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.

Erm grazing isn't trees, it's grasses & other ground plants

Eh? The reason there are few trees (below about 600m) is because of the grazing. Sheep will eat baby trees, too many sheep mean no trees get a chance to grow.

Of course it is - where are all the trees?

@Itsallgoingtobefine

600 years ago, most of Britain was forest. However, in going to war against the Spanish & building an army successive Tudor monarchs began the deforestation of Britain. They cut down the oak forests to build ships.

So deforestation happened a long time ago, and was not caused primarily by livestock farming.

Stop cattle being in the food chain though, and you won't improve anything for them. Instead they'll face the worse fate of unwanted horses that go to slaughter without the protection that comes from being intended for human consumption in the uk.

Ultimately all cattle are bred to end up in abattoirs. Some will have to endure being exported alive under current circumstances. If anything can be done to lessen the numbers being born to suffer in the next generation this is a good thing.

Corythatwas, I didn't see any answers to the comments under the article, so I doubt that the biodiversity question was deliberately ignored.

If we eat a plant based diet, much less land would be needed to produce that food, thus releasing some land for reforestation. Other less intensive farming methods than the monoculture of soya could also be used.

Yes, all this would be a very great change and it not likely to be implemented to any large degree in any of our lifetimes. But the demand for plant based foods is growing and it would be good to meet more of that demand with produce grown here. Our self sufficiency in food has been dropping and this needs to change.

Of course people who know about the land have got to be very heavily involved with any change and as we see, some welcome the chance.

lurkeredforever1

I'm not expert on new forest ponies either but I do live here and I do know that you keep including them in the stuff your writing about Welsh and whatever other ponies and you keep getting it wrong, so why not just stop including them?

New forest ponies are bred intentionally every year, there's not too many of them and the foals are not sent to the slaughterhouse because no one wants to buy them.

mrsjames I suggest you read my posts again. I only mentioned new forests in response to you, not in any other posts, so please don't tell me I am getting it wrong when the only reference I made to them was that I didn't know much. However if new forests are now being managed in such a way that breeding is now restricted to both quality & quantity needed in the leisure market, then it's taken a fair bit of culling to get them at that point because they haven't always been that way.

And to both you and biber loads of horses, including native ponies, go for slaughter precisely because they have no economic value. So I have no idea why removing the protection of human consumption, and therefore reducing uk livestock abattoirs so cattle are in the same position is in any way promoting animal welfare.

Oh yes, sorry didn't realise the sheep must have eaten all the trees in the Lakes....because those sheep are always eating trees!

Have you been to the Lakes? There are actually plenty of trees down in the valleys. The reason there won't be many trees on the fells is because nature has this thing called a natural tree line where trees don't tend to grow above a certain altitude due to wind. You see this in the Alps as well and there's not many sheep in Courcheval.

Aren't they culling Dartmoor ponies?

Yes saucery. Bastards have eaten all the trees and turned Dartmoor forest into moor.

So deforestation happened a long time ago, and was not caused primarily by livestock farming

he reason there won't be many trees on the fells is because nature has this thing called a natural tree line where trees don't tend to grow above a certain altitude due to wind

I didn't say it was a recent thing, however, overgrazing does prevent regeneration. The tree line in the lakes should actually be quite high - whilst individual trees may not grow well due to wind conditions, a group will thrive better.

Dartmoor is both overgrazed and frequently burned.

And yes, many areas of the Alps are overgrazed.

For heaven's sake, let's stop being so simplistic. Grazing is not a matter of all animals or none. The balance of different interacting species is much more subtle and needs to be managed in a site-specific way. For example, in the area where I live, the 'natural' (ie post-last-ice-age) tree cover is dense birch and hazel scrub PLUS an amazing variety of wild flowers, lichens etc. For thousands of years, sheep, cattle (domesticated) and deer (wild) have grazed there. They eat the young tree seedlings. But they also eat the tough, rank grasses and trample the bracken. Where they graze, many different wild orchids grow - some quite rare - together with other very interesting and beautiful native wild plants. If the sheep/cattle/deer do not graze, the trees, rank grasses, bracken etc grow into almost impenetrable thickets and the orchids etc fail to thrive and disappear.

