Aibu to think I should be ok to exercise my well behaved dog wherever I like in fields

[Scrowy]

I'm not BU because my dog is a farm dog and the fields are my fields.

Sadly however the local dog owners seem to think that our fields (some with footpaths, some without) are fair game and that they have an equal right to use them as they see fit.

This week we have politely asked 6 people with loose dogs to remove themselves from the pasture we have just separated some lambs into. There is no footpath in that field but it has a nice view.

During lambing time this year we lost 4 lambs and 1 sheep to sheep worrying. About 5 years ago one dog killed 24 lambs in one go. Every week we are aware of minor incidents of sheep worrying, fortunatly most don't result in death but do always result in stress on the animals.

Also this week we have sent some older sheep to slaughter. Out of 30 of them 24 of them were condemned due to Echinococcosis, a disease passed on to sheep from dog poo and only identifiable at slaughter.

Neosporosis is another disease passed on from dog poo do cattle. It causes the cattle to abort their calves.

Letting your dogs poo on farmland is directly putting farms out of business.

Letting your dogs 'play' with sheep causes death, even if your dog doesn't actually maul something at the time.

You wouldn't walk into a shop, knock down a display and break stuff without expecting to have to pay for damages. Why do people think that the countryside is fair game?

I'm all for live and let live, I want people to enjoy the countryside and support it. I also want people to realise that it's not just there for their amusement, that some people are trying to make (an increasingly small and desperate) living from it.

The woodland is privately owned by someone (an estate) but rented by us. There is a right of access through it to an old school that now no longer exists. Dog walkers like to use the wood to run their dogs in, usually far away from the right of access. When challenged they state 'but it's a public footpath'.... it's not.

I suppose it's like a row of terrace houses, the end terrace has right of access across everyone else's garden to put the bins out. It doesn't mean every dog walker in the locality should also wander up and down because there is a 'right of access'

The fell common land is owned by one of the largest estates in the country. we just have rights attached to our (tenanted) farm to it. There is a very popular and well known public footpath runs right through it. (We've been on the telly and everything). Still doesn't mean that the whole fell is fair game to roam across with dogs off leads and allow dogs to chase sheep and disturb ground nesting birds. And yet that's what hundreds of people do every year.

Counterpoint not really sure how American practices in relation to antibiotic use is relevant to a discussion on dogs on rights of way in the UK but uh... yeah I agree it is Not A Good Thing.

Good job we are in Blighty with our high welfare standards and vet only prescribed antibiotic use eh!

Counterpoint - yes, that's one of the places I've been checking. This gives details on who has rights on Common Land, and www.gov.uk/guidance/open-access-land-management-rights-and-responsibilities this states all the things members of the general public can & can't do on Common Land. The first one also refers to "commoners" rights & what Rights of Common includes.

So current arable land will just magically produce twice the current amount of we all become vegan will it counter?

No straw man. Although possibly a fair bit of straw to dispose of if there are no livestock to use it. You want to insist your farming theory is correct, that's fine but you should be able to also explain how it will practically work.

Out of 30 of them 24 of them were condemned due to Echinococcosis, a disease passed on to sheep from dog poo and only identifiable at slaughter.

Hmmm. Do you ever feed your dog raw sheep viscerae?

Do the other dog owners?

I'm not BU because my dog is a farm dog and the fields are my fields.

Are you sure your dog is not the culprit?

Lweji

Nope absolutely can't guarantee our dogs aren't contributing but we worm them regularly and don't allow them to eat dead sheep. After all it's part of our farm assurance registration if nothing else. Not sure we can do much more than that.

It just takes one dog in one field and it can infect many sheep.

Echinococcosis was just the culprit on this occassion. As you probably know there are many other diseases that can be passed from dogs to sheep / cattle. The message is the same. Pick up your dog poo and keep dogs on a lead around livestock!

Ooh, Scrowy, you might be able to answer this one - I'm looking at becoming farm assured, but am in a common grazings area. How do you meet the biosecurity standards if your flock can mix with other non-FA flocks on the shared grazing? Is an isolation policy for ewes coming in off the hill sufficient?

other livestock-type, common-land scroungers Ha ha ha

North coast Why are you looking at becoming farm assured?

North We went farm assured last year. I worried and worried about it but we passed.

North we have a farm biosecurity plan that covers it.

Whether or not other people on the common are Farm assured isn't your issue, as long as you ensure that you are meeting the standards. So as long as you vaccinate your sheep e.g. against scab/ enzo/ toxo etc and have a clear policy in place around bringing them back in for lambing and so forth.

Most commons are in theory hefted as well so technically yours and your neighbours sheep shouldn't be mixing all that closely (but as anyone who has anything to do with commons will be aware hefting has fallen to pieces for a variety of reasons, foot and mouth, reduction in stocking to get subsidies, less time, fewer staff etc)

In our case it really is a non issue. Our fell sheep pretty much don't cross paths with our home sheep at any time. We only take the tup lambs off the fell and not the gimmers, and the tups are kept in isolation until they are sold late summer and in the back end. The female fell sheep aren't really going to be entering the food chain so I suppose providing that they meet standards generally in terms of health and welfare then that is sufficient.

What kind of system are you running at the moment?

I think it's a sad state of afffairs when people are so wrapped up in their own wants nowadays that the welfare of other animals and people's livelihoods are put at risk.
I live in the country, but a few miles out from the nearest town, which means that everybody drives out here to walk their dogs.

The woodland and riverside is littered with dog mess, there are bagged up poos hanging from shrubs and trees and people have made their own footpaths as shortcuts over crops away from the prow.

