The new arrival causing headaches and a huge bill on the farm on the M62 - Jo Thorp

After putting in some long hours in pretty miserable weather conditions, all our horned tups are now out with their ewes and hopefully doing their jobs.

There is one new arrival, however, who has caused us a real headache, plus a rather large bill.

The Lonk (from Lancashire I may add) appeared a month or so back and spent his first week with some ewes over at Farnley Tyas. All seemed well until he suddenly vanished without trace.

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It’s never good when a tup goes missing at this time of year, especially with fields full of ewes all ready and waiting.

Stott Hall Farm residents Paul, Jill and John Thorp.placeholder image
Stott Hall Farm residents Paul, Jill and John Thorp.

He was eventually located in the village after a rather fraught resident had found him with his head through her glass patio doors.

Content that he’d seen off his competition who’d been staring at him on the other side of the glass, he hot tailed it across the village, down a wooded embankment to the main road before jumping in with my brother in laws pedigree texel ewes.

He was eventually apprehended and taken back to Stott Hall and placed in a “secure” field with some more ewes. I saw him the following morning on my way out, his face pressed tightly against a tall, reinforced gate.

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I paused briefly to give him a stern glare and uttered the words “no, don’t even think about it” before heading off to work.

It turned out he did think about it and a pile of smashed up pieces of wood scattered across the lane greeted me later that day.

Once again, he was apprehended and this time he was shut in a building, no way out, solitary confinement.

He was fed and watered and then the door was closed, bolted and double bolted for the night. Breakfast was disturbed the following morning by an almighty clatter and a series of loud bangs at the window.

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And to our horror, there he was, in his full defiant glory, staring at us through the window. His huge frame filled the entire pane, something my tired brain couldn’t quite comprehend.

We both shot outside and stared in disbelief. He had of course smashed out of his supposedly secure lodgings, through quite a small window and to his surprise had landed on the scaffolding that encompasses the house for the renovation works.

We watched in disbelief as he did a couple of laps, the scaffold boards clattering under his hooves before gathering momentum and diving, front legs outstretched, landing heavily in the muddy field.

His huge horned head squelched into the mud before he righted himself and once again hot footed it across the field. I turned to Paul, unable to hold in my amusement.

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“I don’t know what you’re laughing at, he’s heading straight for your Leicester ewes” he said

I spun round in horror as the Lonk briefly paused by the entrance to the shed, throwing a challenging glance back at me.

But across that muddy field he must have picked up on my rage and over the billowing wind and motorway din, he clearly heard the threat I screamed at him.

Our eyes locked for a second and then he was away, down the lane and up onto the tops.

The Lancastrian Lout as he was aptly named was last seen heading west, back to his motherland, place of his birth with an absolutely seething mad Yorkshire farmer hot on his heels.

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