Cattle theft.

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This reminds me. When my cowboy friend of 30+years and I got married, jokingly I told him I would have the Running M tattooed on my right hip. In pinkish white so it would look like a scar. I'm afraid tattooing hurts but I will have to toughen up.
 
TexasJerseyMilker said:
This reminds me. When my cowboy friend of 30+years and I got married, jokingly I told him I would have the Running M tattooed on my right hip. In pinkish white so it would look like a scar. I'm afraid tattooing hurts but I will have to toughen up.
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Well maybe so, but a tattoo would be less painful than a real brand. A former girlfriend joked about having my brand tattooed on her left hip. I guess it is a good thing she didn't now that we are no longer a couple.
 
I have (had, maybe?) a great uncle that I’m not proud of. He was caught with a couple others rustling cattle here in the mid ‘70s. He disappeared while out on bail and nobody has heard from him since. If he’s still alive he would be about 90yo.
Don’t know if it’s true, but mom told me Arkansas still had cattle rustling as a death penalty at that time.
 
I sold 46 cows in August. The total deduction was $2,914 or $63 per head. Just the commission was $2,524 which is $54 per head. That additional $390 was some vet work (preg checked some of them), brand inspection ($1.75 a head), BFC, etc.
 
Ouachita said:
I have (had, maybe?) a great uncle that I’m not proud of. He was caught with a couple others rustling cattle here in the mid ‘70s. He disappeared while out on bail and nobody has heard from him since. If he’s still alive he would be about 90yo.
Don’t know if it’s true, but mom told me Arkansas still had cattle rustling as a death penalty at that time.
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In the mid 70’s I would have been a young teenager in Arkansas at that time. I feel pretty confident in central Arkansas where I lived at the time cattle rustling wouldn’t have gotten you the death penalty. At the same time in my opinion for the most part people in general were more honest than today and crime wasn’t near the level it is this day and time.

Also I don’t think Arkansas produced near as many cattle as it does now. I can’t remember anyone owning a round bailer in the early 70’s. Most cattle farmers which there were fewer of also during those days used square balers to put up hay and most used old houses to store there hay in.
 
Want to say that Inter state 40 wasn’t built until the late 60’s possibly very early 70’s. During those times people cared about their neighbors and weren’t as app to steal from their neighbors. In my opinion society has changed tremendously from then to now.
 
kenny thomas said:
I remember stacking square bales in an old house. And barn lofts. Everything else was used for tobacco.
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I did to for less than a nickel a bail. And that included loading and hauling it off the field using our own truck.
 
Brute 23 said:
... and the buyer knows it.
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I think your right on them knowing it. The person stealing dont want to send them through a local stockyard sale so someone a 100 miles away gets a bargain then they put them through a sale further away.
None of the east has branding requirements so its hard to track the sales if they dont have an EID. And if stolen the EID is removed and thrown away.
 
Lucky said:
And everyone wants to be able to pen their cows with two shakes of a feed bucket. Easy pickins
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I can pen them with two shakes... you can't. Another benefit of making good animals vs buying.If you know... you know. 😏

Cattle that can be pushed and are use to horse back crews are the easiest to take, imo. They are not one owner cattle.

With cell cams now, most people don't have an excuse. Get them over your pens or on gates or both and make it well known.
 
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kenny thomas said:
I think your right on them knowing it. The person stealing dont want to send them through a local stockyard sale so someone a 100 miles away gets a bargain then they put them through a sale further away.
None of the east has branding requirements so its hard to track the sales if they dont have an EID. And if stolen the EID is removed and thrown away.
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No one steals any thing and holds it hoping to have a place to unload it. That is set up or known well in advance, of they are good.

The best defense is to have contacts in those crowds. Some one will talk and your contacts will tell you. Make sure your contacts also know you don't f* around so that word gets out too.

My one cattle theft story is a friend called his normal cowsboys, day helpers, to work some cattle. They got done it time to run and work a group of F1 heifers on another place he had. The normal guys were a little short handed and brought 2 new guys. Two days later his helper went to feed and check the heifers and they were gone. He went eight to the guys and sheriff's office. They got the word out and started watching those guys. When they tried to sell them they ended up catching them.

He talked about how lucky he was. That the healer went and checked them so quick. Like most of us they go a week or more with out seeing them a lot of times. If they would have done that there they probably would not have recovered them.
 
Ouachita said:
I have (had, maybe?) a great uncle that I’m not proud of. He was caught with a couple others rustling cattle here in the mid ‘70s. He disappeared while out on bail and nobody has heard from him since. If he’s still alive he would be about 90yo.
Don’t know if it’s true, but mom told me Arkansas still had cattle rustling as a death penalty at that time.
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I remember in about 1970 my school bus driver named Jr. Kenny had some cattle. Jr was a small built man about 5’-6” tall weighing maybe 125 lbs. He was checking his cows one night and caught a man named Garland Williams who had spent time in the penitentiary gutting one of Jr’s cows he had just shot. Garland was a pretty big man. About 6-2 250 lbs.

Jr asked him why he had killed his cow and Garland told him he was trying to feed his family. Jr told him to finish gutting it and had Garland help him load it. Jr told Garland that he was taking the cow and going to have it processed and that he would pay for it. And that he would instruct the slaughter house to give it to Garland when he come to pick it up.

Garland later became a preacher. I didn’t know Garland but knew some of his kids. And heard one of his boys bragging about spot lighting and killing him someone’s cow.

Myself If I would have been Jr Kenny and came up on Garland gutting out one of my cows I wouldn’t have been as understanding as Jr Kenny.

But a lot of people during the early 70’s were more understanding and more forgiving than people are in today’s times.
 
504RP said:
I remember in about 1970 my school bus driver named Jr. Kenny had some cattle. Jr was a small built man about 5’-6” tall weighing maybe 125 lbs. He was checking his cows one night and caught a man named Garland Williams who had spent time in the penitentiary gutting one of Jr’s cows he had just shot. Garland was a pretty big man. About 6-2 250 lbs.

Jr asked him why he had killed his cow and Garland told him he was trying to feed his family. Jr told him to finish gutting it and had Garland help him load it. Jr told Garland that he was taking the cow and going to have it processed and that he would pay for it. And that he would instruct the slaughter house to give it to Garland when he come to pick it up.

Garland later became a preacher. I didn’t know Garland but knew some of his kids. And heard one of his boys bragging about spot lighting and killing him someone’s cow.

Myself If I would have been Jr Kenny and came up on Garland gutting out one of my cows I wouldn’t have been as understanding as Jr Kenny.

But a lot of people during the early 70’s were more understanding and more forgiving than people are in today’s times.
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When we bought our first place in Arkansas times were pretty lean and there were a few days I thought about acquiring some beef from the really nice place down the road. They had nice buildings and new equipment and great cattle, and in my mind that made them rich enough to afford the loss of a cow. Not proud of those thoughts, and glad I never acted on them.

But we made it and started to make money. And one day I was driving by the rich place... and saw two cows down in their pasture. They were upright, as though they collapsed in mid-stride. And later I found out that the guy had died and left his wife in some pretty massive debt, and those two cows broke her and she had to declare bankruptcy.

I would have felt pretty bad if I'd contributed to her situation. Somebody was watching...
 

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