Good fences make good neighbours

October 2019

Let’s face it, straying livestock are a nuisance. They don’t respect the road rules, they eat the feed you had saved for your own animals and they could be bringing in diseases and weeds that you don’t want at your place. So what can you do about straying stock?

Preventing straying stock

First of all, and most importantly, make sure your own stock are not straying. Land managers have a responsibility to prevent their stock from straying onto private land or public property. Straying stock on roadsides present a significant hazard to road users, and if your stock are responsible for an accident and your insurance company deems that your fences were not adequate to contain your stock then you may void your insurance. The Dividing Fences Act 1991 defines what a sufficient dividing fence is and outlines the responsibilities of owners for doing fencing work.

Livestock stray for a number of reasons. The most common reason for straying is that the fence is not sufficient to contain the animals, and the animals have decided that the ‘grass is greener’ on the other side. That may be because there is insufficient feed in the home paddock – not uncommon in our current drought conditions, or because breeding season has arrived and there is more fun to be had at the neighbour’s place. Unfortunately fences can become damaged and hungry or amorous livestock may take advantage of kangaroo and wombat holes, or damage caused by fallen trees or floodways.

Many of the fences in our region have been in place for decades and may just have reached their use-by date and require replacing. Some stock, particularly cross bred sheep, dorpers and goats just see fences as an obstacle to be overcome and may require more elaborate fencing to contain them.

To prevent your stock from straying, make sure that you regularly check your fences for damage, especially after wild weather, and make any repairs as soon as is practicable. If the pastures are bare, put out some supplementary feed, ensuring that it meets the nutritional requirements of the stock, the NSW DPI Drought Feed Calculator App or Local Land Services staff can help you with this. Or perhaps it may just be time to invest in a new fence.

Biosecurity risks

Sounds expensive? Consider the cost of your stock bringing back, or your neighbour’s stock bringing in, an unwanted disease. Monaro District Veterinarian Petrea Wait advises that she is frequently investigating diseases in herds that could have been prevented by excluding straying stock.

“There are any number of diseases that can be introduced by straying stock that will significantly reduce a farm’s income.” Petrea said.

“Pestivirus, vibriosis and brucellosis can severely affect the fertility of a herd resulting in reduced progeny on the ground.

“Notifiable disease incursions may result in a restriction on trading options and a requirement to cull animals to eradicate the disease.

“Even one straying bull could result in serious injury if it fights with another or costly vet bills if heifers are mated before they are mature and need to be assisted to calve.”

Your biosecurity duty

In fact, under the Biosecurity Act 2015, land managers have a general biosecurity duty to manage biosecurity risks that may affect the land or stock they manage. The risk imposed by straying stock is one that land managers could be expected to know about. And disease is not the only thing that stray stock may bring in. Animals are very well adapted to transporting weed seeds in their fleece or feet, and provide the perfect germination environment when the seeds come pre-fertilised in manure.

“Unfortunately livestock are good spreaders of weeds, and usually stock are straying from an area where the feed is poor and weedy to one that has better managed pastures where the feed is much better” said Brett Jones, Biosecurity Manager at Snowy Monaro Regional Council.

“We know that the seeds of weeds such as African lovegrass, serrated tussock, St John's wort and blackberry can survive in an animal's digestive tract for up to ten days.

“Other weeds like Bathurst burr and Chilean needle grass are commonly spread in fleeces.

“We often don't realise there is a new weed infestation until there are a large number of plants, or they have flowered or gone to seed.

“The cost of weed control is already high enough for land managers without the introduction of new weeds from straying stock."

Managing stray stock on your property

If you find livestock that do not belong to you on your property there are a number of things you can do to minimize the biosecurity risk they may pose and to return them to their owner:

• Isolate the stray stock from your animals and keep them contained in a secure yard until they can be either returned to the owner or reported to local authorities for further action.
• Examine the stock for signs of pests and disease. Consider contacting Local Land Services if you need advice.
• Contact the owner of the stock if known to arrange for them to be collected or returned. Under the Impounding Act 1993, you must notify the owner within 24 hours of you confining their stock. Do not just put them back in a neighbouring paddock without contacting the neighbour – this may inadvertently spread more risk.
• If you are able to restrain an animal and read the NLIS ear tag, you can contact either Local Land Services, the Local Council or Police Rural Crime Investigators and report the details. They will then contact the animal’s owner on your behalf.
• If the owner cannot be identified, or they do not retrieve their stock within 4 days, the animals need to be delivered to the nearest public pound. Until then, it is your responsibility to provide proper care for the impounded animals including a secure and suitable environment, adequate food and water and veterinary care if needed. The cost of this care can be recovered from the animal’s owner. The above agencies can advise and assist you in making these arrangements.
• Monitor your stock and pastures that were exposed for a period of time for signs of pests or disease. Contact your Local Land Services team, Local Control Authority (weeds) or private veterinarian for assistance if signs of a problem develop.

Usually the owners of stray stock are quick to collect them as the cost of retrieving them from the pound soon adds up. This is often the only incentive needed for owners to prevent their stock from straying in future, but occasionally repeat offenders are encountered. If you have ongoing problems with stock straying from a particular property, despite following the above procedure, discuss it with one of the above local authorities.

Stray Stock on Public Land

If you encounter stray stock on public lands such as roadsides or parklands, don’t ignore them assuming they will find their way home, but also don’t put them in the nearest gate – you may be breaching someone’s biosecurity by doing this. If you know the owner of the stock, notify them so that they can make arrangements for their recovery. If you don’t know the owner, or they are unable to retrieve the animals immediately, report the stock to the Local Council Ranger.

Missing Stock

Finally, what should you do if you muster in your stock and you find that you have less than you thought you did? It is possible that despite you best efforts at checking and repairing fences that they have found a hole you didn’t know about and joined the neighbour’s mob. Call your neighbours and let them know the number of stock you are down and the paddock they are missing from. If they are bringing in their stock from the adjacent paddock ask them to keep an eye out for any that don’t belong to them, or if they are checking on the stock in the paddock request they to do a quick head count. Hopefully they will locate the offenders and get them back to you.

The other thing you should consider doing, especially if you think your fences are secure, is report the missing stock to the Rural Crimes Investigator in your area.

“Stock theft occurs in the Monaro District and we would encourage anyone who suspects they are the victim to report the matter without delay to give us the best chance of finding the stock and prosecuting the offender” said DSC Ned Doubleday of Monaro Police.

“If we investigate the matter and it turns out the stock have strayed and ‘turn up again’ then this is a good result, but if it is indeed the case they have been stolen, we need to know about it”.

“It is important that farmers maintain accurate records which can assist us greatly when investigating these crimes.

“Although under legislation stock do not require NLIS devices until they leave a property, we recommend they be identified with tags and marks that are difficult to alter, including earmarks and brands.

“In fact, the more identifying features livestock have the easier it is for us if we locate suspicious livestock.

“In addition, a good secure boundary fence can greatly assist us when it comes to proving that stock were indeed stolen in court.”