HELP! Neighbor's cows are trashing my yard! (farmer, quiet, water)

[joeman]

Wow...I'm really suprised. (OP here). And no, I don't expect to not have critters around, being in the country. Turns out, the fence WAS repaired, but the cows got out in a different section of the 300 acre ranch (NOT butting up to my property. They found their way back to my property via the main road, then my driveway.
So let me get this straight.... no one has a problem with stinky, giant steaming piles of poo on their driveway and sidewalks when they get home from a long day's work? No one minds that the neighbors cows have torn up their carefully tended yard? Knocked over landscaping, that sort of thing? I should just be 'neighborly' and smile and take it?
Yes, my house is in the country, but this is a very nice neighborhood, not some shack on a field of corn. What if I had 20 dogs, and they ALL decided to relieve themselves on the neighbor's front porch step? And tore up his flowers and caused destruction? Or if I had 5 teenage boys who went and spray-painted his car and garage and knocked over his mailbox? Should he just smile and be 'neighborly?' Or would it be MY responsibility to apologize and clean up the mess MY dogs/teens left behind?
I mean, for cryin' out loud!!! Are you all freakin' kidding me????

[TexasHorseLady]

No, we're not. There are "hazards" that are peculiar to living in the country, just like there are "hazards" that are peculiar to living in the city. You either adjust, or you go nuts, or you move back to wherever you're more comfortable.

And, yes, there WOULD be an issue if you had five teenage boys who did all that (which would be human beings committing vandalism in violation of existing laws, and they wouldn't just be cleaning it up, most likely). However, cows escaping from fencing and teenage boys violating the law aren't the same thing, hadn't you noticed?

Nope, if the neighbor's cows get out, I either simply escort them home and fix the fence where they got out, if I know where it is, or give him a friendly call letting him know they've gone walkabout and either he should come get them or I'm dealing with the situation and just didn't want him to wonder where they'd got to, depending on the situation. The cow manure is great for that landscaping you're talking about - just scoop it up with a shovel and put it in a nice little compost pile out of sight somewhere on your ten acres (shouldn't be hard, I'm looking at a ten acre field right in front of my house and that's a LOT of room to hide something in), won't take it any time at all to become the fertilizer that you pay for at the garden store.

This isn't something that usually happens a lot (except for the neighbor donkey who decided she liked us better than them, and after a few times, they found her a new home with better fencing). It's just one of those country things you learn to deal with without making yourself crazy or alienating all the neighbors.

[North Beach Person]

The OP sounds like a "rural pioneer" who moved to the sticks without understanding everything that entails.

[lisdol]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

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.

I was thinking this. I just recently discovered we live in an open range state. The realtor forgot to mention this to us 3 yrs ago when we bought - but we bought in a residential subdivision of 2-3 acre lots and the range land is across the state highway (about 1/4 mile east of us) so the cows would have to break out of that fencing and stroll through our neighborhood to get to our house.

I found out b/c someone wrote in to the local paper complaining b/c some cows got out into the road (the state hwy) and people were zipping around them and no one stopped to do anything about it, and she admonished the residents of our town for not understanding the rural lifestyle.

[rrtechno]

I agree with the description of the composted cow "poo". DS and DDIL created a raised garden this year and DIL has disappeared several times in the middle of their 4 tomato plants. The last I heard, they had picked between 2 and 3 bushels of green beans from their 4' long row. We have our order in for a load next year.

To the OP, your suggestion that your hypothetical "5 teenage boys who went and spray-painted his car and garage and knocked over his mailbox" had any resemblance to the cows getting loose is just absurd. The boys would be deliberately vandalizing someone else's property. Remember, you moved to a 10 acre lot in the middle of an agricultural area. Keep that in mind the next time you are in the grocery store buying a gallon of milk and a couple of steaks for the grill.

[marmac]

I do have sympathy for the OP though.

There are a few rancher/farmers who don't give a darn and because they are the " big guy" could care less .

Thankfully, those are the minority, but there still are some.

