Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: unexpected visitors  (Read 6899 times)

Hopewell

  • Joined Apr 2011
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2011, 10:25:56 pm »
Straydogs are now the responsibility of the council dogwardens rather than the police (at least in England). If the dog comes again I'd catch it and phone the dog warden. It will then get taken to kennels where the owner will have to pay to get there dog back. We used to have quite a problem with stray dogs, some completely unknown and some from the village. When one particular dog had chased our sheep for about the third time instead of returning it to its owner we phoned the dog warden who collected it. Some time later we had an irate owner on the doorstep having had to pay for the return of their dog but the dog didn't cause any more problems.

bazzais

  • Joined Jan 2010
    • Allt Y Coed Farm and Campsite
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2011, 12:09:43 am »
Owning animals = stress

Just dont take your neighbours so seriously, they are in exactly the same position as you - ie the law wont give a s**t.

Animals always escape, your ram will probably shag his ewes one day, and his ewes will probably escape into your field sometime and vice versa.  Its what animals do.

Playing a devils advocate here - do you think your neighbour was frustrated even though his field was empty, because he was saving the grass for his lot?

I agree - good fences = good neighbours.

It should really be him thats stops his rams getting in with your ewes though - I spose its an unspoken rule.

Baz

Corrie Dhu

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2011, 11:36:39 am »
Dogs worrying livestock is a matter for the police and if you catch them in the act you should phone 999 as it is classed as an emergency.

SeamusOReilly

  • Joined Aug 2011
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #18 on: August 17, 2011, 11:53:22 am »
Hallo, I am new to the forum this morning, but just wanted to post my own experience.

I had a stray whippet kill 14 chickens and 1 duck before being caught.  We contacted our local council who sent out the dog warden.  The operator at the council took the details and made the owner aware when they rang to report a missing dog, that the dog had killed and the dog warden was aware of this.  I later called the police and asked for the owner to be spoken to, the advantage of this is that there is a record and should the dog be caught loose again, it would have to be put to sleep.

Coincidentally in the next 3 days, my neighbour had three ewes and lambs go down with a number of issues and we cannot prove to this day that it was the same dog, but too much of a coincidence.  I would strongly recommend reporting the dogs now.

There is legislation about having dogs under control in land holding livestock.

Hope that helps

bazzais

  • Joined Jan 2010
    • Allt Y Coed Farm and Campsite
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #19 on: August 17, 2011, 03:32:08 pm »
We have footpaths all the way round our land, across it, within it, under it, over it - well you get the gist.

The biggest excuse for not having a dog on a lead is 'I know my dog and its never chased anything' - but the owners are normally from a city where they own a walled garden and only take the dog to the park where no livestock exist.

I've even been talking to a walker as she went over the same justification lines for not having a lead on her dog then 1/2 a second later the chicken was in the dogs mouth. - you cant blame the dog - you have to blame the owner.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #20 on: August 17, 2011, 11:02:52 pm »
There's also an issue of education and understanding.

Before I got into farming I thought of myself as a country-lover.  I walked widely, had extremely well-trained and well-behaved (and well-exercised) dogs, lived backing onto farmland, etc, etc.

Even when I was working on other people's farms, I still didn't really get it.  Only when I had my own moorland farm with hundreds of ewes whose pregnancies really mattered to me did I come to understand how very little stress it takes to cause a ewe to lose that recently implanted egg, to leave that newborn lamb, or a lamb to run scared into a fence, trap a leg and lose a foot.

A Scottish shepherd once told me, years ago, that ewes can tell the difference between a dog on a lead and one running free, that they know their own dogs and which dogs are strangers, and that strange dogs unleashed cause stress and harm, however well-controlled and -behaved.  After that I did, always, walk away from ewes with newborn lambs and keep dogs on leads near sheep with any lambs - but much more to appease any farmers who might be watching than because I really believed what I'd been told.

I know now that he was right.  I just don't know how to get the message (and all the other similar messages) across.
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

OhLaLa

  • Joined Sep 2010
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #21 on: August 17, 2011, 11:09:49 pm »
Nicely put SallyintNorth.

 :sheep:

ellisr

  • Joined Sep 2009
  • Wales
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #22 on: August 18, 2011, 08:16:13 am »
I have locked off the top field where the hole in the hedge is, I had a walk around there last night and it has a lot of dog toys and feaces in it that were not there on sunday so obviously the dog is still coming in and playing in the field but at least now the sheep and horse are away from it. We are starting new fencing this weekend so that should keep any of his 'tenants' animals out and my lot in we have decided to pop electric around top and bottom to keep the dog out.
In a way it is a good thing as we have decided to section the fields at the same time as doing the new fencing something we have been thinking of for a while now and eventually will get done.

Axe

  • Joined Aug 2011
Re: unexpected visitors
« Reply #23 on: August 19, 2011, 10:00:30 am »
hi im new here...but i used to work on a farm and the farmer had similar problems..he warned the owner it was in his right to 'remove' any dog distressing the sheep (he even shot one of his own for attacking a sheep)....about a month later it was back snapping at the ewes backside...so he shot it.

Farmers are legally allowed to shoot a dog or any animal that distresses there sheep.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7275112.stm

Axe

 

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