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Original poster

AIBU to think that if you hate animals you shouldn't move to the countryside?

335 replies

shiklah · 16/06/2018 23:02

I live in a very rural community which has become popular with commuters in the last 5 years. Over the last 18 months the following complaints have featured heavily on the local WhatsApp and Facebook groups:

Cows blocking the road for 10 mins (they do this twice a day and have for hundred of years as they go in for milking)
Escapee sheep roaming the verges and traffic islands
Cockerels crowing
Church Bells

Our neighbours moved in Jan 2016 and have built a conservatory overlooking our field. They have complained:

A ram was tupping ewes in the field
Many Sheep gave birth in the field
A sheep had a prolapsed and was attended by the vet in the field (the vet delivered 2 healthy lambs, revived them and saved the ewe, it was awesome and brilliant and they are all healthy and happy but apparently it spoiled mothers day breakfast)
A fox killed a rabbit and ate it in our field
A ferral cat lives in the hedge at the side of our field
A sheep pooed when Mr Neighbour was eating breakfast

Th least one was reported to me at 7pm this eve when I was getting out of my car at the end of a 60 hour working week. He DROVE to my house to tell me a sheep pooed in his view whilst he was eating breakfast in his conservatory that he built, overlooking my field, that has been their since before my house was built, in 1762. I literally don't know know what to say to these idiots any more. AIBU to simply laugh in their faces and move on with my day Grin

I have had wine and am feeling frazzled Grin

OP posts:
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14
Onlyoldontheoutside · 17/06/2018 22:54

If they don't like sheep tupping then what a couple of donkeys get up to may traumatise you neighbours OP.

Biggreygoose · 17/06/2018 22:20

@Brigante9 clearly pinin' for the fjords.

Shockers · 17/06/2018 22:08

Someone once gave me an inflatable sheep sex doll in a nightclub. It had printed fishnets, suspenders and red lipstick.

The decorated Christmas sex doll was on the side of someone’s neighbour’s house iirc.

Re the ‘dead’ horses- in my defence, the policeman who came out and phoned the owner also thought they were dead!

ErrolTheDragon · 17/06/2018 21:02

I'd love to see the replies the school got!

Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 20:57

More great suggestions.

Pest control wardens have the BEST stories of idiots at large. The mole man can hold court for hours. He was once asked to remove moles from a garden in Hebden Bridge (hippy capital of Yorkshire) and was amazed to be asked by the woman who'd engaged his services what he intended to do with the moles, where they would be rehomed. He realised she didn't want the traditional counting method of pinning them to the fence by the nose (£20 for your first mole, £3 a mole after that) and told her as a special favour to her he would make sure he buried them where no one else would ever find them. he just didn't tell her he'd kill them first. Another time he was asked to remove rats from a Steiner School where they wanted him to release them safely in the countryside - he told them it was illegal and they sent him away and wrote to the council and their MP!! About a RAT!!!

OP posts:
Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 20:40

@Brigante9 I think your horse is dead mate.

OP posts:
flamingtoaster · 17/06/2018 20:32

Don't forget if you are using anything inflatable you could fill them with helium and tether them at various heights. If you painted them with glow in the dark paint it would be even more effective.

LakieLady · 17/06/2018 20:32

Oh, and you can also get sheep sex dolls. (I know this having made a perfectly innocent mistake - searching for "blow up sheep" for the Nativity play blush) Just in case you're pervy sheep-sex obsessed neighbour is in need of a tableaux or something...

Oh please, OP, you have to do this - Mr Scarecrow shagging a sheep with his carrotcock and satsuma balls! Pleeeeaaase - and post a pic.

ErrolTheDragon · 17/06/2018 20:24

I'd like to nominate this thread for Classics.

When I moved into our village, a goat tried to mug me when I was on the way home from the village shop. Fortunately a Joe Grundyish old boy was passing and reckoned he knew where she came from and led it away. I felt I'd had a very good welcome to the village and wouldn't have dreamed of complaining!Grin

Biggreygoose · 17/06/2018 20:21

Well clearly after the fox complaints it would only be sensible to get in to pest control. Rifle fire at 2am really adds to the atmosphere.

