Opinion: The four categories of livestock escapes

This month I thought I would examine the phenomenon of escaped livestock and the reasons behind said escapades.

We have had a couple of livestock escapes in the past month or so, as have a number of my friends. Broadly speaking these escapes fall into four main categories.

1. Farmer error

We have all done it. Tied up a gate with baler cord that predates the millennium and is so frayed and faded its original colour is debatable. Often it is not quite long enough, but you can just about manage a granny knot.

Inevitably, the first gust of wind or headbutt from a passing rabbit renders the knot useless as the cord snaps. Of course the stock notice the new exit and proceed to make their merry way down the road.

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2. Fencing fails

I found sheep reign supreme when it comes to identifying weak points in any fence.

Cattle will usually respect the rusty single strand of barbed wire that delineates the boundary of the field, providing there is sufficient green stuff to keep them occupied.

Sheep, however, are a different matter entirely. Like prisoners planning an escape, they will case the hedges in a methodical fashion and exploit any weakness in the perimeter.

We experienced this talent just recently. We provide winter keep for a friend who usually brings about one hundred woolly wanderers to spend the colder months nibbling off our silage ground.

This year they had munched through their allocated fields, but their owner was too busy to collect them, so we shifted them to a field that is normally not on the sheep’s menu, but “perfectly well fenced” according to William.

Cue phone calls from the neighbours informing us about a dozen sheep were in their garden and another seventy odd were spotted trotting up the road.

Anyone who has tried to round up sheep in the dark without a collie will know it is nigh on impossible. After a few hours we managed to get them into a field and retrieved the fluffy creatures in the morning.

Once back in their original field, they were so kind as to demonstrate where they had escaped by doing the exact same thing within minutes of us getting in and putting the kettle on. This time they were caught in the act and in the light of day, the trail they had taken to escape the field was obvious. A classic under-and-over manoeuvre rendered the wire fence in front of the hedge totally defunct.

3. Public stupidity

Either through a lack of care, ignorance or malicious intent, nothing drives a farmer quite so mad as having to deal with the aftermath of gates left open by walkers, fences demolished or livestock scattered by out-of-control dogs.

Last week I had the unenviable task of collecting a neighbour’s sheep from the wardens at the local National Trust property that had been badly mauled by a dog.

It had lost an eye and a good chunk of the skin on its face. In the same incident the remainder of the flock had been chased and scattered over a number of fields. Thankfully it wasn’t a group of in-lamb ewes.

Another friend has been battling with a repeat offender who has been spotted leaving gates open across their farm on a daily basis, causing lots of worry and the escape of a group of ponies.

We all have a responsibility to ensure rights of way across our land are accessible and well maintained, but people who treat their right to walk across farmland with impunity deserve to have that right rescinded – it is a shame it would be totally unenforceable.

At least social media gives us a quick and easy way to inform other farmers and raise awareness in our local communities.

4. Livestock genius

Sometimes you just have to take your hat off to the sheer genius of some livestock.

We have a catalogue of incidents where the escape could not have been foreseen, nor explained. In these instances all you can do is retrieve the culprits and have a good laugh about it over a cup of coffee.

We once watched in amazement as a particularly capricious cow lead the entire herd across two fields and over three fully fenced hedges into the adjacent woods. She destroyed the fence by jumping on it and the rest just followed.

This became her party piece and when she scanned empty one year, we were glad to see the back of her.

More recently the store cattle in the barn achieved an engineering first in which they managed to somehow lift a sheeted gate off its hinges and escape from the yard to get mixed up with the dry cows out on the kale field.

They had a merry old time trashing the electric fence. A small contingent alerted us to their early-morning escapade by breaking into my garden and leaving massive footprints in the soggy lawn.

The grass will always be greener on the other side of the fence, regardless of the plentiful grass or silage they leave behind. And it is a certainty that stock will stage their great escape to coincide with the most inconvenient moments.

If you so much as mention the idea of having a day out or that you are running late for an appointment, that is the moment they will strike.

Jess Jeans and her husband Will run 75 suckler cows on an 80ha National Trust farm on the
Devon/Cornwall border. They have two children, Teddy and Lydia. Jess has a degree in rural business management and enjoys horse riding in her spare time.