AIBU to think that if you hate animals you shouldn't move to the countryside?

[shiklah]

I live in a very rural community which has become popular with commuters in the last 5 years. Over the last 18 months the following complaints have featured heavily on the local WhatsApp and Facebook groups:

Cows blocking the road for 10 mins (they do this twice a day and have for hundred of years as they go in for milking)
Escapee sheep roaming the verges and traffic islands
Cockerels crowing
Church Bells

Our neighbours moved in Jan 2016 and have built a conservatory overlooking our field. They have complained:

A ram was tupping ewes in the field
Many Sheep gave birth in the field
A sheep had a prolapsed and was attended by the vet in the field (the vet delivered 2 healthy lambs, revived them and saved the ewe, it was awesome and brilliant and they are all healthy and happy but apparently it spoiled mothers day breakfast)
A fox killed a rabbit and ate it in our field
A ferral cat lives in the hedge at the side of our field
A sheep pooed when Mr Neighbour was eating breakfast

Th least one was reported to me at 7pm this eve when I was getting out of my car at the end of a 60 hour working week. He DROVE to my house to tell me a sheep pooed in his view whilst he was eating breakfast in his conservatory that he built, overlooking my field, that has been their since before my house was built, in 1762. I literally don't know know what to say to these idiots any more. AIBU to simply laugh in their faces and move on with my day

I have had wine and am feeling frazzled

My neighbour has bought hens and a cockerell. The cockerell doesn't crow as such. It's more of a peculiar bleat like Ann from Little Britain so we laugh every time we hear it.

The neighbour thought that unless he bought a cockerell the hens wouldn't lay eggs. I tried to explain but he wouldn't have it!

Much heap, in the field just upwind of them, after 1-2 wks it won't smell anymore unless you move it so they can complain and you can just leave it and it'll go away by itself. If they insist (how) on it moving point out it'll start to smell again.

@brigante9 I used to know a mini Shetland whose little legs were so stumpy, and whose tummy was so round, that when he lay down on his side his legs basically couldn't reach the ground. They just stuck straight out. Have to admit, the first time I saw this I did screech to a halt to make sure he was really just snoozing and hadn't keeled over and gone into rigour mortis!

OP, I think your neighbours have a point about sheep pooing everywhere. You should get them a row of portaloos and teach them to go like civilised ovines. I think right in fromt of your neighbours' fence sounds like a good place to put them. [helpful face]

MrsWembley Sun 17-Jun-18 23:16:31

I pulled a snail out of a plant pot that that I planned to wash and reuse, and found it attached to another snail by a very dubious (and comparatively huge) looking member...Who should I complain to?

It's worse than you thought MrsW: Snails are hermaphrodites and the mail half of one mates with the female parts of the other and vice-versa. To make matters worse they have calcium disolving darts that they shoot into each-others' shells and then they winch themselves towards each other using their, ahem, "huge member".

They shouldn't be allowed!

male gawd! I shouldn't type before my 2nd cup of coffee!

isn't it nearly slurry spreading time ?.... and for the best results mustn't it be started around breakfast time?

some nice big, loud, territorial and protective geese might useful

also as you might be putting up signs here's another one

@Oldsu what a lovely story :)

Loving this thread.
Being country born and bred these people never seem to amaze me. Can they really get through life being so thick?

We were at the local farm park earlier in the year and just missed a lamb being born by seconds in the field. We got to watch it take its first steps it was lovely. Thankfully (or maybe disapointingly, we could have had fun with them?) no pearl clutchers were around, no fainting at 'nature doing its own thing' and never heard anyone complain.

Mythical I dont know one farmer or horse owner who treats their animals badly, the welfare of the animals always comes first, educate yourself, but do us all a favour and stay away from rural areas.

One yard we were at, the neighbours grew a hedge right next to one of our grazing fields, and then were surprised and cross when our livestock leaned over the fence and ate the hedging - they demanded that we fence our animals away from (our) fence.
I too have experienced this. I didn't laugh!

OP I have another suggestion for you: buy a vintage tractor, the kind that can do a maximum of 5mph. They will love being stuck behind that in their Minis :)

The mention of pest controllers reminds me - we did once have a phone call from somebody in the nearby town. They'd caught a rat in a live trap in their garden but didn't want to kill it, and could they bring it to the farm to release it...?

I leave the reply to your imagination.

