Please use the countryside responsibly- so fed up

[jacks11]

On a rare day off from my day job, I have once again spent the day dealing with a series of thoughtless and/or completely entitled idiots behaving totally irresponsibly on our land. I had thought the one (very small) silver lining of this awful situation would be that this lambing season would see us free from so many problems from people out for a walk etc. But still having issues.

Today I stopped no fewer than 7 families traipsing through either the yard, our garden (one family stopping to have a seat on the picnic table/bench in our garden) or the lambing sheds to have a look. One family also stopped off to admire the lambs in one of the fields then preceded to take there youngish children (under 10) into said fields to see them closer. Several gates left open, people climbing over gates etc. I caught someone feeding our old pony apples and a doughnut! We’ve had rubbish being dropped. Dogs off leads etc.

What I cannot understand is how so many are getting to us- they must be breaching the guidance to only exercise locally or walking at least 7 miles from the nearest village. Which I doubt with the ages of some of the children.

When DH politely approached the family in our garden they were really rude, citing their “right to roam”- not even slightly apologetic when pointed out they were in our garden so they had no right to be there. Ditto several other people- don’t seem to realise right to roam does not apply to private gardens or land used for commercial reasons- I.e. yards/lambing sheds and you must behave responsibly (e.g. close gates, don’t let dogs off leads near livestock, don’t leave rubbish, don’t worry livestock, don’t walk across crops etc).

When you add in the situation with Covid, you’d think people would be careful about touching gates etc unnecessarily- but no. Lots of people have vulnerable family members and this is just an added headache- having to constantly be aware that people may have touched the gates/railings/doors etc.

Please use the countryside responsibly- some of us live on the land you are using as a playground. You are putting our livestock at risk- please don’t feed livestock/horses for that reason- and sometimes yourself in danger. There is no excuse for leaving rubbish.

Rant over!!

We have in the past Purpletigers- my MP “sympathised” last year But couldn’t really come up with solutions. I’m not aware of right to roam being suspended for any part of the year (scotland). It does beggar belief sometimes- I mean what kind of idiot puts young children into a pen with a ewe and her young lamb? Or encourages a child to enter a field with a mare and foal at foot? They just don’t seem to see the danger, it’s just “such a lovely memory/photo opportunity”. I do think people don’t tend yo think of the countryside, and by extension farms, as working environments- they just think it’s all peace, lovely views and fresh air.

I am married to a farmer but work for the NHS, so at least I’ve got other things to focus on right now!

Big sign that says "Covid19 infection area - high risk quarantine area".

If they come onto your domestic garden call the police, they now remove trespassers to residential property. I would also recommend slinging your shotgun over your shoulder before going to ask them to move on (obviously don’t threaten people with it, that’s illegal, but merely wearing one can lend a certain gravity to the situation).

I enjoy my country walks but I would support an end to the right of way system. These rights are based on historic walkways from times when people used these walkways more respectfully and primarily for purposes of getting from A to B. I don’t think it’s reasonable to extend what was essentially community paths to random town dwellers wanting a jolly through the countryside.

‘Right to Roam’ is misquoted horse shite. It’s ‘right to responsible access’ and traipsing through folks livestock is not fecking responsible.

I’m also sick of shooing people away from lambs / horses and asking people to put dogs on leads. And scooping up grass cuttings and carrot bags

If I walked onto a farmers land here in Somerset the farmer would be running after me with a gun, they don't take any shit up here.

Op, I could of wrote your post!! Sick off the walkers. The family's going where they please, touching my horses. We are getting hundreds of people passing through out farm, usually not on the footpaths. When you tell them they are not on the footpath they some are so rude. We are trying to shield my partners dad as has terrible problems with his lungs. It's impossible. Why can't they just close the footpaths near peoples property?

It's like that round here too. Not allowed to see my horse because of lockdown, turned away for the summer, but they've had to triple fence the horses away from the boundary fence because of people climbing over to feed them, try and sit their kids on them and take selfies. Fortunately my horse is an anti social twat and stays away from people, I have enough trouble catching him, but the others aren't and despite signs and the fences the yard owners are still having to clear random food from the field daily. Any requests not to feed/disturb are met with attitude usually and the whole "You're just being a posh cunt because you have a horse".
It's definitely worse this year than it ever has been, maybe the other time it came close was foot and mouth, people were utterly fucking clueless then too and weren't up for listening to reason.
I walk in the local area, one of my favourite walks goes through two farm yards - I don't use it now because I respect that the farmers don't want the risk, and though they do know me, and may not have an issue with locals that always use the paths doing so sensibly, I'm likely to get followed by others who don't.
It's not affecting me or the dog in any way whatsoever to walk so far, turn round and come back, rather than do the loop we normally would.
Ignorance is one thing, but it's the complete lack of acknowledgement when asked not to do something and the shitty, entitled attitude that goes with it.
I had a cute little fluffy Shetland a few years ago. So cute and sweet looking, and an absolute bitch to the core, damned thing had horns instead of ears. I miss her, she saw off so many idiots that ignored the signs. If she's lived longer I could make a fortune hiring her out as a bouncer at the moment!
One local farmer is now letting his geese roam the yards, they seem to be putting a lot of people off!

@Typhoonmarie Just a little info to explain why the farmers with sheep and lambs don’t want you around at this time of the year. Lambing season is only on at this time of the year and sheep cannot lamb in other months unlike cattle for example. So the sheep farmer has feed and looked after his ewes all year for these couple of months of lambing.

If a ewe is pregnant and she gets frightened by you being near the field she could run and get excited and in a heavily pregnant ewe she could lose the lamb. Dogs by their nature love to chase sheep for fun and sheep losing lambs prematurely from that chase is common hence why farmers hate walkers with dogs.

