Why would you move to the middle of farmland if you are scared of farm animals?

[RocketPanda]

I live in the countryside, surrounded by fields and until recently my nearest neighbour was a distant speck.
There was a derelict house that has been bought and renovated and I met my new neighbours yesterday. There's a big field between our houses and they asked was it used for animals. I said yes in the spring it usually has cows and calves in it. The husband said There better not be because he and their children are terrified of cows and big animals and can just about cope with hearing my donkeys.

Why on earth would you choose to move here then?

She's probably spent a fortune on the fucking horrible things.

@RocketPanda I was brought up in a house with cow in the field on the other side of the fence. They'd quite regularly break THROUGH the fence and we would find them trampling the garden.. nothing like half a dozen cows mooing away on your lawn .. let's hope that doesn't happen to your new neighbours shall we

We've lived in our current house for about 25 years now. There's a group of 4 houses and a farm. I have lost count of the number of people who have lived in the house next to us since we moved in.It backs right on to the farm's biggest barn and the usual reasons people move away are animal noises and smell though the current residents were telling my DH recently that they're thinking of moving because it's too isolated. I find it quite odd as none of those things are a secret. OK, there are things that you might know about, like I was surprised by how late into the night the farmers work when they're sillaging when I first encountered it, but I would have thought it fairly obvious that if you buy a house divided by only a few strands of barbed wire from a large farm that you'll encounter animals. And that those animals will make noises and smells.
I think some people just have a romantic idea about country life and they think that things like that won't matter, but then discover they're not really cut out for it. We rented before deciding we definitely wanted to settle here and that's what I'd recommend to anyone making a major lifestyle change. We've definitely had neighbours who have watched one too many episode of All Creatures Great and Small and are disappointed to find that 21st century country life is not quite like that.

How scared are they going to be? Because surely they just keep out the field? Or is he going to be terrified seeing them out the window/over the hedge?

I actually like the smell of slurry spread on fields. Memories of a childhood running wild in the countryside ... horses, cows, sheep & ducks. Bliss.

As part of my job I used to spend a lot of time wandering about in fields (with farmers'/landowners' permission) amongst various types of livestock, and the only creature that ever actively attacked me was a Shetland pony. Absolute little bastard, bit me on the arm and then tried to kick me and colleague, so we legged it across the field and over the fence. It must have looked very funny from a distance, but was bloomin' terrifying at the time! I always gave cows with calves a very wide berth though.

Sounds like my neighbours moved house right next to an entrance to a school spent two YEARS petitioning and complaining that school children walked past their garden every day....they actually managed to get the entrance closed to regular school children it's open rarely and supervised by a teacher when it is

Weird

Hope you have a good laugh at some point at their lack of research before moving there OP.

Depends where you live. Anyone can walk through my field as it is their right to do so.

I would like to live next door to a vegan farm. Farms near me are sheep or animal food with the occasional cow. The flies every summer here are really annoying and I'm sure farm animals attract different insects from fields of vegetables.

Many years ago we had a similar situation, I worked at a stables and had 2 yard cats that were excellent mousers. They kept the feed room free of mice and rats , it was a nice warm room with old horse blankets for bedding .
But well meaning but very annoying people would feed the cats alsorts, cat food tuna , ham , Sunday roast scraps and god knows what else so they stopped hunting

This meant we had a huge mouse problem and 2 lazy over friendly cats.
No matter what we told they kept feeding the until one day the owner had enough and pined a note to every stable door saying something like

Due to people feeding the yard cats we now have a huge mouse problem and have repeatedly had to throw away your horses food , each sack cost x yz therefor I am going to have to increase the livery cost by abc to cover the cost.

Amazingly people finally stopped feeding them but there was a hell of a fuss the day the notes went up.

BTW the cats got fed by the owner in the winter when there were less mice and rats to eat.

Wait until his precious children are bitten by manglewurzels...

Exactly. They built a whole new estate/ village outside our village and now the roads must be widened, there must be pavements everywhere and street lights. People must have town-like amenities in their new bucolic idyll (not cows), the local fb page is hysterical (histrionics not funny ha ha) whenever there’s muck spreading/ harvesting/ rain/ snow/ road closures…

Well they shouldn't be coming close enough to the property to fear the animals. The other species were there first so the strange humans can do one.

That's why they are known as Shitlands!

Feeding ponies is another bugbear. Doesn't matter how many times I have to remind people/put signs up etc people seem to think their DC have a right to pet & feed ponies in a field. The ponies then see the public as treat dispensers & will chase, bite, kick each other & other members of public in order to get food.

Don't forget the 'security' lights that are brighter than the light of a thousand suns, stay on all sodding night and make it impossible for anybody to see intruders because their retinas have been burned away.

Surprising just how temperamental rural electrics can be, though. Seems as if the brighter and longer the light shines, the quicker entire stretches of cabling seem to be eaten by Piskies.

It’s like moving to Hawaii and being afraid of beaches & lovely weather!! The mind boggles 🙈

I wasn't feeding the geese in a park. I was helping out taking water to other creatures and I'm not about to let that vicious beak anywhere near me and no she never backed off she was a bloody bully

How on earth do you become terrified of all large animals? He's clearly passed this on to his kids, he sounds mad.

To add, the town I live in is surrounded by farmland and every year without fail the local FB groups is full of moans about the smell from the fields being spread!!
What did you expect when you bought your overpriced new build on the edge of a farm!!!

You should have told them the field was going to be part of a re-wilding project and that a herd of aurochs would be arriving in the spring.

I was jealous enough of you having donkeys, @RocketPanda , but having a lovely Connemara as well has left me consumed with envy!

We have a family farm. When the farmer next door died, the whole farm was sold in made into jouses. There have been six houses built. I kid you not, every single one of them should have stayed in the city where they moved from! They complain about the lane and road being mucky when it flicks up onto their porsche, the cockerel is too loud and too early. The cows smell, infact the whole countryside smells. So many more and they've all been whinging for years. It's ridiculous.

But they are so delicious!