Ram-page! Sheep go crazy af ter munching cannabis
THEY are hard enough to control at the best of times. So when a flock of sheep began grazing on some cannabis plants dumped at the side of a country road, inevitably the result was chaos.
Woolly-headed from the experience, the animals rampaged through a tiny Welsh village in scenes that would not have seemed out of place in one of Wallace and Gromit’s animated escapades.
One of the stoned sheep even found its way into a resident’s bungalow and promptly relieved itself in a bedroom.
Another was killed by a car as it strayed into the road in an apparent drug-induced haze.
It is thought the sheep became pyschotic after munching on the remains of an illegal cannabis factory that had been fly-tipped on the outskirts of Rhydypandy, in the Swansea Valley. Council workers were called in to remove the cache of the class B drug.
But local county councillor Ioan Richard warned of the dangers of the rest of the flock discovering more remains of the cannabis plantation.
‘There are already sheep roaming the village causing a nuisance,’ he said yesterday.
‘They are getting in people’s gardens – and one even entered a bungalow and left a mess in the bedroom.’
Mr Richard said he feared repeat episodes of ‘psychotic sheep’ rampaging through the village as a result of dumping.
He has been waging a campaign against fly-tipping and said the remains of the cannabis factory spotted by crossroads above Salem Chapel, near Rhydypandy, was the latest danger. Mr Richard added: ‘I told the council officers to make sure it was reported to the police before removing any evidence of what looks like the dumped remains of a cannabis-growing establishment.’
Swansea Council said it acted swiftly to clear the fly-tipped plants, but was unable to confirm whether the sheep had consumed the drug.
‘We made the police aware of this incident as soon as it was reported and arranged a site visit together,’ it said.
‘The fly-tipped waste has now been removed, but we’d urge anyone with information about who may be responsible to contact either ourselves or South Wales Police.
‘Fly-tipping has a negative impact on local communities so we’re doing all we can to both prevent it and clean up as quickly as possible at known hotspots.
‘We also investigate all cases of fly-tipping and will take enforcement action if there’s sufficient evidence.’
The Rhydypandy flock are not the only sheep to have caused chaos but it is the first time drugs have been blamed.
In 2012 a ram managed to breed with almost a third of a flock of ewes at West Lodge Rural Centre in Northamptonshire after jumping a 5ft fence.
The ram, named Randy, was on the loose for only 24 hours but in that time is thought to have fathered 33 lambs.
In 2007 North Yorkshire farmer John Lloyd apprehended a stray ram that broke into his field in Wensleydale and started mounting his prize pedigree ewes.
The ram threatened to ruin the valuable bloodline of the Lleyn ewes, for which Mr Lloyd had paid thousands of pounds.
‘One even got into a bungalow’