A vicious attack on our Shetland foals…

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]on Facebook. Let's do it.

[00:00:03]Hello, YouTube. How are you? Hey, pal.

[00:00:07]You okay?

[00:00:09]Good boy.

[00:00:11]Good boy.

[00:00:13]He looks like he's smiling, doesn't he?

[00:00:15]Hello everyone. Farmer Ben speaking and welcome to Monday's live from Dalscon.

[00:00:21]And it's been a busy one today. Real busy one.

[00:00:25]We've hit the ground running this week.

[00:00:27]Welcome to the stream everyone. Let me know where you're watching from. We've got Dream Team in here. Emma is here.

[00:00:33]Kyle is here.

[00:00:36]And we are um we're going full pel is away on holiday this week. He has got a well earned week off. Um so you will not see see this week. He'll be back next week. So we are man in the fort. And it's handy that Emma's here. She got her day off from the vet today. It's handy Emma is here because there's loads going on. There's loads of animals to look after and there's still babies being born.

[00:01:02]There is still babies being born. I'm going to go and show you what we have had over the weekend. And we need to talk about an unfortunate event. Really unfortunate and uh slightly harrowing actually. Uh now this will be on Discon later on I think either later on tonight or it'll be on tomorrow. But a harrowing attack on one of our Shetland pony foss.

[00:01:25]And I need to take you through that and kind of bring you up to speed with what's going on there and how it can be so unexpected and so violent very very quickly when you're dealing with animals.

[00:01:35]So we will talk about that um and get into it. But it is pretty like I say it's pretty harrowing and I'll give you a disclaimer for whenever the video comes out. Let me text Kristoff and ask.

[00:01:46]Um I would imagine he'll try and get out tonight but I will put a little disclaimer. There will be distress and footage in the video that is going to be released on the Dcon daily later on.

[00:02:02]So just a little disclaimer if you're going to watch it, watch it with knowing what you're going into. Basically knowing what you're going into. So with that being said, let's talk about where we are with Lamin and Kidden. Yes, we're still talking about lamin and kidd everyone on the 11th of May. Um, but that is the reality that we are in and also it's something that we are kind of expecting anyway. That's where we thought we would be, but there has been bursts throughout the week. Look at the kids playing on there. Look at them. Uh, there has been bursts throughout the weekend and it's been ticking away just quite nicely. And that's us. We are nearly done. I can officially say we are nearly done. Out of all of our goats to kid, we have This girl left. We have one girl left.

[00:02:51]One bore goat left and that is it. Mrs. Ancient is empty. She unfortunately lost her kids earlier on in the year. She is looking fantastic though. She's bounced back from that really well and looking amazing. Merlin looking like an absolute superstar. Liking the stream for Merlin everyone.

[00:03:08]Liking the stream for Merlin. He looks phenomenal. I say it every single live and I won't stop saying it because I am so proud with how he looks. Like the muscle is rippling off of them.

[00:03:19]H And this girl has already had her twins. There's our little twins in there looking very cute and doing really well.

[00:03:25]So only this one to go. She is our last goat out of absolutely everyone on the farm. She's the last one to go. So only the borg goat because our pygmy goat over here gave birth the other day uh yesterday morning gave birth. She gave birth yesterday morning and that signaled the end of pygmy goat season. And we can now officially say with confidence out of all of our pygmy goats, we only had one cerian section. And Kyle actually, and I don't want to I don't want to jinx anything. Look at these V guys in here.

[00:04:01]Like, look how cute they are. Aren't they adorable? What a photo that is.

[00:04:06]Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, wait there.

[00:04:12]Wait, wait, wait. Perfect photo.

[00:04:16]Hey, hey.

[00:04:21]Ah, can't get the angle. Can't get the angle, everyone. I had to look at them.

[00:04:25]Come on. You look amazing.

[00:04:29]Oh, they jumped off now.

[00:04:31]Some content creator I am. Can't even get the photo. That was That was adorable though, wasn't it? Absolutely spectacular.

[00:04:39]Yeah, we can now officially say with confidence this was the last girl to give birth. Look at the size of the kid.

[00:04:44]It is absolutely massive.