I used to keep a pony and borrowed sheep and one day had someone knock on my door to complain that their dog was in the field chasing everything and coud I please make sure that the (perfectly adequate) post and rail fencing was fixed! They didn't take kindly to being told that the fencing was to keep the stock in and not their out of control dog out.

The local farmer also loses sheep/lambs every year without fail due to dog worrying. One woman whose dog had crossed several fields to get to the sheep was distraught, and I genuinely had some sympathy for her, but I've witnessed others who couldn't care less and just turn a blind eye. Sheep worrying is horrific to witness.

I own dogs myself, and to be honest I'm embarassed when I walk them in farmland elsewhere as even though they are trained with sheep and cattle and are still put on the leash and I pick up after them, I know that the majority in my local area don't, and I know that I will probably be lumped in with them.

With increases in population and the demand for cheap plentiful food as well as scenic areas to walk and enjoy, the problems of conflicting interests, overuse, fly tipping etc are only going to get worse I think unless people have more respect for each other.

Sheep worrying is horrific to witness.

Not when you don't know the damage it is causing as 'my dog is only wanting to play, it wouldn't hurt a fly'.

Keep dogs on leads in fields. Simple.

woodenplank Several reasons - 1) because it seems to be a decent set of standards to live up to, whether I end up actually going for it or not, 2) because prices for FA lambs at the mart are marginally better and 3) FA means they're more likely to end up on someone's plate rather than as dog food.

scrowy Thank you. I'm a crofter with 15 acres of in-bye and grazing shares on the hill. There are only four flocks on the common grazings at the moment - I haven't put mine out yet, as I'm still getting started and only have the 12 ewes, so they've been on mowing duty on the in-bye, but as I grow the flock they will go out and hopefully start to heft. I rarely see sheep at the ruined clearance village a couple of miles up the track, so will try and encourage them to settle there as there's plenty of shelter and a stream. I have a health plan in place and they're kept up-to-date with vaccinations, worming, fluke (which we're bad for here) etc.

I'm guilty of allowing miphound on fields where the crop has been harvested and the ends ploughed in. Sorry! It's usually easy to tell if it's been replanted and obviously I don't let him on then (our to go to the loo at any point) but it sounds as if you do something in that period. Just wondering what it is? pure nosiness

I won't let MipHound on ploughed in fields anymore.

"I'm not BU because my dog is a farm dog and the fields are my fields."

"Are you sure your dog is not the culprit?"

I'm sure the OP, like all good farmers, will blame it on everything else except their own practices.

Do feel free to read my post yesterday at 23.50 counterpoint I'm sure you will take it as justification for your point of view

Did a farm kid steal your sweets when you were younger or something? You seem terribly angry at a whole group of people you appear to know very little about?

counterpoint - you lost any sympathy I'm afraid when you compared the detruction of virgin rain forest for the production of palm oil and soya to crop rotation.

You may have read a lot about American farming practices, but you know bugger all about rain forest destruction.
Or is it inconvenient to recognise that soya is as damaging to the world as meat production is?

I m not a farmer. I do not live int he countryside, and I do not own a dog, so no straw man construction here.

Cattle farming is the greatest destructive force when rain-forests or any forests are annihilated to provide the sort of "fields" the OP wants exclusively for her livestock.

Your attempts to twist what I said are pathetic.

Any positive differences are in continuing to grow some form of crops. This mitigating fact is because at least crops produce oxygen whilst cattle produce methane.

Your sad side-sweeping of this fact is all too common among those extremists who deny the destruction of atmosphere and the contribution to global warming.

Loving the irony of Counterpoint comparing hefted upland sheep flocks to cattle grazed on slashed rainforest - and then calling other posters 'extremists' ??! 😂. Selective revisionism doesn't even cover it....

Absolute drivel

Any positive differences are in continuing to grow some form of crops

All plants are not equal - same as all animals aren't the same. Virgin Rain Forest has the greatest diversity of life of any type of environment on the planet, of both animals and plants. Any destruction of Rain Forest will have a massive impact on local and even global environment, and the planting of crop plants really doesn't mitigate any of that.

Grazing sheep on rough hillsides where no food crops can be grown seems to me to be the exact opposite - you are making the best use of otherwise unproductive land

When quinoa became lauded as a new superfood, particularly for vegetarians living in the Western/developed world, the immediate effect was more loss of rainforest.

Arable isn't always the best thing ....

"There is a right of access through it to an old school that now no longer exists."

Then people have every right to walk there. You could put up a sign saying please stick to path and keep dogs on leads. But if it's disused woodland then I can't see a problem with free running dogs.

It's not disused Haye we graze native cattle in it. We rent it specifically for that purpose. So yes there is a problem if dogs run all over it unfortuantely.

We don't mind people using the footpath. They however do mind using the footpath as it basically doesn't go anywhere apart from back to the road (it's a completely pointless footpath now there is no school) but no one actually goes in there because they want to use the footpath they go in there to run their dogs round in the wood.

Counter I'm fairly confident that the Forestry Commission would be on top of any rainforests popping up in the North of England so you can probably rest assured that there won't be any being cleared to graze my livestock on.

I've briefly met Matt Baker a few times BloominMarvellous he is a nice chap and it would be hilarious if he got sent to do a slot about mumsnet and dog poo! No doubt we would get fobbed off with Henson though.

It's perfectly simple. Leave the plants alone and stop cattle/sheep, produced on such massive scales (a.k.a farming), from eating them even if you decide they are not crops and that crops can't even grow there (hillsides) - plants are still growing there. It doesn't matter if you call them crops or simply plants. Cattle are NOT doing anyone any favours by grazing on any plants/crops/grasses, except the profit-seeking farmers.