Living on a working farm with stables

[W12GT]

We are due to start the demolition of our house to build our new home.
We therefore need to rent whilst this is undertaken. We have found a lovely place that is on a working farm and has a yard within 20metres. It's a decent size yard - about 50 horses over 200 acres.

Positives - It's beautiful, peaceful, there's a shoot on the farm, only one neighbour in a half mile radius.

Downsides - some of the farm buildings are asbestos, rats????

Has anyone experience of living this close to a yard? What are the pros and cons? Downsides we can

[Grumpy old git]

We had a much smaller stables behind our old house, maybe 4-5 horses, the only issues were occasional smells and flies in summer, and the accompanying horse crap all around the lanes and bridle paths.

I can't imagine what the smell will be like from 50 horses particularly in warm weather.

[kev b]

You will also be in close proximity to a number of horsey people, in my experience you will find a greater proportion of looneys amongst this group than most.

Heed my warning!

[TheExcession]

Horses tend to wake up when the sun rises, earlier in winter, they then tend to kick the stable door and stamp their feet until someone arrives to feed them. It can be quite noisy and guarantees you will never get a lie-in again.

[FlashmanChop]

We live on a farm, mainly arable, with a few ewes and a couple of our horses. c 1,100 acres.

We take the muck from the horses to our neighbouring pig farm.

That does sound like quite a few horses, and i would heed the warning about the prevailing "mental" in horsey types. My O/H and daughter are enough for me.

Just bear in mind how busy it gets, obviously my O/H dont mind but we can tend to work 24 hours a day during harvest and cultivations. its only just really slowed down now.

there would be quite a lot of traffic coming and going and i like to know who is about!
eta - some of our buildings have asbestos roofs - just dont go up there!
Rats - we lay poison. also have two cats who patrol very well!

You might also be able to play with big boys toys!

Edited by FlashmanChop on Tuesday 27th September 19:36

[Some Gump]

OP,

My old mare in law had a pair of horses. Only went to the stables v. occasionally - so I don't know if it's peak time or not, but often 2-3 horse types fannying about with buckets of oats etc. I think that stables had a capacity of 8, I'd imagine 50 to be really quite busy.

I'm not sure how mantal horse people are (MIL is alright), but I suspect that it won't be peaceful!

[sunbeam alpine]

We rented for 2 years while we knocked down an rebuilt our house. The house we rented wasn't ideal in terms of location and layout and it was pretty rough inside.

The up side was that it was cheap, and close enough to our place that I could pop in every day to follow up on progress.

At the end of the day, it's only temporary and if the price and location is good enough....

[eliot]

I know someone who had diy livery for half a dozen nags - he got fed up with the horsey people who were all indeed a bit mental. They were always arguing and bhing over which field thier precious nag was going to eat in. He told them alll to sod off in the end.

[W12GT]

I would say there is stabling for 30ish horses which all appeared to have heads out at some point or another. There were probably another 10 or so in the paddocks I could see so on that basis I'm assuming there are more in the fields beyond.

My sister is horsey so I know what people mean about crazy.....

[Some Gump]

W12GT said:

I would say there is stabling for 30ish horses which all appeared to have heads out at some point or another. There were probably another 10 or so in the paddocks I could see so on that basis I'm assuming there are more in the fields beyond.

My sister is horsey so I know what people mean about crazy.....

The mental image: posh girls in jodhpurs.

The reality: Plus size in jodhpurs.

[yellowtang]

If it's a DIY livery yard with 50 horses - don't even consider it! If it's full livery then it probably won't be too bad.

Horsey types are all a bit mental (you have to be) but the kind of people that frequent DIY yards are generally mental council types and mostly female. These women/girls really are just a different level of mental......

Again, do NOT do it!

• i have horses myself, but not on a DIY yard!

[Mothersruin]

Lots of flies.

[Willy Nilly]

We have 'osses at work. There sometimes is a little smell from the muck heap depending on which way the wind is blowing, but it's really not much. Flies? Hardly any, there are more swallows in the summer which is fine with me. There are mice, but it's a working farm and they are kept under control.

50 DIY horses sounds like it would keep the finest peace keepers in the UN extremely busy.

There will be a lot of traffic, cackling when they are in a good mood and bhing when they are not. There will be tonnes of dog st, they all have dogs. Loads of fked lorries and barely road legal cars that are full of ste. You also might just see the biggest single collection of wheel barrows in various states of disrepair in Europe. Some of the clients you will think but sadly most of them should only be allowed out under the cover of darkness.

Don't forget mud, straw blowing everywhere, baler twine and feed bags