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Oh man that sucks.

Got some neighbors that ran a single strand hot wire along a state highway for as long as I can remember. Only seen cows out there once in my life, and I go by almost daily. The other day they finally started building good fence, using cattle panels. Seems like one extreme to the other to me.
 
I have said it here before. No one would lose sleep over that here. In fact depending on what they have going on they might not worry about it for a week or two.
 
I have said it here before. No one would lose sleep over that here. In fact depending on what they have going on they might not worry about it for a week or two.
Back in the day it wasn't a big issue here either, but now that highway is so busy, even right through the night. With a 90kmh speed limit, could get ugly quick.
 
Might not be a big deal out there @Dave and I envy you for that here. Here, it is a disaster. There are cars going up and down the road here at all hours and there are several that think that 80 in a 55 road is okay. Plus our "main farm" borders the interstate.... that spells disaster...
 
The Interstate is only a little over 3 miles from my house. The highway Dept does a pretty good job of fencing it. All the on and off ramps have cattle guards on them. If a cow were to somehow get on the freeway it would get everyone's attention pretty fast. But even the freeway is technically "open range".

One evening last winter I turned up my road off old highway 30. It was dark out. In a couple hundred yards I was dodging 6 - 8 black cows on the road. A mile up the road I dodged through a herd of deer. I was certain that neighbor L's horses would be on the road (they always are) and I would have the trifecta of critter dodging. But there wasn't a horse in sight........
 
It depends alot where your located and road conditions I guess. In Arkansas if you were to draw an imaginary line running North and South in about the middle of the State. 90 % of all road ways West of that line are very curvy, lots of hills, unreal traffic on even secondary roads. Very common to see deer, dogs, coons, cats all kinds of animals that has been ran over.

Personally know of several cow/horse car accidents too in these areas that have been hit by a car/truck. And even predistrians ran over. Month or so ago a man laying in an off ramp at I40 was run over.

Beleave it or not they are alot of buzzards ran over too. Hit one myself a few years back with the wind shield of my truck.

You can't compare areas like this to places like Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and other states with vast wide open prairies or hwys that you can drive 50 to 100 miles without ever coming to a curve in the road. Maybe not a dozen or so cars pass every hour or so.

Thats why some states can have open range laws and others can't.

The whole state of Arkansas doesn't have open range laws. They do have laws in effect where cattle farmers are liable for their cattle out on public roads highways etc..., althogh i don't know of any place that inforces thoes laws.

Most people i am guessing even know these laws exist but they do. And could easily sue and win in court damages or held responsible for someone killed over their cows being out on state road ways.

Learned this from the State senator himself. Showed me where to find the laws for me to read.

I have cattle. Ocassionly over the years have a some get out and on state roads. I got them back in my pastures, lucky no body hit one. If they had of they could have sued me even though it only happened that one time.

Know of places where cattle are on the roads all the time. One place is where i found a car flipped on it's side that had a 23 year old Mother of 3 baby's dead inside the car.

6 months prior to her wreck directly across the hwy from where she was killed the fence was down for a 1/4 of a mile.

One night on my way home there were a dozen cows in the hwy at that spot. Had been several times before. I called the sheriff's office everytime I came up on them. Got to the point sheriff's deputies wouldn't come out. So i started calling the State police. One night when that trooper got there. The cows walked out of the hwy stepped over the 5 strain barb wire fence that was only about a foot high. And had been down so long that grass had covered up the fence for a quarter of a mile.

And this stretch of hwy is heavily traveled. In that same stretch of hwy a school bus in front of me locked its breaks up and black smoke boiled up. Am sure it throwed the kids around in the bus some what. Looked up and there were several cows in the hwy.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to own cattle if they are that irresponsible. Yes cows are going to get out sometimes. But when a 1/4 of fence on a major hwy is left in attended for as long as that one was is not just neglect but irresponsible on the land owners part.
 
Agree @504RP ... we have cattle in 2 different counties... one open range, one not. So really between things.

The interstate is well fenced but the on and off ramps are not... so something can, and have walked up onto the highway that way.... we get calls all the time and they have only been ours twice in 20-30 years....

We try hard to keep our animals fenced in. It is safer. There are too many "cidiots" that have moved out into the country here... and they all drive way too fast. There were 2 "newly dead" deer along the road 2 days ago.... constant car/truck/DEER incidents. DON'T want any cattle/vehicle incidents.

Here the owners of cattle loose on the road can get in big trouble.... even with the "open range" county..... there are laws on the books that makes you responsible for your animals if they cause or are involved with a vehicle accident.

Yes, everyone has cattle that get out.... but like you said, irresponsible owners that let cattle just go where ever, and cause constant problems are neglectful.... and do not deserve to have the animals. They will cite you and here they will charge you for neglect and you can lose the cattle... we have had cattle that came up the road one day, and got them in our field... and after not being able to find anyone to claim them... they were sold and the money held in trust for maybe 30 ? days.... then we got the check for them because they were on our place ..... finders keepers if no personal ID on them. This was years ago when they were more lax on the laws..... now they are tougher even.

