[cairnhill]

Does anyone know if there are any legal requirements for containing your livestock within the boundaries of your own land in Scotland as our neighbours cattle keep coming through the boundary fence and my neighbours seem reluctant to repair or replace the fence. Is there anything I can do to force them to repair or replace, we have tried asking them nicely.

[ellied]

I'm not a solicitor but if the fence in question is the march fence between two holdings then maintenance is usually a shared responsibility on a 50/50 basis unless specified otherwise in the deeds. 

So the farmer may be happy to arrange the work if you are prepared to pay your half but not to take it on as once he does then he is effectively accepting full replacement and repair costs.

Damage done by escaped livestock may be sued for but will cost you money to do so and you'd honestly be better to stay on good terms with a farming neighbour and use the money to contribute or offer to arrange if he pays you his half.

That's my understanding anyway.  As I say I'm not a solicitor let alone a specialist in agri-law but a march is usually dual cost unless one takes it on voluntarily.  I'm pretty much maintaining/replacing all 3 of my march fences aswell as my own roadside and internal ones, because the farmers aren't interested and the ponyowning neighbour is unduly optimistic to the point of stupid about how he manages grazing beside a longstanding stud

[Fleecewife]

The first thing that springs to my mind is that both of you will have a standstill after every incident of his animals coming onto your land.  Going by the letter of the rules, you have to keep his cattle on your land for the full duration of the standstill.

We got round the problem of roaming neighbour sheep by a) always phoning the neighbour when his animals were out so he had to come and round them up, and b) putting up double fencing with a thick hedge in between - costly though.

[Mays]

I've been in that situation where neighbouring farm's sheep kept coming onto our croft. After many years I realised the attitude "it is your responsibility to prevent animals straying onto your land" seems to be common place  So as a standard we have just securely fenced our boundaries accepting many farmers just don't bother.

[hughesy]

We used to get sheep coming into ours belonging to a bloke who grazes some nearby land that apparently nobody knows who owns. I told him that if they got in again I'd be eating them. Never had a problem after that.

[cairnhill]

Thanks folks, we have decided to put up a second fence inside our land as we want to split our field up into manageable sized paddocks, hopefully this will help to stop the wandering livestock.
If not then may try some of your suggestions although threatening to eat a full sized highland bull might be a little bit to much, even for me.

[bloomer]

Dig a bbq pit and spit roast it!!! Oh and then invite the whole of TAS over to help eat the beast!!!

Good luck!

[Lesley Silvester]

Good answer, bloomer. I love a barbecue.