worriers.

 

[Leo Walker]

My current yard every other livery puts them to bed in a stable and leaves somewhere between 3 and 4pm. I go up at 6/7pm and have been back on a few occasions later than that. I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of a stabled horse being left for 18 hours. Mine is left for 12hours but hes out and has adlib forage, still worries me a bit hence the later checks I do.

I'd like to think the current yard was the exception to the rule, but I am in the same area as Mongoose11 and its par for the course round here! Hes currently on DIY, but hes been on part livery where no one lives on site and there isnt a member of staff to be found after 4pm and thats at a push. He was on full livery for a while with the YO on site and that REALLY didnt work for us at all and I had to get him out of there as an emergency. So on balance hes better off where he currently is, even if it doesnt sit very well with me.

 

[Neversaydie]

Yes and I would do it again. I just didn't leave anything of value on site.

 

[muckypony]

I wouldn't be happy with it to be honest. I know things can happen overnight that wouldn't get noticed anyway, but I feel so much happier knowing someone is on site. They aren't tremendously horsey, but if one of mine was stood with an injury, they would notice. If anything looks wrong at all, they check them and call me if needed. This weekend the back neighbors had a huge firework display, they let us know beforehand so I went up to check anyway, but if they hadn't and no one lived on site, I would never have known and I'm pretty sure that my boys would have gone mindlessly galloping through the fences and only found a good 10 hours later.

When I was at pony club camp one year (years ago!) my roomies horse came down with horrendous colic one night, only heard by the land owner who had gotten up for a wee! He heard the horses shoes banging on the temporary stabling.. Poor boy didn't make it but would have been found dead in the morning by one of us if there had been no one on site.