Too many people here now.....too much liability....
 
Agree @504RP ... we have cattle in 2 different counties... one open range, one not. So really between things.

The interstate is well fenced but the on and off ramps are not... so something can, and have walked up onto the highway that way.... we get calls all the time and they have only been ours twice in 20-30 years....

We try hard to keep our animals fenced in. It is safer. There are too many "cidiots" that have moved out into the country here... and they all drive way too fast. There were 2 "newly dead" deer along the road 2 days ago.... constant car/truck/DEER incidents. DON'T want any cattle/vehicle incidents.

Here the owners of cattle loose on the road can get in big trouble.... even with the "open range" county..... there are laws on the books that makes you responsible for your animals if they cause or are involved with a vehicle accident.

Yes, everyone has cattle that get out.... but like you said, irresponsible owners that let cattle just go where ever, and cause constant problems are neglectful.... and do not deserve to have the animals. They will cite you and here they will charge you for neglect and you can lose the cattle... we have had cattle that came up the road one day, and got them in our field... and after not being able to find anyone to claim them... they were sold and the money held in trust for maybe 30 ? days.... then we got the check for them because they were on our place ..... finders keepers if no personal ID on them. This was years ago when they were more lax on the laws..... now they are tougher even.

Too many people here now.....too much liability....
Cidiots!!!!!!!! I like that . We are inundated with them. 80 acre housing development on my West fence now. Farmer decided he could make more by buying the land and turning it into a development. I tried to buy it 10 ties in 20 years, but owner would not sell to me.. I bought my 80 from his mother so she could pay her estate taxes when her husband died. Paid top dollar back then too..
 
Agree @504RP ... we have cattle in 2 different counties... one open range, one not. So really between things.

The interstate is well fenced but the on and off ramps are not... so something can, and have walked up onto the highway that way.... we get calls all the time and they have only been ours twice in 20-30 years....

We try hard to keep our animals fenced in. It is safer. There are too many "cidiots" that have moved out into the country here... and they all drive way too fast. There were 2 "newly dead" deer along the road 2 days ago.... constant car/truck/DEER incidents. DON'T want any cattle/vehicle incidents.

Here the owners of cattle loose on the road can get in big trouble.... even with the "open range" county..... there are laws on the books that makes you responsible for your animals if they cause or are involved with a vehicle accident.

Yes, everyone has cattle that get out.... but like you said, irresponsible owners that let cattle just go where ever, and cause constant problems are neglectful.... and do not deserve to have the animals. They will cite you and here they will charge you for neglect and you can lose the cattle... we have had cattle that came up the road one day, and got them in our field... and after not being able to find anyone to claim them... they were sold and the money held in trust for maybe 30 ? days.... then we got the check for them because they were on our place ..... finders keepers if no personal ID on them. This was years ago when they were more lax on the laws..... now they are tougher even.

Too many people here now.....too much liability....
If I lived where it was legal to open range cattle and the land to do it on. I would sure do it.

I remember the first time i ever drove across a place that was open range in Sothern Colorado headed to Chama New Mexico.

Was going over a mountain pass pulling a trailer full of horses. Just as i started down the pass it dropped straight off on one side of the hwy and was straight up on the other side.

About 7 or 8 cowboys come herding about 200 head of cattle up the pass toward me. Just stopped the truck and trailer, shut my engine off while they drove them with horses on pass me back up the mountain.

I guess they were moving them to different grazing in that National forest.

It's amazing at how they round cattle up out of thoes Rocky mountains !!!

Was driving through the mountains at Creed Colorado one time and saw a horse with a saddle on grazing out in the middle of this huge mountain range. Drove about 2 mile futher and ran into this Mexican wearing chaps, spurs and cowboy hat. Asked if i had seen a horse anywhere.

Took where his horse was and watched for over an hour catching it lol !!!

He said he stayed in a cabin up there taking care of the cattle until they moved them in the fall.

Thought that was pretty neat.
 
@504RP I used to work in north east California, open range country. Good thing too because land is cheap up there and there are quite a few operations I was close with relied on open grazing from absentee landowners. Very few fences up there. There's a few US highways and straight paved roads there, everybody flies on those roads (I'll admit, myself included). When cattle are in the road though, you can see it from miles away and slow down. Never once saw a cow on the side of the road.
 
@504RP I used to work in north east California, open range country. Good thing too because land is cheap up there and there are quite a few operations I was close with relied on open grazing from absentee landowners. Very few fences up there. There's a few US highways and straight paved roads there, everybody flies on those roads (I'll admit, myself included). When cattle are in the road though, you can see it from miles away and slow down. Never once saw a cow on the side of the road.
I know what you mean. Areas like that you should be able to have plenty of reaction time if cows are on the hwy since your able in most situations to see them so far in advance.
 

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