Then of course you need to control crows and pigeons. Pigeon flights are morning and evening and are the perfect accompaniment to breakfast and dinner. Plus points for breasting the birds in view of the conservatory. It's obviously efficient to have a few blinds set up and double gun them.

Grin
FairfaxAikman · 17/06/2018 20:15

I can empathise OP.
We live very rurally and the family business is butchery.

One of our rivals actually has a cold room with a window to the street and generally have a couple half cows hanging in there - the number of disgusted comments that are made by folk is unreal. Same folk happily trot off to Tesco for some bacon and a few burgers Hmm

Brigante9 · 17/06/2018 20:07

Sleeping and sunbathing. Fortunately, his field is off the beaten track, so I don’t get panicked passers by telling me my horse is dead!

AIBU to think that if you hate animals you shouldn't move to the countryside?
FuckKnuckle · 17/06/2018 20:06

Grin there are some brilliant suggestions on here!

We had neighbours companing about the cows mooing at night and keeping their children awake. Comments included, "They must be taking their calves away - it's so cruel!" (it's a beef herd with the calves reared at foot, so highly unlikely) and, "Can't the farmer move them to another field and barn further away from the houses?" Yeah, right, give me half an hour and I'll get right on it. Because, you know, we've got all these unused barns all over the place, and moving an entire herd is such a trivial exercise. The cattle were there for years before the housing...

YouTheCat · 17/06/2018 19:51

There were ladybirds shagging in my front garden this morning. They have no shame!

RantyMare · 17/06/2018 19:48

YANBU. What a pair of twats. That's like moving onto a main road and constantly complaining about traffic, or moving next to a school and complaining about kids.

SabineUndine · 17/06/2018 19:42

I really think you need half a dozen geese. Mr Arsehole Neighbour will never dare come near you again.

BTW can anything be done for the cat? Is it definitely feral rather than a stray?

50shadesofgreyismylaundry · 17/06/2018 19:41

I quite understand your neighbour. I'm currently quite traumatized by two wood pigeons shagging outside my mother's living room window. It's putting me right off my beer and Countryfile. Grin

AIBU to think that if you hate animals you shouldn't move to the countryside?
diodati · 17/06/2018 19:35

@BambamberGrinGrinGrin

DartmoorDoughnut · 17/06/2018 19:24

Loving the ideas so far, too tired to think of any myself mind

Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 19:18

Ok here is the 5 point plan:

  1. move manure heat to o/s their conservatory
  2. accuse Mr N of voyeurism
  3. Create a distinctive 'cock n balls' farm tag for the sheep and leave DH and DS to do the marking
  4. make a terrifying and/or obscene scarecrow
  5. Arrange for a rescue donkey or 20 to be shipped here from Greece, train them to bray all night and play dead all day

Any more Grin

OP posts:
ArthurShelbysTash · 17/06/2018 19:12

There was a sheep knocking around up here recently with the word TWAT painted on his side. Possible option?

Or you could make it more fun by spelling something out - one letter per sheep. Let them work it out. Sheep scrabble. That'll take their minds off the tupping and shitting during breakfast.

GreenItWas · 17/06/2018 19:07

I used to have an English Bull Terrier. I remember a trio of townie teens looking at her as she peered through the gate and trying to decide what she was. It didn't help that she rarely wagged her tail and the face was expressionless but she was a real character in reality. One was adamant she was a rabbit and another thought she was a guinea pig even though she was 22 kilos. The third said it was a type of dog and the other two remonstrated with him for thinking that. I was listening from behind my kitchen door an wetting myself laughing.

PositivelyPERF · 17/06/2018 19:05

Sorry, wrong one.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=EGrRRQmZnFw

PositivelyPERF · 17/06/2018 19:04

OP, you need your very own Pinto. They’ll freak the fuck out! 😆

m.youtube.com/watch?v=iJR7xXBt0Jg

Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 18:56

DH has been and pulled all the thistles/nettles up and dug up all the reeds today. We're waiting for a complaint about spores/seeds spreading.....

that sign is fantastic

OP posts:
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