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Author Topic: Common grazing rights  (Read 3040 times)

macgro7

  • Joined Feb 2016
  • Leicester
Common grazing rights
« on: June 02, 2019, 06:44:57 pm »
I'm looking at a farm for sale in Wales - it comes with common grazing rights for 800 sheep, 40 cows and 8 horses.
The question is ifbyoir release all of those animals on 4000 acres of common land how on earth are you suppose to round them up for shearing, lambing, tupping etc???
Do other people have grazing rights on the same hills? How are you supposed to know which ones are yours? Would you check 800 individual sheep ear tags and segregate from neighbours 800? Wow
Growing loads of fruits and vegetables! Raising dairy goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits on 1/2 acre in the middle of the city of Leicester, using permaculture methods.

Rosemary

  • Joined Oct 2007
  • Barry, Angus, Scotland
    • The Accidental Smallholder
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2019, 07:04:00 am »
In Scotland, only crofts have grazing rights. Here, the Crofting Commission would be able to give you inofrmation on Grazings Committees, that manage common grazings. Traditionally crofters work together to gather stock off the grazings and shear, dose etc.
There may be something similar in Wales.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2019, 08:19:35 am »
I know of two ways it’s done. Hefting, where each flock knows its own terrain and broadly doesn’t stray, so you can get your own sheep in.  But it takes generations to heft a flock, so unless you’re buying with both rights and hefted flock, that would be tough to get established. Or the cooperative model Rosemary describes, where commoners work together on gathers up to five times a year, and work through all the sheep together.  Must be a heck of a job getting the ewes and lambs paired up so each can mark or remove his or her own.  :o
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Steph Hen

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Angus Scotland.
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2019, 08:41:59 am »
Where I grew up in Wales most house holders on the common land had grazing rights. Not as many as hundreds, and most householders didn’t use them, so with this assumption the common land was grazed by about four/five people and then others had a few ponies or cattle or whatever. In much the same way as a fank in crofting, a date to round up sheep was agree and everyone would go and help. The ground was wet, there were no quads, it was all done on cobs or foot. I had a pony so was asked to help, they’d sometimes give me a dog and a name of a bit of common early in the morning and off we’d go. The sheep basically knew what they were doing. Just had to keep an eye out for stragglers, cunning ones hiding, carry small lambs and stop traffic.
Then they’d be sorted, occasionally some belonging to other people would be taken away, but mostly dealt with communally, just given the other people’s marks or whatever. It was the same with the common ponies, but only once a year and much harder. Now it’s broken up with fences, fewer sheep, quad bikes and little community about it.

Kiran

  • Joined Apr 2019
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2019, 02:17:19 pm »
We have common grazing rights and I had the same thought. Not really sure how to best use it as it's for 40 cows or 300 sheep but I have the same concern.

Does anyone know if you can rent your common grazing rights out as I wont, for example, be using them within the next 12 months as I have more pressing projects on my own land?

Thanks and sorry to ask a question on someone else's thread

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2019, 02:55:08 pm »
I think it will depend on your individual documentation.  I looked at a property once had grazing rights on the common, but it stipulated what animals and that they had to be owned by the commoner.
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

CarolineJ

  • Joined Dec 2015
  • North coast of Scotland
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2019, 05:46:37 pm »
Generally they stick together in their own flocks, so while they'll all wander about over our commons, it's not too hard to come back with just ours when I go up for them - they recognise me and my voice and the sound of my quad and will come running to see if I've got food, but will mostly ignore my neighbours when they're up there.  If anyone does accidentally bring in a couple of someone else's, we just put them back out again once we're done working with our own.  Every shareholder in the commons will have their own flock mark (mine is a big green C on the back!) which is put on with oil-based marker, they last pretty well.  A neighbour kindly got me an iron made up by the blacksmith's apprentice, so I can squelch it into the paint bucket and press it onto their backs, which makes it very clear and easy to spot at a distance.

macgro7

  • Joined Feb 2016
  • Leicester
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2019, 07:38:53 pm »
Thanks everyone! Really interesting.
Will bucket training work with 850 ewes + their lambs though?
Growing loads of fruits and vegetables! Raising dairy goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits on 1/2 acre in the middle of the city of Leicester, using permaculture methods.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2019, 09:25:38 pm »
Haha.

When a pal and I bought a 1000 acre moorland farm with hefted flock of 450 Swaledales and 80 mules, neither of us having worked a sheepdog before, we were anxious about gathering our fell and being able to bring the sheep in for the treatments they needed.  Smallholding friends advised bucket training. 

Let me tell you, you do not get between 450 Swaledales and their feed  :roflanim:  One dog wouldn’t get off the quad bike at all, the other learned to run a path through the sheep so I could drive behind him dispensing up to a quarter of a tonne of cake from the ‘snacker’ towed behind. 

Neither dog would disembark when we went to feed the mules.   :roflanim:

Joking aside, it took us a while to learn to gather our fell.  The first time, it took several days to get all the girls home for their pre-tupping crutching and tailing.   By year two, we could usually bring them all fairly reliably in in under two hours when they weren’t with lambs.  More difficult when they had lambs, they don’t flock the same when they have lambs with them.

Prey animals lose all interest in food once their flight hormones kick in.  So a bucket only works if they aren’t alarmed. ;).
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

macgro7

  • Joined Feb 2016
  • Leicester
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2019, 01:57:58 am »
I think you would need some good huntaway dogs for that kind of herding
Growing loads of fruits and vegetables! Raising dairy goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits on 1/2 acre in the middle of the city of Leicester, using permaculture methods.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Common grazing rights
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2019, 05:20:13 pm »
I think you would need some good huntaway dogs for that kind of herding

Oh, these dogs had no problem gathering and driving the sheep, they just knew better than to put themselves between a ravening hoard with a combined weight of around 27 tonnes on 1800 cloven feet, travelling at approx twenty miles an hour, bearing down on a quarter of a tonne of cake spread out in a line!   :roflanim:
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

 

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