Video: 'Drunk and stupid' man breaks into farms and releases buffalo and horses

Buffalo Farm, outside Kirkcaldy, was hit by the intruder on Saturday night, before he turned his attention to Shawsmill Stables where he was caught on CCTV.

Video shows the man, despite appearing to be under the influence, was able to operate complicated stable doors and chase the horses out into the freezing conditions, which resulted in one animal being seriously injured.

He also opened 18 gates at Buffalo Farm, prompting the segregated herds to mix and spill out onto the road.

Now Shawsmill Stables have offered a cash reward for information which leads to the identification of the individual responsible.

Ashley Stewart, of Shawsmills, said: "The guy climbed over a fence, came onto the property, let five horses out of their stables, a couple of them got out onto the road and one was badly injured.

"She had cuts to her leg and the vet had a look yesterday. We were just treating her with painkillers, but the area has badly swollen up so they're coming in today for a couple of procedures.

"In my eyes the person has made a very big error in judgment, they've been drunk, walked home and thought it was funny to wreak a bit of havoc, and I don't think they've really thought out everything that was going to come from their actions.

"It's not something that's going to happen to us very often, so if the person was caught, I would feel a lot safer in future, but if not then I'm obviously going to be very worried - like Steven at Buffalo Farm - for the animals."

Ashgley said it must have been someone who was confident with animals and knew their way around a farm.

She said: "In the CCTV footage you can actually see him shoving and kicking the horses and pushing them out of the gate.

"A general person would not have the courage to go to a herd of 120 buffalo and open all the gates and let them out, and it's the same with horses. you have to know how to open the doors properly with the kickbolt at the bottom.

"If you're that drunk and it's dark, you might open the top part and then wonder why it wasn't opening.

"I do believe that the person is familiar with farmwork or horses, or maybe both, because they're obviously not scared of the animals.

Buffalo Farm boss Steven Mitchell said: "It really does point to someone just being drunk and stupid.

"It takes some determined effort to open as many gates as he did and let as many buffalo out, and then he's proceeded to carry on to Shawsmill Farm to let the horses out.

"Fortunately they've got some CCTV images of him doing it. If we didn't then you wouldn't believe that that's what someone would have done, but you can see it.

"He's had a bit of thought about it too, because he's not just opened the gates to each individual pen but has then opened the perimeter gates to let the animals right out of the shed area and the animals were actually on the main road, but fortunately they were a bit more sensible than he was and have gone back to the shed for shelter.

"Miraculously the buffalo are pretty much unharmed, but unfortunately one of them calved whilst out, and so wee found a calf in amongst them which is less than ideal.

"My stockman has ended up with a broken foot because wee had to take the cow and calf back to Clentry to make sure the calf got a proper feed and the cow stood on my stockman's foot.

"It could have been much worse. I'm quite surprised because the road had been cleared and buffalo tend to like to wander but they've obviously felt that the best place to stay was where their food was.

"But they did have a good root about and they've damaged a lot of silage bails which will have a financial impact on us, it's over £1000 worth of damage.

"It's mixed up males and females. They're all in social groups, and some of these heifers are in with bulls, so if one was in season then you've got a young animal pregnant that shouldn't be."

"We lost an animal due to the severe weather conditions last week, so for someone to then go and let them out into these conditions just really wound me up. I was pretty angry.

"I would urge taxi drivers to think back to Saturday night, if they dropped anyone like that off at the Wester Bogie Road area, because I think that's where the culprit's walked from.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Police in Fife have received a report that gates to a shed containing buffalo were deliberately opened in the Bogiliy Road area of Kirkcaldy.

“The incident was reported to police on Sunday 4 March.

“Inquiries into the full circumstances are ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact officers via 101, quoting incident number 1715 of 4 March.”