[00:04:48]It's a big girl as well with really cool colors. But we have only had one cerian section out of 54 pygmy goats to give birth. That's a new record. We've never had it as good as that before. And like I say, I don't want to jinx it. Touch wood here. Touch wood. But we haven't lost one single pygmy goat kid. Right the way through.

[00:05:11]Kidding. All 54 have kid. All of kid with the correct number. And all of them have survived and made it right the way through.

[00:05:22]I think that's worth a liking the stream. I'm pretty delighted with that.

[00:05:26]Um, and I I think that's awesome.

[00:05:30]Um, okay. Right. I'm going to go and see the fo. We have a set of triplets here.

[00:05:34]I wanted to show her um with her little triplets. Here they are before we go and see what story is with the fo. But there you go. There's one, two, and three. We didn't actually know she was triplets, you know. She just uh she gave us those triplets out of the blue. Um, and then our second last. Look at that special little girl that was born there. That is a belter. Absolute belter.

[00:05:58]That's one of the coolest that's being born this year. I think that is that is so cool. The markings on that are absolutely spectacular.

[00:06:08]Look at that. Wow.

[00:06:11]Right. Okay. Let's go and talk about our Let's go and talk about our FOS cuz I know lots of people are tuning in to see what's happened to our FOS. It is harrowing. It is It is bad. Um I'm not going to gloss over it. I'm going to tell you exactly how it happened, what happened, and what we're going to have to do because it's going to change things slightly for us. It's going to change the way that we're going to have to work with the with the FOS uh and the Shetlands. And you'll see from here, and again, this is all highlighted in the Discon.

[00:06:48]So, we got plenty of messages from people on Twitch saying that the and having a few fights and having a few we nibbles at each other's foes and at each other and I think it's just the fact that they don't like being inside. And although they have all just gave birth and it's nice to just give them a wee bit of time inside, they clearly didn't appreciate it. And you'll see this is the two boys in here and this is uh this is actually mom that's cinnamon there and that is honey that's coming around the side here with wee man. Look at we man go liking the stream for we man. Go on we man.

[00:07:20]Yes. Wee man and then we over there after his dad McKenzie. And they're they're spitting image of McKenzie.

[00:07:27]They're absolutely identical. But it's lovely to see them out here running around. We're going to get um we're going to get all the paddocks cut tomorrow um and swept and pick up all the dung. But isn't it nice to see them running about the pen out there stretching their legs? And we've split them off just because they were niggling at each other and they were just bickering that little bit. We've split them off so they've got plenty of room to run around. There's only half of them in each paddock, so there's not as many of them to fight. Now, one of the main reasons we had to bring them out was because of the attack that we had on Saturday night. Now, I was away staying in Glasgow for the night and Saturday night. Me and Cla went away for a night away. Um, and I wasn't actually here, but I seen the messages coming through.

[00:08:10]Go on then. Yes, we man runs with his tail up. Look.

[00:08:15]Uh, and yeah, I've seen the messages coming through and saying, um, Hector is out of his pen. So, that'll give you a we clue into what's going on.

[00:08:24]Hector's out of his pen. Is anyone free to go down? H, our mods are telling us, can we go down and see what's going on?

[00:08:30]So, Fee had nipped down to see what was going on. Um Archie and Edith haven't been well over the weekend or over the last week actually. They're having a horrid time, Joe and Fee. So they hadn't been too well. Um and Joe was staying in with Archie and Feed went out to see what was going on. So she took some apples up and some uh some cake to try and put Hector in.

[00:08:54]But what she found wasn't the wasn't the Hector that we all know. He wasn't the Hector that runs around and and yells into the camera every time he sees it.

[00:09:04]He was completely different and he'd kind of entered into a different zone.

[00:09:08]He'd kind of went a bit manic and he was in a state of aggression. Um he had that kind of killer look in his eye where he was he wasn't he wasn't able to be reasonable and he's had a real go at Fee. And Fee said it was one of the first times she'd been properly scared with an animal. And that's very very um intimidating especially with a big boy like Hector. Now, he'll be many times stronger than us. He's a great big jack donkey and he is rippled with muscle.

