Most fallen stock is handled one animal at a time, but every keeper eventually faces the morning when several are lying in the same field. Martlands provides DEFRA approved fallen stock and ABP collection with a rapid-response fleet operating from Burscough, and multiple livestock losses fallen stock collection is the situation where the difference between a licensed operator and an improvised arrangement becomes obvious within the hour. The regulatory obligations do not soften because the scale of the problem has grown, and the decisions taken in the first two hours shape everything that follows.
How Group Losses Actually Happen
Lightning strike is the cause everybody names first, and it does occur, typically taking animals sheltering together under a single tree or standing along a wire fence. It is not the most common cause though. Bloat on lush autumn regrowth, access to a poisonous plant after hedge or tree work, nitrate or mineral problems in a specific field, water contamination, and stock breaking onto a road together all produce multiple casualties in a single incident.
What these have in common is that they point at something. A single death is often unexplained and accepted. Four deaths in one field on one night is evidence of a cause that is probably still present, and the second priority after removing the animals is establishing what it was before the rest of the group is exposed to it. Move the surviving stock off that ground before you do anything else.
The Immediate Compliance Position
Every animal is separately subject to the twenty-four hour collection duty under the Animal By-Products (Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013, and the number involved makes no difference to that. The practical challenge is capacity rather than law. A group of adult cattle represents a substantial weight of Category 1 material, and moving it requires equipment and a vehicle appropriate to the load, which is precisely why the first call should be to a collector who can tell you what is coming and when.
Our farm and fallen stock collection is set up for this. Tell us the species, the approximate number, the approximate weight and where the animals are lying, including whether a vehicle can reach them or whether they will need to be moved to a hard-standing point first. That single conversation determines whether the job is done in one visit or three.
Do Not Move Anything Until You Have Spoken to Your Vet
Where several animals have died together and the cause is not obvious, there is a real possibility of a notifiable disease, and there is an almost certain need for evidence if any insurance or third-party claim is going to follow. Ring your veterinary surgeon before the carcasses are disturbed. A vet may want to examine the animals in situ, may want samples taken, and will be in a far better position to advise if the scene has not been rearranged.
This is also the point at which the correct handling route is confirmed. Farmed livestock that die on the holding are Category 1 material and go through our Category 1 ABP collection route, but where an animal has been euthanised using certain veterinary products the handling requirements are stricter still, and the vet should tell you which applies.
Evidence, Photographs and the Claim You May Need to Make
Insurance claims for livestock losses are won and lost on contemporaneous evidence. Photograph the animals where they lie, with something in frame that establishes the location. Note the time of discovery, the time of the last inspection, the weather, and the field. Keep the veterinary report. Then keep the Commercial Document from the collection, because it independently corroborates the number of animals removed, the species, the date and the licensed operator who took them.
That last point is underrated. A Commercial Document is a regulatory record generated by a third party, which makes it considerably more persuasive to an insurer than a farm diary entry. Our guidance on fallen stock record keeping covers how these documents should be stored and for how long.
Practical Handling Between the Incident and the Collection
Where animals cannot be collected the same day because of scale or access, they need to be secured. Move them together to hard standing away from watercourses if that is possible, cover them, and keep other livestock, dogs and the public away. Where a field is adjacent to a public right of way, this becomes urgent for reasons beyond compliance, because a group of dead animals visible from a footpath generates complaints, calls to the local authority and occasionally press attention.
If the animals genuinely cannot be moved, say so when you book. It changes the equipment we send and it is far better handled as a known factor than as a surprise for a driver at the gate.
Response Across a Wide Service Area
Incidents of this kind do not respect convenient geography, and a good proportion of them happen on the more remote parts of a holding. We operate across the North West and into North Wales, with routes from Burscough onto the M58, M6 and M56 giving practical same-day reach across a wide area. In North Wales fallen stock collection the mix of coastal grazing and upland ground means both access difficulties and weather-driven incidents feature more often than they do on the plain.
Along the north Wales coast, holdings around Llandudno fallen stock collection and the Conwy valley sit on ground where fields can be steep, narrow-laned and awkward for a large vehicle, and knowing that before we set off matters more than the mileage does. Our approach to urgent work is covered further in our piece on emergency fallen stock collection.
Making the Call
In a multiple-loss incident the order is straightforward. Move the surviving stock, ring your vet, then ring us. Call 01704 776977 and give us the numbers, the species and the access position, and we will tell you honestly what can be done today and what will follow. If the incident is not urgent but you want to talk through preparedness for your holding, reach us through contact us.
