Communication from YO

[elloelloello]

Just having a grump really as I’m not sure I can actually do anything about this, but it’s annoying me

We have 2 horses, 1 DD rides and a retiree.

We’re on a small DIY yard with 1 other livery.

We pay extra for our YO to give them their breakfast (which we prepare and leave out the night before) and turn them out. He also does holiday cover and stuff like that for an extra cost if required.

3 times this week alone there have been minor issues that he’s not told me about until I’ve got to the yard in the evening, leaving us a bit stuck. He has 2 horses of his own so not clueless when it comes to owning them

He supplies our hay, but he doesn’t keep it on site. We were supposed to have a hay delivery on Friday but for one reason or another it didn’t happen but he assured us he would collect it Monday. Wasn’t worried as we had plenty to see us through the weekend. Except he didn’t collect it on Monday and he didn’t tell me until I got to the yard Monday night. If he’d sent me a quick text during the day, I could have got a small bale from the feed store at lunchtime. Nothing is open at 6pm so we’re stuck with no hay. I had to borrow some from a friend at a nearby yard.

Tuesday night I get to the yard and our retiree isn’t wearing her rain sheet. YO informs me that one of the clips on it broke when he was putting it on her that morning so she couldn’t wear it - it tipped it down here all day so she was mightily pissed off when she came in. Randomly we had an odd carabiner in the car so I could bodge a fix but if he’d texted me that morning, I could have come up and fixed it/nipped to the tack shop and got a new one

Last night I get to the yard and he informs me a clip on our retiree’s head collar had broken when he turned her out that morning. Our retiree just bumbles along and pretty much turns herself out and he’s happy to turn her out this morning with the head collar not done up, so it’s not a major problem, but again, a quick text during the day and I could have nipped out at lunch time and bought one - too late to do anything about it at 6pm.

I’ve asked him repeatedly to text me if there’s a problem like this but he never does

None of this stuff is insurmountable but it’s annoying and just makes it harder than it needs to be

Good lord - has the man not heard of baler twine?? Half my rugs are tied up with baler twine. And I assume there is more than one head collar he could have borrowed if yours was broken?

Either present him with a bundle of twine and tell him to help himself, or maybe just bite the bullet and make sure you have a spare of everything. (I always have extra rugs 'just in case' and spare lead ropes and old worn-out but still serviceable head collars for emergencies).

He sounds a bit useless tbh.

Yes, I’d’ve just tied it with baler twine as well to be honest

We’ve got a huge bag of rugs at the local tack shop for washing and repair (mainly because the baler twine was taking over ) so at the moment we’re a bit limited with what’s up the yard. He knows this as we all got together and sent a whole load off as a group

There's no end of head collars floating about - our other horse’s fits her as well

It’s just annoying that he tells me this stuff when it’s too late to do anything about it

I agree, that's really irritating, especially the hay. I'm the opposite. I've got liveries who don't ever tell me about things that have been damaged/need repairing.

I was spitting about the hay actually. Luckily a friend had some spare nearby or we’d have been stuck.

Got up there last night to find our horses out in the main field as had “jumped out of their paddock that morning”. I was a bit blunt with him about it, if he had texted me that morning, we would have come and put them back in. No good telling me at 6pm.

I think it’s bullshit anyway, the younger one may have done but the retiree has arthritis and we’re struggling to keep her field sound at the moment. She might have barged through the fence but she certainly wouldn’t have jumped it without crippling herself.

The fences were all intact, but when we went to poo pick the catch on the gate wasn’t shut so I suspect he didn’t close it properly in the first place

He’s doing my head it

Any other yards in your vicinity? I really couldn't be doing with running out of hay or horses getting into the wrong fields and nothing being done about it.

I know it's DIY so technically you are in charge of your own animals, but I've never known a DIY yard owner not contact me immediately if something was wrong - like getting into the wrong field! Although I may have been particularly lucky with my past yards as it would usually have been a "just to let you know Dpony got into wrong field but we've put him back".

There are other yards around but this one has everything we need

It’s on a bus route so DD can get there under her own steam, great hacking, most of the SJ/XC/bloodhound events that DD does are in hack-able distance from us, he offers the extra services, plus an indoor school.

With the hay, we have to buy it through him, which is fine usually - lovely hay and cheaper than we can get it elsewhere but he has to be reliable.

We are DIY, but he offers services which we pay him for - we have early work starts so pay him to turn out so we don’t have to be up there at 5am in the dark

I personally don’t think he closed the gate properly yesterday. The catch is a bit stiff so you have to lift the gate slightly and shove it with your hip. The catch wasn’t shut when we went to poo pick.

If he didn’t want to catch them and put them back, fine, but let me bloody know. There’s no point whining at me about it 10 hours later, I’m at work, 5 miles away and I don’t have a crystal ball

A quick text is all I ask.

I’ll have have another chat with him later as it’s just so annoying

For someone experienced he seems a bit clueless.horses break things all the time and most people find cable ties baking twine and gaffa tape are a great kit for fashioning repairs.surely if a rug strap breaks you can use a sircingle or tie the two ends together.

All very annoying! Regarding the hay, even though you have to buy through him, I'd always keep a couple of conventional bales from the feed shop as backup. If he asks why or has the hump about it, just tell him you cant be caught without hay if he's been too busy to redeliver. Or failing that, buy a bale when you're running low to tide you over in anticipation of him not delivering when he says he's going to.