It's that lamb time of the year.

I visited the Turnditch Orchard yesterday to find lambs grazing on our grass and fruit trees. I don't mind them eating grass, but their munching the lower branches of the fruit trees causes a lot of long lasting damage. At least five trees and a section of new hedge have suffered damage by the lambs. The lambs come from the adjoining field. They are now big enough to graze away from their mums, but small enough to be able to get through any gaps. Last year we had no invasions having fixed all the fences.

Sheep damaged apple tree.

This year the lambs gained access through the field gate. It is a metal gate designed for cattle, but not small livestock. It has equal sized gaps across the gate and lambs easily wriggle through the gaps. A sheep gate has narrower gaps toward the base. Our own gate at the roadside is a sheep gate, otherwise those lambs might have been found wandering on the Ashbourne Road (A517). Our neighbour farmer had recognised this some years ago and had wired an old plank at the base of the gate to stop lambs wriggling through the gaps. The people using the public footpath like having a large gap at the foot of the gate to allow their dogs to pass through the gate. At some point, the plank wired to the gate has "disappeared", thus allowing the lambs to gain access to the orchard.  We had provided a "dog gate" which allowed access for dogs when the plank had been in place, but it requires 10 seconds of extra effort.

Dog gate installed between the lamb field and the orchard.

Dog gate, today, showing no sign of use

So now I've had to wire a section of stock fence to the gate to stop all animals from wriggling through the gate. The dog gate remains available, though I know the farmer isn't too keen on having dogs in a field where there are lambs. Strictly speaking, we do not have to provide access for dogs on a public footpath, just humans have a right of way on foot, but so long as no damage arises it is not a problem for us. The stiles remain for the walkers.

Gate, wired with stock fence

The battle with the sheep continues

The problems with sheep from the neighbouring field continue at the Turnditch Orchard. At lunchtime I found several sheep on the orchard. They'd found yet another route into the field.  Most of the fruit trees have now suffered substantial damage from Farmer White's flock. I must admit my patience is now wearing thin, I wish he'd do something to contain his animals, it is after all his responsibility and not  mine. The sheep seem to be very hungry. 

Damage to the plum tree

Leaves stripped from one of the apple trees

One of our young plum trees has lost most of its leaves and has had branches broken by the sheep. I'll have to prune them back to avoid infection in the tree. For some reason the apple trees have fared the worst. We've effectively lost two year's growth on the trees and will probably have to buy replacements and replant. 

I've found their latest point of entry, via two sections of wire strand fence and through woodland. The electric fence has been extended to cover this latest breach. It seems the theft of the fence energiser has had unexpected consequences.

The latest invasion by the sheep

Despite our best efforts

I noticed yesterday, while visiting the orchard in Turnditch, the sheep have finally succeeded in stripping the leaves from one of our young crab apple trees. They must have stood on their hind legs and braved a strand of barbed wire. Previously the electric fence  had kept the sheep away, but now the energiser has been stolen the sheep were able to find a way through. To be honest we should have planted it further away from the border fence in a place well out of reach of the sheep.

I doubt this tree will survive, so we will plant a new one during the winter in a different location.

Edit 20/06/2016 
Yesterday we noticed five young sheep, from Farmer White's flock, grazing in our orchard. With the kind assistance of a neighbour we managed to herd them up and return them to their field. The sheep had discovered a weak spot in the blackthorn hedge and had forced their way through. 
Now we have three young apple trees which have had their leaves stripped by the sheep. The trees damaged this time were in the middle of our orchard. I worked in the rain to patch the hedge with wire stock fence and three fence posts. This seems to have prevented further attacks, but I guess the sheep will find another route in before long.

There's a reason for the wire!

There's a few previous posts on this blog about the problems of sheep invading our orchard from the adjoining fields. One of the problem areas is the field gate between our orchard site and the adjoining farmer's field. The iron gate is a four bar gate which is good for preventing the escape of cattle, horses and adult sheep. However the gate does not stop lambs wriggling through the gaps between the gate bars and invading our land. Once on the land they can and do cause damage to our fruit trees. So with the prior agreement from our neighbouring farmer  we have added a layer of wiring to close off the gaps in the gate, thus protecting our trees from the sheep.

However we have found that people using the public footpath have been damaging and loosening the gate wiring and consequently allowing the lambs to gain access to the orchard field. At the moment we have to visit the orchard a couple of times each day to round up any intruding lambs and to check the security of the gate. The people loosening the wiring are doing this to provide access for their dogs which are accompanying them on the walk along the public footpath. Having moved the wires, the walkers do not restore them to the secure position. They are in effect causing damage to our property and if, as a consequence of their actions, the sheep damage our trees those walkers are responsible for the damages.

As land owners we have a responsibility to maintain stiles for the footpath. We are not allowed to block the footpath to people using the path.  Our wiring of the field gate does not obstruct the stile. We are under no obligation to ensure the stile is dog friendly. Dogs have no rights on the footpath, although they can be a Natural Accompaniment to someone using the path. The law is summed up here. and our responsibilities are described here.

