Ad-Lib vs Trickle Feeding - What's Best For Your Horse?
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Off the back of both the cost of living crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, many horse owners are tightening their belts and downgrading their livery packages. Whilst previously there was a huge demand for serviced livery packages such as Part Livery and Full Livery, yard owners are now finding it harder to fill these vacancies and are instead finding a much higher demand for Grass Livery, DIY and Assisted DIY on the basis that they are of less cost to the horse owner. But are you truly better off financially by downgrading to a cheaper livery package?
On the face of it, DIY is the cheapest. It’s the most basic type of livery where you in fact rent the stable and grazing and generally the horse owners are responsible for the full day-to-day care of the horse, and managing its needs in terms of exercise, routine care and provisions. On the flip side, serviced livery packages usually take care of a majority of this on behalf of the horse owner, allowing them to just attend the yard when they choose to see or exercise the horse.
However, when you actually sit down and work out the costs to the horse owner between the two options, things are not quite as they seem when you factor in the indirect costs. The below is based on examples only but should certainly give horse owners food for thought when considering a yard move, and to not only base their decision on the face value of a livery package.
The Transport Factor
If your horse is cared for by the yard on a Part or Full livery package, there is no need for you to visit the horse every day unless you choose to. A majority of horse owners however will only visit a couple of times a week to ride, and others may visit just once a week or less. However, comparatively, if your horse is on DIY, you’ll need to be visiting the yard at least daily, and most likely twice a day for the majority of the year.
Most horse owners will live a distance from the yard which requires transportation by car. According to the journey cost calculator on Go.Compare, in January 2023, the average cost for fuel for a 10-mile round trip (living 5 miles from the yard) is £1.28. If you’re on a serviced livery package and visit the yard 4 times a week, there is a cost to you of £5.12 per week/ £22.19 pcm. If you’re on DIY Livery and need to make this trip twice daily then you’re looking at a cost of £17.92 per week/ £77.66 pcm. That’s an additional comparative cost to DIY owners of over £55 per month.
This is not including factoring in the wear and tear on your vehicle- brakes, windscreen wipers, tyres…. equating to a difference in driving over 5000 miles per year using the example above, the mileage-related depreciation in value, or your time spent commuting. And what if you live 10 miles 15 miles, 20 miles or even more from the yard?
The Time Factor:
If you choose to have your horse on a serviced livery package, then the chances are that a majority of your time spent at the yard is for all the niceties of horse ownership such as riding, grooming and socialising. But if you are on DIY the care and management of the horse is solely down to you. You may just need to go to the yard to give the horse a quick check, or you may need to visit the yard twice a day to turn them out, bring them in, rug, prepare and give feeds, muck out, fill up water buckets and all the other daily jobs horse ownership involves.
If we take a basic day that includes a stabled horse, you’re looking at approximately an hour to undertake all stable duties, not including riding. Factor in two 10-mile round trips to the yard at ten minutes each that’s a total of 1h20 per day/ 9h20 per week/ 40h20 pcm. That’s over a full working week's hours each month caring for and looking after your horse, not forgetting this is for obligatory stable duties and commuting only and not any exercise or other time spent at the yard. Although it’s hard to put a physical cost on this time, there will be some value on that time in terms of your time. What do you value your time at?
Here is a good example. You want to buy a new saddle pad. You can order it online for £50 but the cost for delivery is £25. You could save on the delivery money by driving to your local tack store (about 30 minutes away) and picking it up yourself for £50. But is that one hour of your time, plus the fuel you’d use worth saving the £25 delivery fee for? Or are you better to just order it online and use that one hour of your time doing something else?
The Filth Factor:
We all know having horses can be a dirty pastime! If your horse is on a serviced livery package, the chance is you’ll be able to avoid most of the dirty jobs such as mucking out, getting cold and wet, plodding through the mud in the fields, poo picking and visiting the muck heap. You’re not obliged to be at the yard in all weather come rain or shine. If you’re on a DIY Livery basis, then unfortunately you’ll find yourself at the forefront of most of these jobs for the majority of the year! If this is resulting in a laundry load per week of horse and mud-tainted clothes then that’s a cost of over £20 per year just on staying clean! Not to mention the longer, hotter showers after a cold day at the yard, or the water needed to clean your boots.
And what about cars too? They are often the forgotten victim of horse ownership! Used as tack transportation, hay transportation, feed transportation and driven down muddy lanes and tracks. Remember the times you need to hoover out your hay and horse hair-ridden car (we’ve all been there), extra washes your car might need to keep it presentable for ‘normal’ life! This all adds up too in water and electricity. It may only be minor costs but they do all add up.