[00:09:39]He's no joke and he's not to be messed with. And when he has a real go at you and even for us that work with him all the time, um, he can be intimidating and he has to be respected. So, never mind what Fee would have been feeling when she's not working with him all the time.

[00:09:52]Um, and she's going out there expecting to find a Hector that's very placid and very lovely. Um, and she's getting someone that is uh has got a a total mood swing.

[00:10:04]So, she'd had to she had to text Joe and say, "You'll have to come you'll have to come and get them sorted." Look at them.

[00:10:10]Look at the runs that are going on.

[00:10:12]They're loving it. They're loving being outside here. She text Joe and said, "You'll have to come down. I can't do anything with Hector. I think he's going to attack me." So, they went up and swapped with Joe. Now bearing in mind this would be about half 11 at night.

[00:10:28]So all was uh always quiet roundabout.

[00:10:31]It was just it was proper late on. And you know considering we're all round about this time of night, it's uh it's not ideal. So Joe came down and found Hector. Now he couldn't do anything with Hector whatsoever at all. And uh Hector's want to have a go at him. He had to phone Pete. get Pete out of his bed to come and give him a hand and try and deal with him because he was just too much of a handful and he was that wound up that someone was going to get hurt. So immediately it was a two-man job to try and get Hector back in. So eventually they managed and they managed to get Hector back into his pen.

[00:11:09]Look at them go and get Hector back into his pen and settled down slightly. Now, when Joe went back into the pen to make sure everything was okay and back into our new shed, he could see that there was only three fos.

[00:11:25]And he'd put a message into the group chat and said, "Is there only supposed to be three Shetland pony fos?"

[00:11:31]And Kyle had messaged back like, "No, there should be there should be four."

[00:11:34]And there every every Shetland pony obviously has a fo. And it was this little one that was missing here, this little ginger chestnut one that was missing. a little girl and uh they said, "No, there's supposed to be four foss. All four fo should be in here." So, what had happened when we looked back on the cameras, what had happened was Hector had jumped the fence, broke the wire again on the fence, jumped the fence, and went running into that paddock. Sorry, he jumped his fence and went running into the new shed.

[00:12:09]Now, when he went into the new shed, obviously one of the first things he sees is the Shetland ponies and foss.

[00:12:14]And I don't know why he wanted to go in there. I don't know if he wanted to go in there for to try and get to the donkeys cuz obviously Willow and Zara are in there and has he wanted wanted to go in there to try and get to them if they've been in season or have the Shetland ponies after they've folded coming into season because they do come into season pretty quick after they've been fold or after they have fold and has he smelled that and it sent him absolutely crazy and he's leapt over the fence? I don't know the answer to that either. I don't know why he would be wanting to be in there and what has sent him so absolutely wacky, but something has made a huge difference to him. So, when we looked on the cameras, he had run into the shed and he'd been dancing up and down the Hold on till I climb this fence.

[00:13:07]There we go.

[00:13:09]He had been dancing up and down the Shetland pony pen. And as he was dancing up and down the Shetland pony pen, one of the fos was just at the front of the barriers. And I'll actually go up there and show you. You can see them all running around quite happy out here.

[00:13:24]I'll go and show you where he was so that you can picture this whilst I'm telling you cuz this was this couldn't have been closer could not have been closer to total and utter disaster.

[00:13:41]So, he's jumped over here. You can see the broken wire.

[00:13:46]See it in there?

[00:13:48]He's came prancing into here.

[00:13:52]All in a state of absolute mania.

[00:13:56]And he started prancing up and down these gates here.

[00:14:00]He's been running up and down, running up and down. And then all of a sudden, one of the fos has ran in front. Whether it was just sitting around and doing a little bit of a zoomer, I don't know.

[00:14:10]But I ran in front of the pen. He stuck his head over here and he grabbed the fo, bit the fo on the skull, not on the neck, on the skull or right on the right on the top of the neck um before it meets the head. And he's got his mouth right over the top of it. And he's hauled the fold by the head right up and over the gate. So he's put his head over here down, bit the fo on the top of the head, pulled it right up out and over and out into the middle passage.

[00:14:47]And when he's done that, the fool's obviously like, "What? What's going on?

