Recently, on what I thought would be a routine stroll around our in-calf heifers I noticed a heifer in the corner by herself. Felon was the first thing to come to mind.

But as I got closer to her, I noticed there was something annoying her about her head.

When I got up beside her I couldn’t believe my eyes – some idiot had shot her with a crossbow! The arrow was lodged in the side of her nose.

Once I had taken the shock of it in, I checked the rest of the group, only to find that a second heifer had also been shot with an arrow lodged in roughly the same place as the first heifer.

These heifers graze a block of ground beside a housing estate so we are well used to a bit of bother, but this normally does not go beyond rubbish being dumped in the field or fences being tramped down. Occasionally, the cattle have been let out.

On this occasion, it was after teatime on a Friday night.

Not wanting to leave the heifers until the next morning, I raced home to get some help and the quad.

The arrows came out easily, so after a shot of Pen and Strep and some purple spray we let them back out to the field.

Police station

The next morning I went to the local police station to make them aware of what was going on in the local area.

As evidence, I took the arrows with me as well as some photos that I had taken on my phone. I arrived at the station at 9.30am, only to be greeted by a security guard. I was asked what I wanted, to which I gave what I thought was a fairly obvious answer that I wanted to see a police officer. I was told that the station was closed and to come back at 10am.

On my return, promptly at 10am, I was allowed into the station where I gave a brief description of what happened to a civilian on the front desk. I was told to take a seat before being called into an interview room where I was “interviewed” by another civilian. By this stage, I was wondering were there any police actually in this police station?

Accessory

After I had gone through all the details again, I was told that for a certain type of person a crossbow is this season’s “must-have accessory”.

Apparently crossbows can be bought off the internet from a foreign website and the police here are powerless to do anything to stop it.

After all my details were noted, I was told that they would be passed on to the local patrol in the area and they would keep an eye out.

Up to this point, this was pretty much the reaction I had expected. I was then told by the civilian in the station that maybe the police would send up a helicopter to keep watch on the area.

He went on to say that the police have special helicopters that go up so high that the bad guys can neither see, nor hear, that they are being watched.

At this point I nearly burst out laughing. While I don’t doubt that such equipment exists, did he really expect me to believe that a station that is opened part-time at weekends, with hardly a police officer in sight, really had the resources to send a helicopter up to keep watch on my heifers?

Having stepped up my own patrols of the area, I can report that no more such incidents have occurred.

Maybe the local hoods got to hear about the special helicopter and that has frightened them away.