Tipping sheep

[Lucywilloe]

Righto. Bear with me on this one.

Driving home with husband as a passenger and enjoying the opportunity to see the countryside. Saw a flock of sheep to my left hand side as we were travelling about 70 mph on dual carriageway about two fields back from the road and glimpsed what I thought was one lying on its back kicking its feet. Remembered this could be dangerous but nowhere to stop and no charge on my phone.

No immediate laybys and told husband who let me reach into back of the car and get his phone. Texted local Facebook page to try to find farmer and also searched for numbers of local houses and businesses based on map search of the area. Once home, continued to search and tried calling any house i could see in the locality, some 30 miles from where we live. Even messaged local air bnb via booking page to see if they knew who owned the fields.

Got dogs abuse on Facebook page. People saying we should have stopped on dual carriageway and sheep now probably dead. Lots of comments about how we should have not wasted time posting and should have just stopped and dealt with it.

Genuinely - AIBU for taking the action I took?

You were very kind to be concerned and do what you were able to do.
Unfortunately we live in a time when huge hordes of people seem to have lost the plot OP. I honestly suggest you try not to give it another thought.

The worst thing is when the crows peck their eyes out. So yes I would have stopped and sent my DH to check it. It's not your responsibility though, who evers sheep they are is responsible for checking them.

The locals may all be farmers who have the knowledge AND ability to put a sheep right, but I would be completely unable to. I know absolutely nothing about sheep, and I’m guessing you may not know much either (besides once hearing that them on their backs is dangerous). You may not even have been able to access the field. You went to a ton of effort to try to find help (though next time you see something like this, I would either turn the car around at the next exit and try to find a house or just skip straight to calling the police non emergency number - I know hindsight is 20/20). The point is anyone telling you that you should have taken care of it and blaming you for anything is being ridiculous. You did what you could. They weren’t there.

Thank you for such a quick and kind response. I think I know in my heart that what I did was OK but had such anxiety over the FB responses I've been feeling awful and questioning whether I did enough. I'm not very active on social media but this woke me up to how brutal it can be. Horribly, I don't know if I'd post again if I was in the same situation again which is sad.

It wasn't your responsibility, but I couldn't have driven away and Facebooked about it later. I think you did the equivalent of point and say should do something about that". Ewes will be in lamb this time of year, and I would have rolled it back. They aren't threatening animals, so you would have been safe. Unless you gave a What 3 Words location on the ewe, its unlikely that the farmer would easily know where she was.

You did what you could under the circumstances.
Ignore the people criticising you, from what you've said you couldn't have stopped anywhere close enough to help.

If you are ever in the situation where you need to know- then the legs are supposed to be on the ground, not in the air ;-). Push from the side until legs are down and the back is pointing at the sky again. It's pretty basic! :-)

But to the OP and speaking as a sheep farmer/ owner, it is lovely of you to be concerned and the local FB group is where I would go too, however I would never have expected to you to phone the police or attempt to stop on the dual carriageway. I really don't see how you safely could, and even if you went off at the next junction and tried to find your back by local roads it would be virtually impossible to find the right field and gateways.
I'd suggest turning comments off on your fb post and ignoring them all!

Oh bless you. It is sad. All sorts of people seem to be giving up things they would have done because of online abuse, like the MPs who are stepping down. It's pretty worrying, where will we be when no-one wants to bother with anything any more for fear of abuse? I'm sorry some twats were horrible to you.

My hope is that we'll collectively grow out of it and at the moment it's a symptom of intoxication at having a platform, something that the vast number of ordinary people throughout history didn't have.
Take care OP. 🙂

Yeah, I know this sounds a bit stupid but I thought if you pushed in the middle of the side you would just be moving a sheep that stayed in its back. And if you pushed at the top of the side, you’d have to have 1. Enough strength to push a whole sheep over and 2. Might still get kicked. Maybe I’m imagining it wrong? Either way, there’s absolutely fuck all I could do, as I’m handicapped and I don’t have the arm strength to open a fucking Coke, ha.

Also, I admit, my idea of calling the police non-emergency number would be because they would know who owns the field.

We get these kind of posts often on our local page, no one ever gets abuse, usually a million messages saying "I've text the farmer" or "I'm on my way to help". This is a small town though. Sounds like twats that haven't a clue. You did the right thing.

P.S sheep are fecking stupid. It's rare to get round the local estate without spotting one on its back or in the river.

I'm a sheep farmer.

We would have been really quite bemused if you had stopped the car on a dual carriageway and gone across a couple of fields because you thought you saw a sheep on their side. Ridiculously risky.

We do check our sheep a couple of times a day, especially at this time of year where they are more likely to get kessened.

The advice about tipping sheep back over is for walkers if they come across them on footpaths rather than distant motorists.

You did the best you could, I do tend to give my neighbouring farmers a ring on the car Bluetooth if I see something that needs sorting when I'm out and about but DP thinks even that is 'interfering'.

Farmers are a funny bunch

Sheep look for ways to die, You done what you could.

Its a bit hard to describe. An upside down sheep isnt like a rigid farm animal toy, more like a woolly water ballon with legs on.
I searched-
YouTube is a strange and wonderful place for niche information😅. Personally I think the first one is the best, leaning over and grabbing legs to pull would get me kicked in the face if the sheep started thrashing, but depends on your own physical abilities. If you are tall with long arms it might be different

Ah, you’re brilliant! Why didn’t I even think of YouTube?! Off to learn all about how to “supervise” the saving of a sheep. Because yes, I admit, now that I know they could die if left like this, if I saw one on its back, it would stay on my mind for AGES if I didn’t try to do something. Also, had a bit of a laugh at “a wooly water balloon with legs on.”