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Hi there, just wondering if anyone on here kept livestock on your allotments? thanks Joe

Livestock were not permitted on my allotment back in England - have you checked your rules to see whether it is forbidden or not?

on mine i have the pigs, chicks ducks and geese, council 0often come for a walk dont the alotments and never mention anything, also there are many other people with animals, one woman even has goat and a pair of rhea! jjust wondering if anyone else kept any? thanks Joe

ours are very strict (we're only allowed to keep slugs on ours) but there are other sites that do allow livestock.

check your constitution it should tell you in there if not check with commitee and raise it as an issue at the next meeting

Even if your constitution says you can have livestock, i'd also check how your neighbouring allotment keepers feel. An allotment is a community and you do have to consider others feelings.

Most of our allotmenteers keep livestock anyway.

And we dont even have meetings

We can't keep any animals, and we're not even allowed to keep bee's, which I find a bit bazaar.

I am the secretary of a local allotment association and we had to study the rules on this one a little while ago. We had a meeting with several relevent national authorities and discovered the following:-

In England there is an old but existing law governing the use of allotments and it states that poultry and rabbits may be kept on any council owned allotment. That if the local authority issuing tenancy to you want to deny you this right then they must show "good cause".

For example, they cannot use the excuse that you may not look after the livestock responsibly. They have to wait until you don't and then give you notice.

They can allow other types of livestock at their discretion, but poultry and rabbits are a statutory right! Unless they can prove otherwise.

The really interesting thing for me was that when I joined this particular allotment group, everyone was moaning about not being allowed to keep chickens on site. We revised the rules after this meeting. Our rules now state that you may keep poultry or rabbits on the plots PROVIDING you first demonstrate to the committee in writing that you have an understanding of the livestocks needs and basic skills with which to apply them.

We have never had another complaint since then and no one has ever applied to keep livestock on the plots.

I wanted to keep bees but was outvoted.

Shame about the bees... They would be so beneficial for the other allotments, too!

Do you happen to know if this is just a rule for England, or other parts of the country, too?

I have no idea about the rules of scotland I'm afraid.

As with the bees, people were scared that someone would get stung and then there would be insurance implications...... can you credit it?

Sounds good if others have animals....

maggienetball wrote: In England there is an old but existing law governing the use of allotments and it states that poultry and rabbits may be kept on any council owned allotment. That if the local authority issuing tenancy to you want to deny you this right then they must show "good cause".

Our lottie was taken over from the council by the society and is classed as private. The land is owned by the local cemetry next door (council?), who can extend their area into the lotties whenever they want...still the soils good
It's because it's cemetry land that there's different rules. I think by law your not even allowed to walk dogs on cemetry land....just incase fido manages to dig down 6ft and retreive "uncle Johns" shin bone.

maggienetball wrote: In England there is an old but existing law governing the use of allotments and it states that poultry and rabbits may be kept on any council owned allotment.

If it is a private allotment or run by a private allotment society, they can stipulate whatever rules they (or the members) want. As you say, it is only council owned allotments that must allow you to keep poultry & rabbits.

Our tenancy agreement says we can keep livestock - but with no definition of what that actually is. Unfortunately our allotments back onto a park and until we are allowed to shoot two-legged, simian vermin the only livestock on the plot we would consider is bees.

Wassail

Karen