[fiestyredhead331]

The elderly lady I look after in the evenings takes great interest in how my sheep and goats are, its lovely but she is also a font of knowledge!
But, we were discussing the croft adjoining mine yesterday. The croft is unused, they have no livestock etc and the gate is left open. We put in a small gate in the fence on our side, mostly to let the goats back in that go 'wandering' next door but this lady said that if a croft is unused then the sheep of the parish have the right to graze it? Not sure about goats  but I hadn't heard this before. Probably because there isn't a single stock proof croft in the parish to begin with!
Anyone able to shed any light on this, is she right?

[Garmoran]

The croft is unused, they have no livestock etc and the gate is left open. We put in a small gate in the fence on our side, mostly to let the goats back in that go 'wandering' next door but this lady said that if a croft is unused then the sheep of the parish have the right to graze it?
Anyone able to shed any light on this, is she right?

I doubt if anyone can answer this satisfactorily, as it depends to a great extent on who you ask. Your elderly neighbour is probably correct in that she is telling you about how things are usually done in the district. However, if the croft next to you has a tenant or an owner-crofter then they will be legally able to refuse to let others graze their stock on it, even if they are not using it themselves (because we know that the CC's bark is used much more than its bite). It is their land, after all.

However, if the land isn't stockproof and the gate is left open, then commonsense states that other animals are going to graze it and I would say that the tenant/owner is accepting this. There are two crofts in our own township which are not used or stockproof (for the most part the fences are disappearing into the landscape) and as a result are grazed by our sheep (and other people's). It would be impossible to prevent, in fact.

[fiestyredhead331]

the adjoining croft has a tenant but they don't keep livestock anymore and the land is left to its own devices pretty much but they don't maintain their fences and gates are left open onto the grazings so there are quite often sheep on it, and now the odd goat or 3 

[Garmoran]

Better for the land to be grazed anyway - will slow down the invasion of rushes etc.

[fiestyredhead331]

we've been attending the Soil Associations Rush Control meetings and it was pointed out that other than digging them out to a depth of at least 8 inches....goats grazing them are the way to go 
Maybe I should be charging for my goat munching services?....