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Hope someone out there can help me. My 10 acre property backs up to a 300 acre cattle ranch. (There is a barbed-wire fence between our properties)
A bunch of his cows have come onto my property twice in the last 2 weeks, pooping EVERYWHERE, tearing up the lawn, causing destruction. Apparently they broke a portion of the barbed wire fence, and got in. The neighbor fixed that particular portion of fence, but somehow they got out again, and went on the destruction path on my property.
I just moved to this rural property a few months ago, and the fence of course, was already there. The neighbor contends that it is a 'shared' fence, and I have responsibility to fix it too. I contend that the fence is HIS, and therefore his responsibility.(His property/ranch was there at least 10 years before my house was even built or developed). Regardless, I have no idea how they got out (300 acres, the fence could be broken ANYWHERE) the COWS are the ones that caused the destruction.
This neighbor seems hesitant to clean up the mess!!! What can I do????
Welcome to the country, cows are part of it. Usually we work together with the neighbors to find and mend a downed fence. Maybe go out and walk the line with him and get dirty helping fix the section between your property lines, and the next time it happens you might not have to say a thing. I say next time, because it WILL happen again, that is part of living in the country bordered by cows. Don't expect him to clean out the cow crap from your land either, that just won't happen 99.9% of the time.
P.S. don't complain about the smell when the wind changes either. A little "give" goes a LONG way and keeps you from being branded a "city slicker" (or whatever derogatory phrase is used there).
In many parts of the country, yes, care of the fenceline between the properties is shared no matter HOW long one or the other has been there. It's just part of country life. As is cows getting out.
Consider the cow manure to be free fertilizer. And, no, don't expect him to clean it up. You're not in the city any longer.
Bydand, the current term for people who move to the country and then complain about the fact that there are animals there and smells and all sorts of other things are different from the city is "citiots".
Go to the sale barn and get the scruffiest, most ill bred, ugly, skinny bull that you can. Keep it on your property. Don't worry too much about the fence.
Get a strand of hot wire across your shared area...it will keep them off and it's pretty cheap and easy to put up.
yup, I got 55 acres of seeded pasture that only has one strand of electric fence .( roads on 3 sides)
It has been years since we had cattle get out.
Been using electric fence for over 40 years. The previos farm had over 100 acres of pasture ( some wooded some lowland) and I have never had a problem.
I don't know anything about cattle, fencing, etc. but it doesn't seem fair to me that the OP has to be responsible for the fence in any way. The other guy is the one with the animals that need to be contained, it should be his responsibility to be sure he has adequate fencing.
I could see if these were two cattle farms abutting, then the two owners should share the responsibility of fixing the fence, because essentially they are both using it.
It sounds like the OP only wants the fence fixed so that the neighbors cattle will stay on the neighbor's property. Not for his/her own personal use.
Like I said, it's common custom in the country in various areas for both parties, who benefit from the fence (either both with animals they want to keep confined, or one with animals they want to keep confined and the other wanting to keep animals out) to share the expenses/work on the fence that runs along the property line between their two properties, since both benefit from the fence (in this case, one in keeping animals in, the other in keeping animals out). Plus, it's neighborly.
To add to the confusion, the way states deal with this varies. Some states by law require the rancher to fence to keep the animals in; others are open range states where anyone who does NOT want animals on their property must fence to keep them OUT. The OP doesn't say what state he's in, so we don't know if it's an open range state or not.
That being said, the OP would only be responsible for sharing in the maintenance of the fence that adjoins his property, not the entire 300 acres of fencing - the property owners whose land adjoins the other sections would be for those fence lines that they share with the rancher.
And, yes, I put my money where my mouth is - due to flooding, we've been sharing repair work with the people on the sides where the flooding damaged the fence (after we all got all the cattle who decided this meant party time sorted out and confined in their respective locations) and I've been out myself, personally, pounding t-posts and attaching staples and clips where appropriate. Just something I learned to do when we moved to the country.
I think the fencing is a shared responsibility between neighbors. That's true that cattle get out sometimes and that's part of the country life, but I hope the cattle rancher was at least apologetic.
It happened to me several years ago when a neighbor's grandkids forgot to close a gate and the cattle got loose. They left some hoofprints around newly sown grass and left some other evidence, but the owner came by and apologized for it and I said it was not a big deal. I appreciated that.
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