diy livery?

[ingrids]

I have recently bought a cottage with 5 stables and 16 acres and am thinking of starting diy livery please ???can anyone give me any advice/pitfalls on the subject? It has 5 fields all with water

[zargon]

Ingrids.

Why would you want to invite this upon yourself? Is it to make money or to manage the land or to enjoy the company of the livery people? You may find the answers to your question in the many posts on this DG by using the "search" option. Try entering terms on the subject of livery yards and yard owners.

We run a very small yard on which we have some liveries. We do not charge them; I ride their horses from time to time as a form of payment. We enjoy the company of the horses. Their human owners are another matter though, some are OK but some we would prefer not to have here. That's life. The horses are fine it's the bl***** humans that spoil it. For us it is a bit like some people enjoy their grandchildren; you can enjoy them but at the end of the day, or week or whenever, hand them back!

One piece of advice we received from two different sources when we took this property on, and this advice was from established yard owners, was to set up a charge list for absolutely everything, e.g. putting rugs on, 50 pence per horse, hanging hay net 50 pence, holding horse for farrier, £3.00 , sweeping up yard after farrier £5.00 etc.etc.. And then make sure you do recover the charges, instantly or weekly and never more than a fortnight behind. Otherwise you'll end up being everyone's skivvy and out of pocket.

Oh, and one more thing. Liveries will fight each other like cats in a bag. Deal with it straight off. Eject trouble makers. Firmly but politely. Humans! Pah! Who needs them!



Best of luck
Zargon

[ingrids]

Thanks. Sounds like hard work to me (not the horses the owners!!) Perhaps we'll just get sheep to eat the grass!!

[izzy]

No personel experience but if i was in your posistion maybe just 1 or 2 liveries to keep some privacy and a set of do's and dont's written out for each livery as well as in tackroom .Also will they have dogs and kids that will run round your land?Can you turn a blind eye or evict them if they dont treat/ride to your liking?Are you the sort of person who can stand there ground and assert authority?

My friend had the run of 9acres with indoor stables ,barns the lot and totally abused non-horsey owners privacy/generosity,i would have moved heaven and earth to have been in her shoes.

Good luck

[jor]

Personally I would say to try and rent it to someone privately, but say no dealers.
There are plenty of people who would pay to rent the whole lot from you if you write up a contract saying who is reposible for paying for what (eg a broken fence) IMO you would have a lot less trouble with that than with 'liveries'
You arent near me by any chance are you....lol

[izzy]

Good point Jo R .............are you in Norfolk Ingrids?Room for 3 fat ponies and an Arab?lol

[fin]

Me too!

I couldn't do it. Having horse owners around would drive me up the wall. How would you cope with folks who don't train their horses and think 'Aww, he's just like that!' when the little s0d has just taken a chunk out of her arm? With farriers who haven't got a clue about horse handling? With owners who think they need to show the horse who's boss? With medical emergencies at 3am when the owners can't be arst to get out of bed and you have to be responsible? With owners who expect you to help out all the time then moan at you for doing it wrong? And who are ALWAYS behind with their rent, moan about everything, b!tch constantly............

If I was you I'd fill the stables with my own neds and have done with it

[Deleted]

And if you do decide to rent out the grazing, as Jo R suggests, I'd still make sure you have some ground rules. We have friends who rent out their 4 acres & stables. The tenants just don't bother to do anything. No poo picking, no keeping the place tidy, not even much looking after the horses. Because Sarah is herself quite knowledgable about horse, she's finding it hard seeing the horses not as she would keep them. The worst is that they are kept in one section over winter to save the rest of the grazing but the **** owners are to tight to hay them properly. Yes, marching orders are being considered.

So even if you go down that route, make sure you know what you want up front. Do you expect the tenants to be responsible for, say, damage to fences by horses chewing? Should you insist on poo picking? How much land should they have to poach in the winter? What hours would you find acceptable for them to come traipsing past your door (emergencies excluded). And (great point, Izzy), would you allow dogs and kids (which probably means other people's kids too).

Whether with liveries or with tenants, remember it is your place, you decide what you want, put that in writing and stick to it. If people don't like it, well they don't have to take it.