[00:14:49]What's going on?" And stood back up and tried to get away. And as it's done that, he started to play with it. And this is the thing that really annoys me.

[00:14:56]And this is and understand he's maybe got himself really worked up and he's picked it up and, you know, didn't know what to do with it, but he knew exactly what he was doing.

[00:15:04]He's got the fo out here and he started playing with it and he's been knocking it about and knocking it about and kicking it and this is the bit that we won't show on the camera. We'll show you picking it up and how he picks it up and moves it outside.

[00:15:17]But he picks the fo right up and he starts playing with it and he starts trying to get his knees down into it and that's when they're trying to kill something. And that's what happens if there's like a fox or a dog gets into the donkey's pen. incredibly vicious at times and he's got this fo and he's just determined to get at it. So when Joe's came out, the fo's already gone by this stage. In between Fee coming out to Hector and swapping over with Joe, this is what's happened. And as Joe's came out, there's no FO to be seen around here. Couldn't find it at all. It's clearly pitch black. It's half 11 at night. So he's text there's supposed to be four fos in there. Yeah, there's four. Where could it be? And of course Joe's going to be completely confused like like how can there not be a fool here? It must be there somewhere. Could not find it at all. Now where did you even start looking? Why would there not be a fool there? That my initial thing be like someone's came in and stole a fo.

[00:16:13]But where he found it was all the way round here down the bottom of that banking. So Hector has taken it outside. He has played with it and hit it and beat it up all the way around here. All the while the fo's trying to get away and trying trying to avoid them. It's came all the way around here and the fools dove off the end of this banking to try and desperately get away and save its own life. So that is where Joe found it down by those red uh beams off the shed.

[00:16:54]So the fo has been down there and just standing there by itself in the pitch black.

[00:17:00]So my initial thing was oh the foss when I'd seen the footage of it and when we'd looked back in the CCTV and we seen the footage it was like oh the fool's going to die. There's no there's no question in my mind that that fool is going to die. Like it has to, you know, just by the stress, by the sheer rough and tumble of Hector and the size of Hector compared to the size of the fo, you know, it's tiny. Absolutely tiny compared to Hector. So fo has to die.

[00:17:27]There's no question about it. Even if doesn't die straight away, it's going to dry in the morning of stress.

[00:17:33]But thank goodness, thank goodness they're all absolutely fine. And you can see all four of them standing here quite happy and uh and all running about with mom. So made a full recovery. I'm not really quite sure how it's done it, but it has made a full recovery and been absolutely fine. So I'll show you again.

[00:17:53]I'll show you all the foss again. But that is the closest the closest moment of to tragedy that I've ever known, especially with our newborn FO. And bearing in mind they're they're pregnant for nearly 12 months or they are pregnant for 12 months. It be 12 months since the male went in with them and they've all done really well. Moms have grown them really well and they're absolutely defenseless to this. They can't do a thing. And I'll go and show you the exact one that it was that Hector picked up again just so you can make sure that is okay. But they're absolutely defenseless to that. And also it's one of those things that we can't predict either. We can't predict that that's going to happen. We cannot predict that he's going to jump over the fence. He's going to go and grab a fool by the head. It's just absolutely insane. I just can't believe that it's actually happened. And I'm telling you, when you see that footage, you won't believe it either. He treats it like a toy. The fo is almost like a dog toy to him. And he does not care. He is just vicious. And the the moments after I couldn't watch the whole thing, but the moments after where he's just getting his knees into it and playing and knocking around and trying to kick it and biting it. It's just horrendous.

[00:19:07]This is a little fool here. A little chestnut one here.

[00:19:12]And you can see run about absolutely Oh, didn't we stick there, but run about absolutely fine. Again, I have no idea how I don't know how it's not cut in the back of the neck or on the top of the head where he's grabbed it. I don't know. But that is the closest that will ever be to having just a complete tragedy.

[00:19:29]Like how tragic would that have been for mom? You know, the f doing absolutely great, running about by her feet, all of a sudden bam, big male donkey in on the top of the head, takes it out and brutally murders it.

[00:19:45]Unbelievable.