The trees and orchids/wildflowers/lichens are all 'natural'. None has 'priority' in terms of some 'original right to be there'. The trick is to try to manage the grazing - and the wild deer - so that enough little trees survive to replace the old ones AND the orchids and other wild flowers get a chance also. Different versions of this need to try to achieve an eco-friendly balance will be found in different regions, of course.

The trick is to try to manage the grazing - and the wild deer - so that enough little trees survive to replace the old ones AND the orchids and other wild flowers get a chance also. Different versions of this need to try to achieve an eco-friendly balance will be found in different regions, of course

I completely agree As you say this is very complex, hence why in so many places this balance is not achieved.

florascotianew a truly excellent post. Thank you, you have said it far better than I could.

Yes I started with a moan about dog poo harming sheep and cows but ultimately the disconnect between people who use the countryside for leisure and those who work it has never felt bigger.

Farmers are the custodians of the countryside. It is a privilege, a responsibility and a way of life, not a money making exercise. How dare people who can't identify the arse end of golden plover or a curlew, or know the difference between a swale yow and a Hampshire hog spout rubbish about something they have only read about on Facebook groups, on you tube or written by click bait George monbidiot (and I say that as an avid guardian reader!)

Believe me if we did it for the money we would have left long ago.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I think you and I have interpreted that differently.

They found a rare orchid on our fell. They fended the areas it was in off so that the sheep and deer couldn't get to it.

Very soon the orchid disappeared, replaced with scrub.

So after a few years of scrubby eyesore the fences got taken down, after all they were now redundant.

The sheep and deer grazed those areas again.

As if by magic the orchids reappeared.

Our fell is actually fairly heavily stocked in comparison to other similar fells. It has been noted by various environmental bods it is 'surprisingly' well populated with a variety of wildlife.

We have golden plover, curlews, rabbits and hares (too many actually) foxes, rabbits, snipe, lapwings, voles, buzzards, kite, kestrel, stoats, weasels and sparrow hawks and a wide variety of flora and fauna. It's all there because of careful and considerate game keeping and farming practices.

If you let everything turn to bracken nothing want to live there.

A plant based diet won't solve world hunger. Many areas have a layer of top soil thats too thin for cereals and can only support grass; we cant eat grass, livestock can.

You have our sympathy, have farming family and dh farm vet.

Maybe stick a billy goat or a load of angry geese in there??

Not excusing it, but part of problem is difficulty finding safe/allowed places for dogs to go off lead (and owners assuming that footpath is for them, but off-lead dog can range anywhere in the field from there)

I would say it's all down to education, but then people know they should pick up dog poo in public areas.... and they don't....

I would second PP who suggest getting as much free media attention as possible.

Also, if you think dog walkers are local maybe try leaflet drop, or signage in area where people park... about disease risk/ risk of dog being shot if worrying sheep.... generally scary stuff that might make people worried about risk to their own dog. Maybe throw in a bit of Lyme disease or venomous snakes for good measure!?

Thank you!

I think the whole issue of keeping livestock on rough pasture etc is very much misunderstood by people not familiar with the countryside. When it comes to animal welfare and ecological damage, it is surely much, much better to graze sheep and cattle on wild, upland pastures in a traditional, balanced, managed, way than keep them in huge sheds and feed them on soya-based concentrates. Growing soya - the bulk of which is used for animal feed - has caused a great deal of environmental damage, especially to rainforests. wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/soy/soyreport/

I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not at all sure what's best for the planet in the long run unless we can find ways of producing bulk vegetable crops without wrecking the environment (as with soya above), or dairy products without USA-style intensive factory farming ttps:keithwoodford.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/americas-mega-dairy-farms/ There's a lot of hard thinking that needs to be done. But meanwhile, by respecting pasture-farmers and well-cared for livestock, we are all helping to preserve large areas of the countryside where we like to walk and explore.

I live in Scotland, where the 'right to roam' is presumed in rural areas, so long as walkers do not do damage. I would defend that right, but only if people behave responsibly. And perhaps it does not work so well in densely populated regions.