The Provisions Factor:
If your horse is on a serviced livery package, the likelihood is it will include forage, bedding and possibly even feed. For those that don’t necessarily include them in the cost, they may well include the ability to order via the yard. Many yard owners have arrangements with local feed, bedding, and forage merchants for bulk buying. Bulk buying power often gives you the advantage of a better rate and a regular supply chain. If your yard owner is able to buy in bulk or direct from wholesale, they will be able to source and provide the bedding cheaper than an individual would buying one or two items at a time at full retail value from the local supplier.
For example, Mendip Large Flake Woodshavings have an RRP of £12.50 per bale, yet if you can bulk buy 36 bales you can do so direct from the manufacturer at just over £7.50 per bale. With most DIY yards not offering the luxury for owners to store bulk purchases at the yard, the only option is to buy individually one or two at a time. Using this as an example, if your horse uses an average of one bale a week this could cost you an extra £20 per month. Not to mention the time taken for the organisation, collection and delivery of products and, if more often than not using your own vehicle, the additional costs and considerations of commuting.
This doesn’t just apply to feed, bedding and forage, but anything that bulk buying power can give a yard owner better leverage on to provide to their liveries at a lower cost compared to their liveries buying themselves. This may be worm counts (Westgate Labs for example offers a price of £7.50 per horse for commercial yards, versus £9.95 for an individual purchase), or any other service providers – such as vets, farriers, therapists- or suppliers who often give a form of discount for bulk visits or products.
The Assistance Factor:
What value can you put on having your horse in a yard that provides the care and routine for your equine? That covers the day-to-day care regardless of the weather or any other unforeseen changes? That covers when you’re running late, when you’re ill or when you’re on holiday? For many DIY horse owners, if this happens, they’ll likely need to swap favours with another livery, enlist a friend or relative to help care for the horse or employ a freelance groom to ensure their horse is cared for.
Many horse owners that are on DIY yards that offer services often find that they become reliant on these, without working out and factoring in the cost that this advantage brings. In addition, even job swapping with other liveries has value as in turn you will need to spend your time travelling to the yard and doubling up your yard time to care for your horse too. And with insurance companies tightening up on the benefits of job swapping and stringently considering claims in these situations, it's not as simple as it once was.
In addition, DIY owners are usually left to their own devices on the yard as owners come and go to see their horses. With a serviced livery package, you can be safe in the knowledge that there are people on the yard most of the day, and usually trained or experienced equestrian professionals. They will know your horse, its needs and its routine and be quickly able to pick up and deal with any issues, as well as guide and support you where necessary. You simply cannot put a price on having trusted and invaluable experience and help at your fingertips, as well as the security of someone being on-site throughout the day.
The Facility Factor:
Most, but not all, DIY yards will have basic facilities as they offer a lower-value livery. They may have riding areas, be well-placed for good hacking routes, and simply maintain your stable and paddocks fit for use.
Serviced livery packages on the other hand, especially those offering full livery, training livery or designed for competitive riders, tend to have better facilities as they can afford to invest in their clients. Indoor arenas, arena mirrors and floodlights, horse walkers, solariums, hot horse washes and toilets are all more likely to be found compared to DIY yards.
Again, when it comes to grooming, riding and caring for your horse there simply has to be a value put on the advantage of having such facilities: less grooming time, the ability to go on the horse walker when turnout is prohibitive, to be able to ride at any time or in any weathers. The provision and maintenance of such are obviously factored into the cost of serviced livery packages.
We’ve all been on a DIY yard with a lack of riding facilities where we like to take the odd journey to school in a larger arena with ‘proper’ show jumps, an indoor arena, an xc course, or maybe even join a local riding association to have access to their schooling events. Not only does this incur a physical cost, but again the time and transportation costs as well.
A large percentage of yards offering serviced livery packages offer multiple schooling areas such as indoor and outdoor arenas, grass arenas, on-site hacking or xc schooling fences meaning you have them all at your fingertips whenever you like, without the need for transport or hire fees!
Obviously, these are examples only based on example situations but should certainly be food for thought. Using our few examples above, a DIY livery package could cost over £20 more per week in indirect costs… that’s quite a leap and doesn’t factor in the other advantages of services livery packages or time-saving that it's hard to put a monetary value on.
For some horse owners, they may well prefer the ability to care for the horse themselves and be happy for the time and additional costs it may be for them to have the freedom of livery on a ‘Do-it-Yourself’ basis, but for some, they may not truly understand the additional implications of downgrading livery packages purely based on costs.
It's wise to do the sums when you’re looking for your next livery yard, and consider travel distance and time, facilities, provisions, and everything else we’ve covered to see if there truly is a cost-saving by downgrading your livery package.
We also have two other useful articles with considerations for choosing your new yard:
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