[00:19:47]Absolutely unbelievable.

[00:19:49]So, thankfully we're all good. But that does mean for Hector, his time here is up. And I'm not making any apologies for that. We cannot have a donkey like that at the farm. I do not trust them at all.

[00:20:02]Trust completely gone. And the shameful thing is about it and the thing that's so disappointing, so disheartening is that it's so frustrating because we went to get him to put him into the trailer.

[00:20:14]Now, in the meantime, while we get him a new home, he's going to go across the road to where he was before into our pens at Heath Hall. In fact, there's um there's Kyle just come back to the trailer that had Hector in it now in the far distance. But the disappointing thing is he's such a nice placid boy now. He'd come down, he'd got over that episode.

[00:20:33]Whatever was going on with him, I have no idea. But now he's got over it. He's no bother. He came comes running up to the pen. You give him a stroke. You give him a bit of a head clap. And he gets on great. He gets on absolutely fine.

[00:20:50]We had to put his head collar on to put him into the trailer.

[00:20:55]Put the head collar on him. He gets his head collar on, walks fine on the on the head collar and on the halter. No problem. Straight onto the trailer. And I'm like, " Hector, what are you doing, man? Why have you done this?" Like, what's went through his mind that he's lost all sense of composure? He's just completely lost it.

[00:21:18]What a total and utter disaster. And from being a lovely, beautiful, big male and from being a stud male, like he was our breeding male now for the future because he was such a nice boy. We had no problem with that. He was our breeding male for the future. Well, it's all mucked up now. Absolutely done.

[00:21:38]Completely mucked up.

[00:21:43]And there's absolutely nothing more that we can do with it. We We can't have second chances with that because with that situation, you don't get a second chance. That's it. Done. Next time if you ever done that again, that would be it. Curtains for whatever it is you went for. Whether it was a a goat kid, whether it was Flossy the Dog, whether it was whoever, it doesn't matter.

[00:22:02]That would be it. Curtains. We're just so fortunate that it never happened this time and we'll never be closer.

[00:22:13]Someone was looking down on us for sure and making sure that that wasn't that didn't end in bigger disaster than what it was.

[00:22:20]Never ever be closer.

[00:22:22]So, we have to thank our lucky stars that we have all four fools here. And we all have to accept that Hector's going to have to go and we'll hopefully have two lovely fools from Mary and Star later on in the year and that'll be a little bit of lineage from him. But in terms of his job here at Delcon, it is finished and he is done and he has to go away out of the way of everyone. Um, that streak is just too unreliable and really quite scary. Emma, what did you think of the >> What did you think of the footage, Emma?

[00:22:56]>> I thought it was awful.

[00:22:58]>> It was scary, wasn't it?

[00:22:59]>> It was scary.

[00:23:01]The fo is lucky. Very lucky, I would say.

[00:23:03]>> I thought even that initial bite, you know, in the back of the head or the Where is it? in the back of the head or on the neck. It was kind of right in between, wasn't it?

[00:23:10]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:11]>> Like even that bite I thought would have been enough to kill the fo.

[00:23:14]>> Yeah, I know. I don't know how the fo is like unscathed.

[00:23:18]>> That's fine. Yeah.

[00:23:19]>> And even the fact that he taken it all the way outside and played about with it until it's dove down the bank and to get away from him >> and maybe in the dark he's not being able to see it again to go and get it again.

[00:23:28]>> Like it it's amazing how he's been at it that long and not actually killed it or broke his legs or anything, you know?

[00:23:34]It's just it doesn't bear thinking about. So that is uh that is an update that I did not expect to bring you nor did I want to bring you. But unfortunately in amongst all this we have lost our breed and male go donkey and he is uh we've lost him. So I actually think going forward now I actually think that it's going to be far better for us, better for the farm if we just hire in a male because the problem is now like really Zara and Willow who have their FOs down here.

[00:24:10]Let's go and see them quite just quickly. Let's go and see Zara and Willow who have their FOs now. They need to go in with the mail. Like they're getting to the stage where Hey Glenny boy see me Glenny boy. Hello. Hello.

[00:24:23]Good lad.

