Other livery feeds my horse

[theninthwave]

I have a 30 year old horse who is at a livery yard. All the horses are on full livery Monday to Friday and DIY at weekends.

My horse has special dietry requirements. The yard makes up the feeds for the other horses, but I make up my own and leave them in the main feed room with the others. Each horse has a colour assigned for their feed bowls and there is a list of which horse has which colour on the wall.

My issue is that one of the other liveries feeds my horse without me asking at the weekends. So, I'll leave in the evening, my horse having had supper, as part of a carefully worked out plan, and then I find out this person has gone over to do their horse later and given mine another feed. But they have picked up the feed I have left for the morning (there is a rule that the first on the yard doles out the feeds, so they have to be made up).
This not only throws out my feeding plan, but also means no breakfast is there for the morning. None of the other liveries interfere like this.
I have made it clear on the yard group chat that no-one is to feed my horse in the evenings without my express permission. I just don't trust this person and am terrified to leave any feeds made up at weekends. Any suggestions?

It's infuriating isn't it. Can you speak to the person and explain what's happening? That they're giving your horse their morning feed so they're not getting breakfast? I expect now they've done it, your horse is now expecting it and they're thinking they're doing a good thing. Can you split a feed so they've got another bucket with a small amount in it for them to give when they feed theirs?

Can you not leave your feed so last up the yard feeds all the horses like they do in the morning? Edited to add are they feeding all the horses at night and yours is the only one without a feed?

If it’s one particular person, tell them directly to not feed your horse ever under any circumstance. Have you asked why they do it?

Gah, sounds incredibly irritating. I really hate it when other people 'helpfully' feed your horse, happens a lot on our yard where people have left made up feeds around the place for various perfectly valid reasons and interfering people will just find and sling them into the stables thinking they're doing you a favour, what would be helpful is pausing and thinking for a second that probably there's a reason this feed is where it is!

Agree with others, if you know who's doing it can you speak to that person and find out why/ask them to stop directly rather than via group message? I know for instance mine is a bit of a drama llama if he thinks others are getting fed when he's not, for that reason he always has a small 'fake' feed (just a handful of chaff in a bucket) if he needs to wait for his dinner past normal feeding time which keeps him happy but if he was to be freaking out I can definitely see someone deciding he was starved and giving him an extra feed. Can you label your buckets 'breakfast' and 'dinner' somehow, so at least she would be aware she's actually giving him tomorrow's food? Or can you hide the breakfast somewhere where whoever feeds in the morning can easily get it but it's not in helpful-not-helpful-feeding-lady's sightline?

Can you not just get a lid for the feed bucket that has breakfast written on it and stick a sign on your horses door that says do not feed in the evenings .

I would find some way of making the feed up and keeping it in the car till morning. You shouldn’t have to but it might be the only way to stop your horse being messed about.

Should the yard manager not be sorting this out? There is no excuse for messing with someone else's horse. If she is feeding your horse, what else is she doing that she shouldn't be?

Threads like this remind me why I am not on a livery yard but not everyone can have their own field.

It's probably just confusion, can you not label the buckets as morning and evening and just tell the person what's been happening? This is totally sortable with a piece of paper and a single conversation.

You can get feed bucket covers with ‘Breakfast’ and ‘Dinner’ on them.

Not on the morning feed 'Janice - please don't give this to Trigger in the evening. It's his breakfast. Please don't give him any extra hard feed at all.'