Over the past couple of years we've put a lot of work and our own money into making sure the public footpath is easily accessible, not overgrown after years of neglect and improving safety for children/pets beside the river. We're also investing in new gates by the roadside which will improve access for walkers, their dogs and wheeled equipment such as wheelchairs and pushchairs. However when you have people causing damage it does make us think twice about being friendly to the public.

On today's visit to the site we found on the footpath recently dropped litter, dog faeces and further damage to the wiring on the gate. Ironically the purpose of our visit was to check the dimensions of a new dog gate we are building to ensure it would fit in place!

The return of the sheep.

It was a busy week in the Orchard at Turnditch. Sheep have been allowed into the adjacent field to graze. Unfortunately they do seem attracted to the lush green grass in the orchard. They had found a way through the old broken fences of the plot at the thin end of the orchard. We'd prepared for this with an additional temporary wire stock fence across the untamed part of the orchard. However the sheep found a way via the Ecclesbourne railway track to access the woodland embankment. While it is the farmer's responsibility under common law to enclose his sheep to prevent them damaging other property, we had to take action to protect the embankment.

Fortunately we had a spare set of electric fence equipment, tape and posts, so we were able to create an additional barrier  of electrified tape at the railway end of the orchard and up the embankment. So far it has been wholly successful at repelling the woolly invaders. Meanwhile we have been removing the year's overgrown vegetation from the old electric fence using a powered brush cutter. The old fence will be re-energised tomorrow once the warning notices are replaced.

Some sheep remain on the verges of the railway. We've phoned both the farmer and the railway management to warn them of this situation.

Speaking of invaders on the orchard we discovered that people have been cutting back some branches on the far end of the orchard embankment. We presume it is volunteers from the Ecclesbourne Railway making an unauthorised path through our land. Let's hope they don't try to climb the new electric fence now guarding that area.  It is energised to 8000 volts which is very painful but safe to touch. We have posted a warning notice close to where they appear to access the embankment from the road.

There is a long standing informal agreement we allow the neighbouring farmer access through to his field by the track next to the riverbank. He'd lost the key we'd given him for the road gate padlock, but we gave him another last week so he could get to his sheep. Yesterday we found he'd been through with a heavy tractor which was not too unreasonable, but unfortunately the weight of the machine has damaged the soft riverbank when he manoeuvred too close to the edge. We'll need to drive some wooden piles into the bank to reinforce it and prevent further damage. In the longer term we will grow some willow spilings in that part of the bank to provide strengthening.

Orchard site trespass

Recently we've had some unfortunate incidents of trespass on to the orchard site where damage has been caused by the unwanted visitors. Firstly someone investigating the shed has damaged the sliding doors. We deliberately leave the doors unlocked and nothing of real value in the shed overnight. However some idiot poking his/her nose in the shed, possibly with the intention of theft, managed to force one of the doors off the slider runners. He/she must have used a lot of force to create this damage.

The second incident, which has occurred within the past couple of weeks is where a person or persons unknown have come on to the site and cut back trees/branches to access the culvert in the embankment. Even though the land, including the embankment, is posted as private land, someone has decided they have the right to trespass on our land to access the culvert entrance.  During their access they cut back branches and also damaged fencing which had protected the culvert entrance. They have left the entrance in a dangerous state whereby children can now enter the culvert and get trapped. It had been previously secure.

We'll take some action, at our expense, to repair the damage caused by these thoughtless individuals. We'll probably have a blacksmith create a secure grille to re-protect the culvert entrance. There is no excuse for the intruders' anti-social behaviour. If someone has a need to access our land they can find contact details posted by the entrance gate.

The contractors who'd been recently working on the pavement of the footpath along the A517 also dumped construction rubbish items through our fence onto our land. There is also a recent increase in litter dumping (fast food packaging) on the embankment with a timing coincidental to the contractor activity.

It is our intention to make the site available for amenity activity for local Turnditch residents once the site is secure and safe, but when damage is caused by thoughtless people our thoughts turn to increasing security to keep people out. A lot of work is needed before we can open the site safely.

Some vandalism at the Turnditch Orchard

We arrived on Turnditch site this morning to find the gate lock to our land had been vandalised. One of the locks had been smashed off the chain and an eye-bolt used as a hasp had been damaged beyond repair. The public footpath remains unrestricted by us with the stile in its original condition. The local farmer who has documented right of access to the adjoining fields has been warned we've changed the locks and we've provided them with a set of keys for the new locks. 

Vandalised gate lock at Turnditch Orchard

You can see the hammer marks on the old stone gate pillar. Clearly someone has taken a hammer to the old lock and hasp to gain access to the land. We wonder why they think they have the right to do this? There were some sheep hoof marks in the access route which had not been there before so it may be that someone has been moving sheep, possibly theft/rustling  through our land.

Edit: Outcome. It was a young labourer working for the farmer. They'd had to move the sheep as a matter of urgency. He panicked and chose a "quick" fix when he didn't have the key for the padlock. Just one of those joys of ownership.