[00:24:25]Um, but how could you possibly, and this is the thing that really rocked me, how could you possibly put Hector in to a field with any females with a fo at foot if he's going to act like that and be aggressive to fos? Because the donkeys really they they've had they didn't we didn't have any FO last year apart from Saul and he was they were already bought in in fold. So donkeys have had a huge break from being in fo. So they're easily able to go from one pregnancy almost straight into the other. We always give them a few months break, but they will have to go in with the male with the foss at foot. Now we couldn't risk like little shadow here by putting Hector in there. Hector would have been a great male to put over them. He would be a fantastic male to put in there, but we couldn't risk that. We couldn't have the fact that we put him out into the field with three or four donkeys with f at foot and then by the time you come out in the morning all four donkey fos are lying on the ground gone and he's running about after the females. What an absolute disaster that would be.

[00:25:30]So we have to be so careful and we have to be really we have to be really vigilant with that and make sure that you know we can't take any chances. You can't you just can't. I mean look at them.

[00:25:50]Man, it was crazy. Absolutely crazy. So, thankfully, we've came out of this unscathed.

[00:25:57]All of the animals are okay.

[00:26:00]And Hector's going to need to go to a new home. That's the That's the long and short of it. But yeah, not a not a live I expected to bring in nor want to have not nor want to have to bring you. But um it's one of them that you're just like well if he's not suitable for going in with FO he's not he's not any good now. Whether it was the fact they actually meant to go for the FO I don't know whether he just got caught up in the moment I don't know but it's the fact that he then started playing with the FO and really started to be evil with it after he pulled it out of the pen. That's what really disappointed me.

[00:26:34]And then to actually just click out of it and be absolutely normal with with us today is really really bizarre. It was really strange.

[00:26:44]Really strange.

[00:26:46]So that's where we are. And uh that's where it is with Hector. We've got one goat to go up there. We've got three goats to go up down here in our uh in this shed. And then we can say goodbye to Lammond and Ken time. But in amongst things, it's h it's been a kind of turbulent falling season now. Everything went really well with the Shetlands right up until now. But thankfully, everyone uh everyone escaped unscathed.

[00:27:15]So, even talking all through it just now, I'm absolutely amazed that everything's okay.

[00:27:22]There you go. And speaking of our lammen, uh we had our final grace dart board to go down here. I've done a really good job of lamb. There it is.

[00:27:32]Cracking lamb. Very cute lamb. Let's have a we look. Hello pal. Stoggy little lamb.

[00:27:39]That's all right eye.

[00:27:42]Emma, could you roll this eye out?

[00:27:44]There's a we entropian eye here. Um, so yeah, we had a a we uh grab more give birth earlier on uh this yesterday, early yesterday.

[00:27:56]So, three sheep and one goat to go and we're saying to Lamine 2026 and it's been it's been an absolute blast. So, while Z's eye, we are going to sign off.

[00:28:07]Thank you for joining us everyone. Um, and a massive thank you to everyone who has visited our website alconfarm.com and had a look at our merch. Our Highland Cow merch has went crazy. Um, thankful to everyone who's purchased on the website and supported the farm and yeah, the Highland Cow merch, the supporters t-shirts, the Dalscon Farm sweatshirts and t-shirts have went really, really well. And uh, yeah, it's been a blast. And this week we have Nomad merch coming out and our long awaited springtime 2026 summary uh, is on the way. So, Wedd's Day that will be going on on pre-sale Wednesday for the pre-sale of that. Um, and yeah, very much looking forward to getting all that out and uh, yeah, we'll be doing a video and a live on that as well. So, thanks for joining us everyone. There's been 10 11,000 of you watching and nearly 12,000 of you watching along today. So, thank you so much for joining us live.

[00:28:59]Remember and hit that follow button if you haven't already. Thanks for all your comments. I know I've not been able to get to many today, but it has been one of those one of those different lives where it's a a listening live rather me being able to read out the comments. But um back tomorrow with a normal live 6:36 we'll be on the afternoon and we'll catch you all in the next one from Emma.

[00:29:18]Wave Emma and myself. Have a great night everyone and we'll see you all tomorrow.

[00:29:23]Bye guys.