Stolen animals.....what to do.

[Purplepinkfairy]

My DH has just come home to tell me he is missing 14 sheep. He believes it's a farmer nearby that has taken them. The farmer denies it. But dh says he saw 4 of the sheep at the back of his house. My dh went to police but they say they can do nothing.......what advise can anyone give that's been in this situation.

A theft is a theft, so they should be able investigate.

How can you identify your sheep from theirs? Are they tagged etc

Are they not tagged ? Go and get them now if you can

I'd go back to the police and say you are not moving until something is done,otherwise you are going to the local paper and tell them a theft has taken place and the police will not do anything

I increasingly wonder just what purpose the police serve. 🤬

There was something on the news today about police stepping up investigations of all crime and I thought rural crime was supposed to be taken seriously. I’d be contacting police again and going higher up.
If they are your sheep I think either attempting to swap/remove tags or move the animals without all the logging that goes with that are additional offences. ( long time since I lived on a farm but I remember complicated paperwork over moving animals)

Can he just go and get them out of the field and say they escaped from his field? Because sheep are always escaping. His sheep should come to him when he shakes a bag or bucket.
if they have horns you can brand the horns
tags are frequently removed
when they are sheared you can stamp an initial on the sheep’s side with long lasting marker.
Always bucket or bag train your sheep

They will be tagged? Why would neighbour farmer steal sheep from you? And keep on at the police, don't let them fob you off.

Because the police can’t just go next door and shimmy away the sheep. They need time to investigate the crime and prove the neighbour is guilty before they try and recover the sheep

Do you have a rural crime division of your local police force? Livestock and machinery theft is taken v seriously here by police

Police won't do anything, I recently reported a theft of 50k worth of equipment from work and despite complaining repeatedly and getting to the highest possible level, they refused to do anything. If you can go and get the sheep back I'd do that, you can't rely on the police to help with anything now.