A few years back,when my cows did break out and were on the neighbor's lawn---------I did aplogize and I also stated what measures --I--would be taking to prevent it from happening again.

Like the OP's situation, my cattle got out on a non-property line fence, followed a gravel road for 50 yards, then entered his front lawn.

It doesn't hurt for a cattle owner to swallow his pride and apologize .
We are good friends now--------we probably wouldn't be if I told him--------" too bad for you "------when my cows got out.

I'll bet the majority of posters defending the farmer and "dissing" the OP aren't even real farmers themselves, never owned cattle, and enjoy living the life of a "pretend farmer" by siding blindly with the cattle owner.

[rrtechno]

Born and raised in farm country here, and woke up to steers in the front lawn on numerous occasions (and no, they weren't ours, we had 8000 chickens). I do believe that both parties need to work at working this out. IMHO, there is not a "one size fits all" solution to this situation.

[MoNative34]

Originally Posted by marmac

I do have sympathy for the OP though.

There are a few rancher/farmers who don't give a darn and because they are the " big guy" could care less .

Thankfully, those are the minority, but there still are some.

A few years back,when my cows did break out and were on the neighbor's lawn---------I did aplogize and I also stated what measures --I--would be taking to prevent it from happening again.

Like the OP's situation, my cattle got out on a non-property line fence, followed a gravel road for 50 yards, then entered his front lawn.

It doesn't hurt for a cattle owner to swallow his pride and apologize .
We are good friends now--------we probably wouldn't be if I told him--------" too bad for you "------when my cows got out.

I'll bet the majority of posters defending the farmer and "dissing" the OP aren't even real farmers themselves, never owned cattle, and enjoy living the life of a "pretend farmer" by siding blindly with the cattle owner.

I agreee with marmac on this one.

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Nope, if the neighbor's cows get out, I either simply escort them home and fix the fence where they got out, if I know where it is, or give him a friendly call letting him know they've gone walkabout and either he should come get them or I'm dealing with the situation and just didn't want him to wonder where they'd got to, depending on the situation.

Do you also thank him for the manure?

[marmac]

Where I live, if cows get out frequently, it isn't the city people who moved to the rural area complaining.

It's the farmers who live near by and their wives get just as upset if the neighbor's cattle trek on their lawns and flower beds.

Word gets out, and a farmer who has little concern if his cows get out is considered a jerk and a dead beat.

Not by the non-farmers, but by his neighboring farmers.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by marmac

I do have sympathy for the OP though.

There are a few rancher/farmers who don't give a darn and because they are the " big guy" could care less .

Thankfully, those are the minority, but there still are some.

A few years back,when my cows did break out and were on the neighbor's lawn---------I did aplogize and I also stated what measures --I--would be taking to prevent it from happening again.

Like the OP's situation, my cattle got out on a non-property line fence, followed a gravel road for 50 yards, then entered his front lawn.

It doesn't hurt for a cattle owner to swallow his pride and apologize .
We are good friends now--------we probably wouldn't be if I told him--------" too bad for you "------when my cows got out.

I'll bet the majority of posters defending the farmer and "dissing" the OP aren't even real farmers themselves, never owned cattle, and enjoy living the life of a "pretend farmer" by siding blindly with the cattle owner.

I agree that both sides need to give on this one, but the OP needs to learn not to have hissy fits when the things that DO happen when living in the country, happen. I can imagine that if he came out guns blazing over the cattle that the guy owning the 300 acres next to him might not be all that inclined to apologize.

And I assume that you're not speaking of me in your last sentence. No, I don't have a few hundred head (though some of our neighbors do), but there's cattle in the family back through at least my great-grandparents, and when I did move back to the country I made a point BEFORE moving to do my best due diligence to get the lay of the land, as it were, and then determined that if I'd missed something, it would be my responsibility to adjust to it, not my neighbors who'd lived there before to adjust their ways of doing things to me. Works pretty well, that, much better than vice versa.

That applies, by the way, whether you're moving from city to country, country to city, or one state to another.