Also if a ewe has recently had a lamb and you come along she could run off and be separated from her lamb. She would then reject her lamb and not bond with it and if the farmer doesn’t adopt it to another ewe or bottle feed it for months then that lamb would die.

You asked your question so respectfully and you sound like your main worry was the animal welfare so I just wanted to explain it easily why a farmer might have a problem it is for the care of the animals. Farmers love their animals and are not all ‘get orf my land’ out of possessiveness but because they are concerned that someone else’s actions will affect their animals.

Electric fence, signs, bull and shot gun along with photos to name and shame will still not deter some morons.

Shocking behaviour written about on here. It seems like a campaign on tv/ radio needs to happen to educate people. Sorry all you farmers have to put up with that. It must be very stressful.

Do you have a shotgun, to fire over their heads, for scareing off purposes.? I can't believe that those people are so thick and stupid and irresponsible , going on your land, and bothering your animals.

Do they have a right to roam though at the moment? If they are needing to drive there to roam I would say not. If they are putting your family at risk then not. I would call the police.

You need a herd of free roaming inquisitive cows, to chase them away, preferably with calves, to raise the stakes.

Thanks for the explanation Rashboy. I guess I knew that really. I’ll find another route for now. I’d be mortified if I caused harm to them.

The thing is if you've seen sheep that have been mauled by dogs you would never roam around the countryside with dogs off the lead. Or maybe you would... One woman whose dog was caught running through our sheep said, 'But he's only playing!'

We are having the same problem. Our village is now very busy with dog walkers and people having picnics. We have even had groups of walkers.
The farms have had to display signs due to the amount of people going into the lambing sheds and fields.
Any other time we wouldn't mind but I think it is very silly to be doing so at the minute.
Also had to pick up a lot of dog mess from the field my children use for daily exercise.

We have this all the time OP! We are not in the uk though so there is no "right to roam" we have a woodland off of the back of our house which our children play in, a part of it backs onto a lane (that is also ours and access to another field which is ours) and despite signs saying it is private land...ppl still rock up and claim they are entitled to walk in a woodland!! Some ppl refuse to believe that we own it! (I even had one man ask to see the deeds ) another family tried to camp there once!!

Some people are just so selfish and entitled. It’s almost unbelievable that people would think that it’s ok to treat another person’s property in this way.

I agree with you....people are being idiots. I can't understand the mentality.

I go out for a country walk every day and literally walk all the way down the lane and back again....there are some lovely footpaths but I don't go on any of them at the moment because I don't want to go on farmland, I know how worried the local farmers are that the virus will be introduced and hamper their ability to produce food for the nation.

Typhoon, if the lambs are a couple of weeks old (cords off, filling out a bit) walking quietly through the field without a dog should be fine, especially if you keep a good distance away. If the sheep look antsy and nervous, then go another way, but if the most they do is call their lambs in and otherwise just look at you, and start to graze ass soon as you've gone by, it's okay. Sheep vary a lot from the confident to the nervous, so it's hard to generalise.

I used to look after some sheep, and had one killed by a dog, which has made me paranoid about my own dogs around stock.

If people understood more about where their food is from, they might have more respect for farms and farmers.

Get some ott beware of the dog signs

—and maybe some big scary dogs—

People shouldn't be driving to anywhere for a nice picnic at the moment. Stay at bloody home ffs.

The covid 19 effect unfortunately. All of a sudden lock down happened. Many Arne working, going shopping, bowling, gym, cinema, swimming the list goes on. Where do these people go? Outside.
Yes on some levels it's nice but they lack the basic awareness like not sticking to rights of way an footpaths, not sticking to road or cycle paths( I had to run on road twice yesterday to give way to cyclists on the middle of path), walking 3 or four abreast in a world of their own ( I do t wear headphones so can hear bikes and runners without the need for bells etc, so can many who are used to their surroundings). Not knowing when to recall dogs and put them back on lead. These then become saniyed at the farmers, runners, cyclists, walkers who have being going out for years unbeknown to them that their lack of awareness is actually the problem.

We have loads of public footpaths around us - a few are through fields with crops - it's easy to see that the pathway is being respected because the crops have been trampled down a foot wide - I would imagine the public footpath is wider than this.
We have a footpaths that pass fields with very infrequent livestock in them - maybe seen them once in 4 years. The farmer puts up signs warning that it's lambing season but never remove the signs afterwards - so obviously people are just going to eventually ignore them. People want to protect livestock but the farmer needs to remove the sign when they are done or people will ignore it as out of date. Public paths in England do not belong to the farm - they cannot be closed off.

YANBU. I say this as a townie with close proximity to the countryside so I can easily do 10k walks/ runs from home into quite rural, untouristy areas which fortunately few people from my suburb ever seem to do. The routes I am using are familiar to me and ones I run regularly (and prior to trail running I had years of hiking experience dating back to DoE award training) I'm not an ignorant newbie thinking it's one big free children's farm park attraction out there. I have seen greater numbers out in these areas, but still not "busy", and fortunately haven't seen anyone behaving irresponsibly and inappropriately. Presumably most, like me know the area already and have just increased their frequency as they avoid the urban area and altered their timings (I normally run during the school day, but am now later after home schooling)

I stick to the line of the footpath (unless there is a very good reason such as avoiding distubence to livestock, especially those with young).
I leave gates as I find them (generally closed although some vary with the farmer's intention.)
The DCs understand instructions like "single file, these crops are the farmer's money" and "walk slowly and quietly so you don't disturb the animals"
I don't have a dog which avoids a multitude of problems.
There is no "right to roam" in this part of the county as it is too low. Marked rights of way only.
I am familiar with practicing my responsibilities to passing over another person's land on rights of way.

I'm sorry that the idiots have found their way out to you. Sadly, I have no difficulties believing the problems you report.