You sound at the end of your tether, OP. Certainly, sheep worrying is dreadful, and it's hard for me to imagine dog walkers being gormless enough to think that's ok, or a bit of a misdemeanor, but clearly, that's what you've experienced. One of my dogs is unpredictable around other animals, so he pays the price by being kept onlead all the time. I wish I knew a place where he could let off steam safely.
However, I don't think that dog owners will know much about zoonosis, (beyond toxoplasmosis)so may be a bit lax in their worming regimes. From what you're saying, it's not the poop that is really the problem, but more that if the dogs aren't wormed, then your sheep might be infected? Nightmare for you, plus the chances are, other animals may be vectors? Do you have foxes or hunts nearby? Do you bring in sheep from other sites? (24 out of 30 sheep infected seems pretty steep, were they all infected on your farm?) No dogs are eating potentially infected meat on your place? I can't suggest anything to help with the sheep worrying, but perhaps vets in your area could impress on dog owners that they have to keep the worming up to date, to improve the welfare of others. Supermarkets and pet shops might be places where info could be given to dog owners.. FB sites dealing with dogs also .Sometimes people do the wrong thing, because they don't know any better, not because they don't care. I bet a lot of dog owners have had a look at their worming schedule as a result of your post. If this is a general problem, could DEFRA assist? (I understand Gove is a keen environmentalist now, apparently).
I'm Scottish, and the right to roam is a bit more free than here in England, and I do really appreciate being able to walk where I will, but yes, it has to be responsibly done.I'm sure that you don't relish the idea of shooting dogs, as some have suggested, and really what you want is a solution to your problems. ( I don't know if you have the option, but Jacob sheep can put the beejesus up lax walkers). Good luck. I would like to walk my dogs up hill and down dale, but not at the cost of the welfare of your sheep.

fevversbetterout We have a four horned Jacob tup called Killer.

He did not get that name by accident

Blimey, I'll stick to Herdwick that are a long way off

We have a similar problem Scrowy with dogs being allowed to roam from footpaths and poo in fields. Each year we have around 15-20 cows spontaneously abort their calves because of neosporosis. Obviously then the calf is dead, but the dairy cow also becomes useless to us and is sold as barren stock. So, a double loss for each instance. There is no common land involved in our case, either, just very clearly marked footpaths beside or across our fields. We have considered putting signs up but dh is also very keen to live and work in harmony with our local community and doesn't want to alienate the same fuckers who give him shit about holding them up on their way to work by crossing the cows over the road some people. Bless him. I aspire to his patience.

Personally though, I do not want to hear one more complaint about farmers from anybody who does not grow and produce every last mouthful of their own food or buys anything from a supermarket.

^Not positive PR for farmers but I'm fed up with some things I read on here.

It's fantastic that the majority of comments on this thread are so supportive and positive about farming. I'm fascinated by some of the historical information I've picked up from reading this thread, too.

I really should learn to ignore the odd fool!

Hey, Dollface, you need to get this story out. Dog owners who get off their bums to walk their dogs generally do this out of love and responsibility. They don't mean harm to your stock.
Personally, I think they should be allowed to run about fields if there is no risk to your animals. I'll happily worm my lot , if it means your lot stay well. The idiot dog walkers are probably your best friends, but they are clueless as to infections. Vets tell dog owners what are risks to their dogs, not what their dogs present as a risk to other animals.
Is there research that proves that dogs are the main vectors? Are there variations in infection geographically?

Thanks fevvers. It's definitely dogs. We are also dog owners and are very positive towards our fellow dog lovers.

I should have been clearer I'm sorry. We have put up signs explaining the dangers of dog poo to cattle but the problem persists.

It's signs about trespassing or allowing your dog to wander from the footpath that dh is reticent about. Probably because, like you, it's nice for dogs to have a run about. But then, if they poo in the middle of the field, you'd have to leave the footpath to go and pick it up, wouldn't you? So you would be trespassing then.

Besides, the main problem is dog poo at the edge of the footpath. This area is grazed by the cows (they will eat anything they can possibly reach!) and the most common area for dog poo to accumulate.

Finally, do we really need to educate dog walkers to pick up after their dogs? Regardless of where they are? Is the edge of a footpath ok because it's not a children's play area, for example? Shouldn't owners pick up every poo?

Honestly just asking the question. Why have a dog if you don't want to pick up after it? Every single time?

Dollface, so best if all dogs are wormed? Would that solve the problem?