Those weirdos doing 'free pest control' need reporting to the police - thats how Ted Bundy and Jeffry Dahma started out!!

The people i bought my house from used to complain to the farmer all the time about his stock (cows and bullocks) getting out and into their garden. Not that they made ANY attempt to fence it of course! Yes, granted, the farmer should fence his stock in..... but inevitably animals escape (and old scottish farmers REALLLLLY object to spending money - especially on fences).

Note that the ex-owners didn't attempt to fence their dogs in either....

I don't worry about the groups of sheep that appear from time to time.

I've called the farmer twice - once at midnight when a huge group of bullocks appeared on the patio outside my window - and the other half of their group set off towards the main road - as i was worried they'd be run down! I then stayed up and helped him and his son round them up and fence them back in.

The only other time was when i got home to find 80 assorted sheep and well grown lambs tucking into the first bit of growth on my fields as his were totally bare..... and he had the cheek to complain that they all got dirty ploughing through the poached bit in my field gateway!

Overall we rub along - i ignore small groups of breakaway sheep (and the bullock that grazed alongside my horses for a week) and in return when 2 foot of snow blocked us in this winter he came and dug us out.

I do free pest control. It's quid pro quo for access to the land for pigeons.

Fox, rats, rabbits and crows are all part of the service.

No farmer wants to spend nights huddled in barns and wet fields any more than he has to, and I like delicious pigeon.

Write out a sheep asbo and stick it to the fence

This made me laugh. I love country living and this is part of it. People moan about tractors unless it snows and they come rescue them.
I genuinely had someone ring me to say they were stuck down the lane as it flooded and what could they do...errr get a tow. Reverse or leave your car mate. I can't help you , it's a flood.
People should learn about the green cross code etc more in school. Animals are money to farmers as well as living things. They are going to do what animals do and occasionally be taken to salughter if they are being breed for that purpose. I'm a veggie and even I don't mind that - the step kids were horrified though when I said that's where meat comes from!

A stone barn was converted into a lovely house which was bought by an upcountry townie, in DM’s village.

The barn is on a narrow lane with a post box built into the barn wall.
Mr townie put boulders up to stop people parking next to post box to drop letters off, so you have to stop in the lane and block any traffic.
Then he started complaining about DM’s chickens (about 200m away), but it was when he complained about the noise of the milking parlour of the farm 1/4 mile up the road and that they start milking too early in the morning that people twigged he was a nimby twat.

Just remembered another one.
We are local to an RAF base (about four miles away) - more than one person has moved to the area and complained about the jets doing night training. The base has only been here since WW1!

@Biggreygoose yes a lot of people do, some foragers will even pay farmers for access shoot wood pigeon

I was referring to PP who mentioned some men who sounded like they were taking perverse pleasure in dispatching pests in a cruel way - they do need reporting - grim

Save up all those leaflets you get through door and in Sunday papers for conservatory blinds and put a dozen through his letterbox

I grew up in the New forest where a regular gripe of visitors was that the horses just pooed everywhere!

@TheViceOfReason some farmers also view lawns as the waste of valuable grass. There's a old bloke about 10 miles from here who regularly leaves the gates open so they can wander onto verges and roundabouts eating everything - then he does a mock
"oooo sorry, they escaped" and puts them away.

RUDE!

@BreakfastAtSquiffanys we don't get leaflets or surprise visitors out here in the middle of no where. The JWs came about a year ago but left quick smart when I offered to shake hands in my latex gloves with a hen tightly tucked under one arm
I might call the temple and feign interest on Mr Ns behalf - arrange a sunday call out!

MN women do have some remarkably handsome animals in their care - I keep scrolling thru :)

You can borrow my horse if you want. They'll have a genuine complaint then when he gets into their garden to eat the grass and shits all over it. He might try getting into the house too for food. He's huge too so he'll terrify them.

The Archers may not be real life, but townies might do well to follow it for a decade or so before considering moving to the country to avoid some of the basic mistakes. It helped save the life of an inverted salt marsh sheep we came across. Her lamb was stood on the path baaing and wouldn't budge as we approached, despite us having our dog with us (on lead of course!) ... it really did seem to be begging for assistance and thanks to TA I was able to assure DH that yes, he should go and flip her over.

The first book DD chose to bring home (for parent to read with child) when she was in reception was 'The Life Cycle of the Snail'. Honestly, starting formal education with hermaphrodite sex makes everything thereafter a doddle.