Crazy livery yard owners/managers...

[Cancara]

Please relate your tales of livery lunacy...!

I was barred from one yard because of my job (government related, obviously shady dealings going on)- not that I was sorry not be there anymore when I heard that the owner was...

-threatening horse owners for random reasons
-Standing over hay bales showing them 'how to fill their nets properly'
-Presenting extra bills because horses 'ate too much hay'
-Keeping horse in for weeks on end (without supplying any extra hay) because fields were getting a little wet.
-Demanding extra payments from everyone for gate damage
-Dumping responsibility for vet bills on bewildered owners after horses from 2 fields broke a fence and got into one, even though no one knew who's horse had kicked who!

Got any other nutters to tell me about?!

[emma-lou]

I could go on forever about my yard!! I’m desperate to find somewhere else. My little pony’s stable wall is falling down and he has said I have to have it repaired or he will do it and bill me for the work! We have to buy our hay and straw from him, if we get it from elsewhere we are not allowed to put it in his barn, this means that he can charge us whatever he wants! Most of the fences and gates need repairing and the arena is like a ploughed field, totally unusable. He allows one certain person to open all her stable doors and herd her crazy TB’s in and out of their stables like some kind of mad stampede, which has actually been the direct cause of two accidents that I know of, one of them being my mum falling from her horse when they all charged passed the arena where she was riding. Not to mention that they run straight in to the barn and eat everyone’s hay!!! When I complained he made it very clear that she has 6 stables and I only have 2 so he was not going to upset her on my account!!!
Aaaggghhhhh!!!! I need to get out of there!!!!

[amandaco]

sounds flippin awful

[zoeee]

luckily we never had anyone too bad when we kept ours at livery, they were all lovely apart from one couple who took over the first yard we'd been at - they didn't like horses, just wanted a big house and the land so that their dogs could run about in the fields, and wanted to convert all the stables into offices to make some more money.
when they moved in and talked to all of us we told them over and over again not to let their dogs near one of our horses because he'd been attacked in the past and got very upset and violent around them, so it'd be dangerous. we asked them to keep it away, and if they wanted to let the dogs loose in the fields , to use one that he (and preferably the others) wouldn't be in, explaining that horses and dogs don't mix well - they had 5 fields without horses in that they could've used.
two days after, they called us up screaming down the phone demanding that we left right away - because they'd PUT their big fast dog in the paddock with the horse we'd warned them about (who was in there by himself) and shut the gate on them so that it could "run around and get rid of some energy and the horse could get used to it" - apparently (according to someone else there), the dog went straight for buttons, snapping and barking, so buttons turned and kicked the dog in the eye, leaving it blinded. obviously this was 'all our fault', and the livery owners made EVERYONE leave the yard because of it.

[Sullymania]

oh my, well we have been moving from yards to yards for the last 5 years! It sounds bad yes but we just find people who treat us awfully. The most recent was a woman who obvously knew very little about owning horses but would contradict anything we would do with our own ponies. We were paying for extra feed and hay which we ended up buying and distributing ourselves. Our ponies were completely ignored by her and eventually she wanted them to be put into a mud wallow for a month!! so we recently left due to the treatment we and our animals were getting.

[fofo]

A full yard of 10 horses all paying livery on time and buying hay and bedding from them. Very tidy people and responsible owners. No turnout in Winter but there is an indoor sand school which we pay for by the half hour so we are all contented.

They close the sand school, take all the sand out and dump it in a big hole because one livery was using it too often.

They were bewildered when one by one we all left to go to other yards.

[My Crazy Clan]

Mmmmm an 11 acer field is not a grazing field, nore is it a horse field just for 13hh ponies!

[beks the artist]

I am going to go the opposite end of the scales and say when I had liveries on my land last summer it was awful. There was no respect for my property (which is also my home) I would come back from work with my neighbour annoyed because one livery's children had been climbing the stone wall onto her property and chasing her chickens around. One of their horses broke my fencing and climbed in with a neighbour's horse! I also had litter stroon everywhere and my hosepipe broken. My stables are left dirty too. Never ever again will I let those liveries (bar one who was fine) on my land as they had no respect that this was my home too.

On the other hand I have been a livery at 4 places. I had no quarms with any of them really - just the usual thieving - lots of feed went missing at the last place, I had my brand-new headcoller stolen off my horse at a livery I was on in Bucks!! I have had various pieces of tack stolen. The main quarm was horrid people being nasty and bitchy (usually those who should of known better!!)

xx