Interesting. On the face of it, it seems that CCBC are being punitively pro-active in their inspections, but there might be another side to all this.
Recent serious cases of animal neglect might well be causing an increase in the numbers of complaints, such complaints being the most common avenue for council involvement. Those who don't farm, it can be argued, have little appreciation of the issues encountered by the farming community, particularly the hill farmers. I've found a dead ram, several dead lambs, endemic foot infection issues and even a case of fly strike, which is going to increase this year, because of the warm April.
In one case, a dead lamb was reduced to a skeleton, simply because the farmer hadn't noticed it. The reason he hadn't seen it and I had was because I was standing in a field which revealed a sharply sloping aspect and wooded area of his field, effectively hidden from his view. If a farmer has - say, 500 acres, should he be expected to check every inch, especially at lambing time? Lambs are notorious for escaping, becoming trapped, wedged, caught up and generally creating all sorts of problems from themselves.
