Help me decide - Livery???

[EmmaKateLouise]

I have two horses:
Molly 14.3hh cob mare who I ride when I get the chance.
Sandy 29yo retired mare that my daughter plods out on every now and again.

My livery is £200/month plus feed, hay and straw, so I'm reckoning approx £235 (excluding feed). But my bugbear is that we have no facilities so in winter I barely ride (haven't ridden for 3 weeks now ).

There is a yard 2 miles down the road with lovely, and I mean l-o-v-e-l-y stables, an indoor school and an outdoor one. They charge between £35-£55/wk for livery including use of schools, mucked out, turned out, hay and straw (not sure about feed, but mine hardly eat anything anyway!). So I'm thinking approx £350/month. Although should say I've seen them mucking out and although not horrendous, it doesn't quite look done to my standards ! A little too "deep littered" and new straw piled on top for my taste.

So for an extra £115/month, do you think I should move?? Oh I should add my current yard is approx 100yrds from my house !

it's tricky isn't it, although I often think I would do anything for an indoor school even though rarely enjoy schooling

are all other things pretty much equal between the two?

mine could be 5 minutes from our house, much cheaper but no decent offroad hacks, individual turnout in tiny little fields (how can they play properly over an electric fence? would rather have the occasional infected bite than have mine isolated from their friends!) and also a bit over advice/teaching given there

almost moved recently after a couple of upsetting things but current place has bent over backwards to make things right and lately have been treating us all like royalty! mainly I love the people there and would miss them - does that apply to you?

Am a little concerned that it's a bigger yard than I am on (only 2 of us currently) so I'd be worried about bitchiness and general yard moans, that I hear about.

Hacking etc would be exactly the same as from home as it's so close. The stables are indoor barn-like, but smaller than current ones, and beautifully constructed with gold-coloured horses heads on top and fancy sliding doors and haylege feeders meaning you don't even have to open the stable door to feed them, although all doors are fully caged off so horses can't look out over door but can see next door neighbours.

Husband has just thrown a spanner in the works that if we borrowed friends trailer and trailered up there on a night, I could hire the indoor school (£25/hour) once a week for less than the livery!

Oh it's so hard even thinking about it.

Bad thing is, that if I left current yard, friend would be on her own at current yard , and she is a friend. She rents the yard so she'd be footing the whole cost of yard each month instead of it being split between us. Although am thinking of just moving for the winter and coming back in summer.

Arrgghhhh, my head hurts!!

Do they do lessons at the one you're considering? If so, your access to the school might be limited and it might not be free when you want it.

We're at livery at a school, and it does mean that we get to ride every day, although we have to fit around lessons but yard owner is very thoughtful and always lets me know when it will be free.

We're paying a bit more than the top end you quote, and ours is standard for where we live so it does sound like good value. Is it worth the hassle of the move though?

trailer and hire school sounds ideal - presumably hire charge = sole use? would be annoying if you were forking out the extra each month and then still having to work around other people

btw is that £200 each or for both?

Hmmmm...I have heard of a couple of places which are VERY smart (gold horses' heads etc as you say) and the emphasis seems to be more on keeping the place smart and the fixtures and fittings shiny than on the welfare of the horses. Seems particularly acute where the yard owners are not horsey and don't realise how messy/destructive the beasties can be. (One striking example would be when it was forbidden to walk the horses round in the yard when there was no turnout and the arena was under six inches of snow "in case it damaged the block paving".)

A couple of things you mention would ring alarm bells for me. I don't really like it when horses can't put their heads over the doors, and you have already picked up on the mucking out standards.

I'd say tread carefully - the trailer and school hire option may be worth further investigation?

Ooh tricky. I think given what you've said, about friend especially, I wouldn't move. It's not like you're totally convinced about the new yard and if the trailer option is viable I'd be tempted to try that for a while. It might prove workable.

Also, as you've been used to the freedom of just the two of you in your own place, moving to a bigger yard with the rules, regulations and politics might be a culture shock.