Problem with Farmer and roads

Stinicker

Firstly before people fly off the handle at me I am sure this is a problem which I'm sure all country dwellers encounter occasionally but one which has become a much bigger problem recently for me due to a neighboring farmer and their treatment of the roads.

Last year this farmer bought a farm around 1.5kms away from his own farm, this guy then embarked on a large reclamation of these fields as the farm he purchased was gone quite over grown and wild. He is a dairy farmer and quite an intensive one at that.

He has around 80 - 100 milking cattle going to dairy and he or his farm hand will drive them along the public road each day backwards and forwards the 1.5kms from the new farm to their existing farm where they have their milking parlour.

This is not a busy road and sees little traffic as it is far enough away from the local town, it is however a through road and not a cul-de-sac, unfortunately for me our property lies on the wrong side of this guys farm which means driving through what is quickly becoming an open slurry pit on the public road. As you can imagine 80 - 100 Cows walking 1.5kms will each drop alot of sh1t along the way.

Our property and farm is the last on the road before the road continues on for several miles without houses or traffic. And the amount of through traffic is very minimal as the road narrows and most cars traveling further beyond are lost following sat-navs taking them on stupid short-cuts or English tourists.

We have seen rain two or three times in the last month which would wash this away but its now just a disgrace. Previous to all this this guy had a small herd of cattle which were confined to his land and you'd only rarely meet his cattle on the road if he was moving them between fields or something.

I myself don't live on our farm but if I did it would become even more hassle because not only are his cattle destroying the road they are also a dangerous traffic jam. Normally my father and I would do our own farmwork and we'd use his 4 wheel drive pickup which we're not bothered about (it's a workhorse) but the last two weeks it was in the garage which meant using the car and I swear the car was literally caked in cattle slurry from the road because of this lad herding his cattle along it. It took me a full hour and a half to finally clean all the car and underbody today which shouldn't have to be the case.

My biggest concern is our old farmhouse in our farm is now effectively devaluing because of the problems this guy is causing on the road, nobody would want to rent it because they'd have to drive through so much sh1t everyday and risk meeting the cattle also. My long term plan was to fully renovate the old farm house and cottage for foreign and domestic tourists, I can't imagine many English tourists being too happy to drive their cars through this filth to reach my place and then be expected to pay a few hundred euro for a weeks holiday and run the gauntlet of this lads cattle run twice a day for milking.

This sort of carryon was normal 30 years ago but I think it is no longer acceptable nowdays, there is the danger of the cattle that you could drive into them, also you could lose control and skid in the slurry and ofcourse there is the fact that it is polluting the road and destroying peoples cars coating them in sh1t. Any ideas or suggestions?

Markcheese

I'm by no means an expert but he's as entitled to have his cows on the road as you are entitled to have your car on it ...
The cow ****e could be a different issue .. Think the road has to be kept In decent nick , enforcing it though could be tricky.. Try talking to the county council ..
I'd imagine cows'll be traveling between farms for limited times during the year.. He'll be grazing the home farm mainly and probably silage and a bit of grazing on the out farm....

keep going

Talk to the farmer first.other posters thread very carefully here

madmac187

Better man than me, we had similar problem, dont even talk to him over it as he will only get worse or be antagonistic (from previous experience). Just let council do their job as it is a traffic hazard.

merryberry

1. It's poor husbandry on his part 2. Its an environmental hazard 3. Its a health and saftey risk

greysides

I don't think the road surface will tolerate that for too long either going by what I've seen locally.

_Brian

Throw up some pics there OP and we can give informed opinions from there. I've seen people complain about feck all and some tolerate near slurry conditions.
Lest see the mess.

farmerjj

Like other posters said talk to the farmer 1st and see can ye meet half way(no pun intended) no point in falling out with your neighbour if you can.If he does,nt make any effort to sort the problem then get council involved.

whisky_galore

Like you say back in the day with 10-30 cows and the amount of traffic then it wasn't as quite a big deal as it is now. Most guys have internal roadways now to move cattle.
I'd say try to negotiate nicely and diplomatically first before drawing out the big guns.

Nettleman

think theres something about cattle not allowed on public road for longer than 20 mins, 1.5km could be close to that limit.

onyerbikepat

Tis like what Comedian Patrick Kiely's neighbour said to him when he heard he was touring,
"Jeez, you're like cowsh1ite, always on the road".

whisky_galore

The Rules of the Road are delightfully vague about driving animals along the road: (p208)

http://www.rulesoftheroad.ie/rules-of-the-road-eng.pdf

rangler1

Nettleman wrote: »

think theres something about cattle not allowed on public road for longer than 20 mins, 1.5km could be close to that limit.

Don't know about that, but you're supposed to leave it clean after you, I'd definitely be having a chat with the council if he's leaving it like a slurry pit.
100 cows twice a day, has to be bad

mf240

Ask the farmer first. Always best to try sort it out before involving council/ect.

If he was to give it a run of a roadsweeper and move cows before your commute time it would be a big help.

Dont fall out with him if ya can help it. You cant have to many good neighbours.

ellewood

Farmer nearby 'allegedly' was fined on a co co inspection lately for having cow sh1t on road on outskirts of small village - its only a rumour tho!

And his neighbour was warned to collect the sh1t/runoff from the cowsh1t on internal roadways leading up to parlour as they are concreted or he would be facing a fine also, form his local helpful co co officers.

arctictree

Neighbour of mine is a dairy farmer and has an outfarm 1KM from his house. I have never seen him put milking cows on that ground. He moves the heifers/bullocks a few times a year and thats it.

Your neighbour seems to be creating hardship for himself for some reason.

grazeaway

One of the draw backs on the up coming expansion of the dairy industry is that fellas need to find grazing for the cows where they can. Now not knowing the full ins and outs I doubt that the herd are pernmently on the new farm and walked twice a day every day up and down the road so depending on the size of the farms you will be able to see how often they are going to be on the road. Also it depends on whether the cows are always going to milked on the home place.

I do know that while herding cattle along public roads is not illegal I think you might have to someone in front and behind so to prevent accidents. Another thing is that he would be liable for any crashes due to much on the road. One of my neighbours used to move cows about 1/4 mile along the road as there was another farm in between his land. After each milking he would scrape the road but found that it only made things worse so has been using a tractor brush for the last few years.

Another thing is if it's becomes too much for you you could fence off a walkway the lenght of your own place so that he could walk the cows though there and off the road. Or you could give him a dig out and get a mobile milking parlour between ye:D:D

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OpSb4eZGZc0

Pacoa

Yeah as others have said I'd say talk to him first. Walking 100 cows 1.5km per day can't be the long term plan. He might be building a second parlour on the new farm next year so you won't know that till you talk to him.

_Brian

Still like to see a photo.
These things are so often over exagerated.

Deepsouthwest

I'm with Brian, want to see a photo to assess the level of sh1te we're talking about here

Farmer Pudsey

In general it can be very mucky during periods of rain. Cows tend to walk along verges of road pulling earth onto road. When this gets wet and if you add cow dung it could be quite a mess. A lot would depend on verges of road if there is an room for cows to track on same.

DarByrne1980

arctictree wrote: »

Neighbour of mine is a dairy farmer and has an outfarm 1KM from his house. I have never seen him put milking cows on that ground. He moves the heifers/bullocks a few times a year and thats it.

Your neighbour seems to be creating hardship for himself for some reason.

my father used to say some lads just love hardship. they woodnt have it any other way. Might be true of this fella

DarByrne1980

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

I'm with Brian, want to see a photo to assess the level of sh1te we're talking about here