Archived News

28th November 2013

Nine cows with calves at foot broke free last week and headed out of Paddington onto the A25.  The cattle were moving at a determined pace and despite all our efforts, Ed and I never stood a chance of heading them off on foot. As they turned towards Dorking I madly flagged down a bus heading over the brow towards them; the driver kindly screeched to a halt, but with cars coming in behind the cattle, this simply ‘drove’ them eastward and all the time there was pressure from behind they would never stop. 

I was in despair as traffic continued in both directions and the cows kept trotted onwards. Thankfully they stayed neatly on the left side of the white lines which was to be an advantage later on.

As Amanda collected me in the truck we had to overtake a line of traffic and just made it in time to cut the cattle off at Crossways and push them up the track into East Lawn, I dread to think what might have happened if we hadn’t managed to stop them at that point.  I’m sure that some drivers didn’t realise this was an accidental outing!  Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

It may have been a relatively short outing for the cattle but Ed and I were on our knees for the rest of that day, it was quite traumatic watching our lovely Belties and their young heading straight into potential danger.  

Carsluith Ethelred took the short journey to Hackhurst on the 21^st taking Holly and Milly with him to join the five heifers; whose calves were recently weaned.  Milly had been grazing in with Annie’s group at Churchfield and we actually remarked on how well Annie was looking along with the other cows after a good summer of grazing and calving four months ago.

But as Amanda went out with her dogs early yesterday morning, she saw a lone Beltie cow lying motionless in the field.  It was Annie and she was dead.

Annie was the last of the Kempslade Herd which we took on in 2006 so it’s the end of an era; she was eleven years old but showed no signs at all of illness.  As it was a sudden death, Tom the vet took a blood sample to check for Anthrax on behalf of Animal Health at Reigate and once the all clear came back, the cow could be moved.

Annie was collected by an approved DEFRA disposal service and taken back to their depot where I arranged for the vet to post mortem her.  There was no obvious cause of death which at least puts my mind at rest insofar as there not being a risk to the remaining cattle in that field.