Just north of Bienfait, Tail-ling Hills Farm found itself in quite a strange situation yesterday. Around 12:00 pm, Melissa Murphy was notified by her children that someone had left quite a sizeable haybale in the far corner of their farthest pasture.  

“When we got home after school, we went to do our chores feeding the horses and the cows. Right now, we are just hand feeding because I have to fix a tractor tire. Hay over the fence a couple of times a day for them and our kids notice that there's a bale in the backfield. We went to check and someone had dropped it.”  

Murphy believes that the intentions behind leaving the bale could be one of two possible options. An individual with pure intent, trying to be helpful through these times... or the worst-case scenario: someone could be trying to lure the livestock away. That specific area of the fenced pasture is out of view from house windows, leaving the opportunity to enter through the gate at will. Unfortunately, it would not be the first theft of livestock in the area.  

“We're hoping it's not that kind of situation. We're just trying to find out why, for peace of mind, why someone would put a bale there. When we first found it, I phoned who we get our hay from and he had no clue. I phoned a couple of neighbors as well and nothing.” 

“It went from thinking it was someone just trying to be helpful to worrying and not getting a very good night's sleep. I'm worried about my animals.” 

Aside from the possible threat of theft, there is a multitude of other reasons why one should worry about an unknown bale, including the importance of knowing what exactly is in the bale. In case of any sickness or problems after ingesting, farmers need to know what exactly their animals have been eating.  

“If you dropped off a bale of hay at Tail-ling Hills Farm... If you did it just trying to help, we want to say thank you but we ask that if someone is trying to help by dropping off bales that they call beforehand,” said Murphy. 

As for identifying the haybale’s original owner, tracks in the snow reveal only that the deed was done using a truck, as there were no tractor tire marks or marks of that of a trailer being used.