A large slab of mincemeat found in my garden!

[Orangebadger]

So my dog had been hanging around the back of the garden shed this morning for a lot longer than normal, eventually came back on for breakfast. But straight away back out again, I then noticed a red lump of something that initially I thought was an old shoe. Dog loves smelly shoes so would explain why she was out a lot. Anyway I did not investigate as it's freezing and I am also sick right now. But probably should have checked that it was a shoe and thought what is that doing there, but I did not. Roll on an hour later, DD has taken dog for a walk and when she's come back straight to the garden carrying this red thing when I now realise this is not a shoe... it's about 1kg of mince meat!

WTH chucks that into a neighbours garden?? Why don't you just freeze it and put it out with the next rubbish? So it's one of 2 neighbours at the back of the garden, neighbour 1 would probably struggle to get in the corner as their shed is wedged in there, but not totally impossible. Neighbour 2 could easily just chuck it behind our shed. I think it's neighbour 2, they look like they are doing a massive clear out as all windows and doors are open ( it's 2 degrees!)

So DH thinks we should leave it as a one off, I don't agree. I would quite happily knock on their door and ask/ them, or write a note and pop it though there door.

What to do??

My instant reaction was probably a fox nicked it from somewhere.
However, on reading the replies can you think of a neighbour who wants rid of your pets? I wouldn’t rule out poisoning if there is a chance.

I'd make a vet appointment personally.

I've been on Mumsnet long enough to know many people hate dogs!!

Who knows? She occasionally barks in the garden at god knows what, but we are very quick to get her back in the house as don't want to annoy the neighbours. So she's certainly not a dog left barking in the garden that I read on MN!

Fucking hell. 😂 You can’t just write a note to your neighbour accusing them of lobbing a slab of mince over the fence.
Actually, do it, and report back.
You’ll forever be known as the Mad Mincemeat Woman if they’re innocent of this heinous crime.

I would take the dog to the vet and get it checked over - there are some sickos out there and I’d be worried about poison.

Is it frozen? How is it in a slab? Also bright red implies its fresh, as its greys quite quickly when it's oxidised.

I'm not sure a 1kg slab is how you'd plan to poison a dog, surely smaller bit to ensure its eaten with the poison contained? Mince would all break apart.

We once found an unopened bottle of red wine in our garden. To this day we still have no idea how it got there.

I caught a fox burying what turned out to be a frozen chicken in my flower beds. They can jump really high too.

lol!!

Yeah I'm not going to write a note, but I might knock on their door, not to accuse as such but to say what I found and enquire.

A red kite dropped half a pizza on our doorstep once.

It clearly didn’t like dominoes.

I’d think it’s likely a kite.

Could it have fallen on the pavement when someone was having an online delivery and a Bird/ pterodactyl / naughty lad has picked it up and dropped/ slung it away?

Anyway, the important thing is to write the note accusing the random neighbour.

This was my immediate thought - it was chucked away and a fox nicked it. Growing up we quite often found chicken carcasses on our lawn that had clearly been hauled out of a bin by a fox.

I was literally coming on to ask whereabouts in the country you are- we have thousands of red kites here and people regularly feed them meat (despite regular warnings NOT to). Likely that it was going/out of date and someone's left it for a kite and it's dropped it.
Regularly find carcasses/meat dropped everywhere here.

And people sometimes put meat out for kites.

Loving the way that the OP says "it can't be an animal because our fences are animal-proof, it can't be a seagull because we don't have seagulls." And then casually adds on "we do have loads of huge carnivorous birds of prey though". Yes, that might just be a relevant factor OP.

@Orangebadger may or may not be a neighbour. Could be a crow, seagull, dog, cat or fox!

Could you have rats under your shed that were trying to drag it back to eat?

I once found a gnawed bone near a gap under my fence that I assumed was a rat - gaps were blocked up sharpish!

You could use that as the angle to approach your neighbours...have they had and signs of rats as you found meat behind your shed.

I wouldn't rule out malice... because I've had worse from awful neighbours, but I'd be more vigilant and up my security, rather than accuse.

A wildlife cam will catch any foxes roaming your garden at night...

We don't have loads of birds of prey! But I a kite would be more likely here than a seagull which I hardly see any of. I have seen the odd kite, maybe one or two.

Please don't knock on your neighbours. They aren't likely to say "so sorry, we threw it over by accident. Won't do that again.. come in and have a cup of tea?"

Someones thrown it out to feed wildlife and its fallen down the back of your shed cos if theyre anything like me, they aim for the centre of the garden and ends up on the shed roof...

Mincemeat and minced meat are two very different things

An animal has probably nicked it from a bin and dropped it.

Foxes are keen on caching food. When we had a shed we often found food cached behind it. When we emptied out a huge planter a couple of years ago we found a bag of frozen (as in labelled frozen) chips and a net bag of nuts!

I would think very likely to be the action of an animal or a bird that’s picked out of a bin.

We once had a whole pig’s head appear on our doorstep. After a bit of concern this might be a strange riff on placing a horse’s head in your bed, we concluded it was probably an animal’s doing.

What I think happened is someone put some mince out to defrost. A cat (theirs or someone else’s) came in through the cat flap and stole it. My guess is that there’s a very confused family wondering where their supper went.

My first thought would be foxes, or perhaps a bird of prey. Someone might have left it out to feed them or put it in their bin without the plastic wrapping. There wouldn’t be any reason for me to suspect the neighbours unless they have form for being disgusting or awful. People don’t try to poison pets unless they’re seriously unhinged. Foxes are better climbers than you’d think, I have 7ft fences and they still get in my garden