The owner of a horse who was found with her leg stuck in a hole seven foot deep was aghast to find badgers had built an “underground city” beneath her field.
Sheena Hird’s mare Trinity had to be extracted by firefighters after the ground collapsed into the tunnel in the field Sheena rents in Devon. The mare was unharmed but Sheena has been told the damage could cost thousands to fix.
Sheena told H&H she and a friend had been renting the field for about 10 years with no issues, until she arrived one afternoon late last month to find her other horse pacing by the gate.
“That was a bit weird; I assumed Trinity was lying down,” she said. “I called her and she didn’t move, and I thought ‘This isn’t right’. I shouted for my partner and by the time I got to her, I realised she was missing a leg – it was underground.”
Sheena said nothing had been amiss that morning, when she had poo-picked, so had covered most of the field.
“It just collapsed under her weight, slap bang in the middle of the field,” she said.
Sheena called the emergency services and crews from Camels Head and Modbury fire stations came to the rescue, as well as a vet.
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“I was panicking as I thought her leg must be mangled and I’d have to put her down,” she said. “The fire brigade were wonderful. I held her leg, and a friend’s husband came with a digger. The hole was absolutely massive, over seven feet deep at one point.”
Trinity was lifted out and found only to have been bruised.
“We were extremely lucky,” Sheena said. “The tunnel went off in about five different directions; we’ve got an underground city under our field and never knew anything about it.”
The firefighters warned her not to put the horses back in the field, having seen the extent of the holes. Sheena went back the next day to assess the damage; she said she put three bags of wood pellets in and “they all went in”.
The horses are still in their stables on the land and Sheena is using a friend’s field to turn them out.
“She’s been lovely, till I figure out what to do,” she said. “The main option, the humane and legal one, takes about six months. You get a company in to move the badgers but they have to wait to make sure they’re not coming back.
“They’re not sure how many generations are there; it could be two or it could be eight. Then you have to get a surveyor with an underground radar system, which costs a few thousand, to find exactly where the tunnels are, then a digger to fill them all in. One company has already quoted £10,000 before they even look at the field. It’s ridiculous, the extent of the damage.”
Sheena said she has had negative comments from people saying she “should have checked the field”, but pointed out that there were no outward signs.
“I poo-pick every day; the ground’s not going to collapse under my weight,” she said. “I didn’t know their tunnels could be 300m long and go down 10 feet.”
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.
