heifer

[Travis Bryan]

I was going out to gather our spring pairs and yearling heifers today, and when I started counting the heifers I kept getting 1 too many. I got to looking and saw a nice looking black heifer with a yellow tag in her left ear(we tag all of ours in the right ear)and realized she wasnt ours. This is the second time a heifer showed up that wasnt ours. The last one (which showed up about 7years ago)looked like a longhorn cross and raises one of the best calves every year. I was just wondering if anybody else has heifers or cows that show up and never get claimed.

Travis

P.S. I kinda hope noone claims this one either because she looks like she would make a nice cow!!!

 

[Beefy]

yeah we have had a few that never got claimed. i dont like for a random animal to get in with our herd b/c neighbors arent the best at herd management and i never know what they might bring in. or if they were let out on purpose. more often than not its a new purchase that hasnt settled down at home yet. sometimes they will still have the sticker on. we had a brangus cow that we took in mainly to keep her off the roads at night. she was a wild cow (but only when singled out). another time a charolaisXangus heifer showed up and we kept her b/c no one claimed her and she was nice looking and she had a charolais bull calf (that was lucky). sold her after that first calf. another time we sold one that showed up b/c no one came looking for her in a reasonable amount of time. one summer a brangus bull came to visit and it was probably a month before anyone came to look for him. adn then there have been several steer calves show up before. we are good about catching them to return to someone but dont feel its our responsibility to go looking for the owner. they should ask us. its easy for me to tell a new one b/c i know all my animals and also b/c the herd will usually chase the new animal around the first day he arrives.

 

[Dee]

If you see a black one with a green tag, right ear..........that's mine! I never get extras! I would check the local papers. Maybe a call to the sheriff? When I reported mine missing the sheriff told me that if someone had her in with their herd, they could legally charge me for feed and board, and if I refused to pay, the sheriff could auction her and pay my feed and board bill, keep a fee for the auction, and then I'd get the remainder.

 

[Rustler9]

A couple years ago nine steers and heifers-Holsteins, Jerseys and a couple blacks and Char crosses showed up in our pasture. One day they would be in the pasture, the next they would be out in the road. All the neighbors were calling me or coming by to tell me my cows were out-I guess they couldn't tell the difference between these and Longhorns?? I asked around and no one knew who they belonged to, even had the sheriff looking for the owner. After about a week I came home from work and they were all gone except a Charolais/Brahman type heifer. One of the neighbors came by and told me that someone came by and loaded them up into a trailer and took them-they didn't know who the person was. I guess he left me the heifer as a gift-he never came back for her and I never knew who he was.

 

[dun]

a couple of years ago we had a Holstein heifer show up in our pasture every 20 days regular as clock work. The next day she would be gone. She apparently had a thing for our Gomer. Once she was bred the never turned back up and Monica turned out to be a good producer. Unfortunetly, her daughter was also a fence jumper, but she went the other direction from us.

dun

 

[Susie David]

Ever wonder if she was sent over to visit your bull...and will be claimed in a month or two. Jokes have been made about this sort of "herd management on the cheep"....

 

[docgraybull]

Had a young brindle bull calf show up in our front pasture about 5 years ago. Left him in the front pasture by the road, and checked with all of the neighbors. Noone claimed him. He grew to be a smallish yearling and some Mexican friends were having a Fiesta and asked to buy a steer to slaughter for the party. I offered them the bull and they took him for $600. Worked out well. ;-)

 

[stocky]

With the hills and trees and streams, fences are always getting knocked down by water or a tree or something, so there will occassionally be an animal show up, just as occasionally an animal will disappear. Everyone around here calls around to find out whose animal it is, so the owner is usually aware where it is, sometimes even before he knows it is gone. I figure it is better to find the owner now than to feed that animal for a couple of months and then have the owner come and claim it. Have never had the situation where I have sold an animal that showed up, although it is legal to sell an animal and send the owner the check minus expenses. If you do that, you wont have any neighbors left, just enemies.

 

[jkwilson]

I used to have 10 acres of pasture that I'd bought on a whim as an investment several years back. It had a pond and some woods, and I had it fenced and had a water tank fed from the pond.

I always moved cows back and forth as the grass grew, and one September I went over for the first time in a couple of months to see if I could get any grazing out of it. When I pulled up to the gate, I was kind of surprised how low the grass was, it looked like it hadn't grown at all. I was even more surprised when I got to the back of the place to find 6 angus cows with calves. :shock:

Turns out, they were from 10 miles away in a different county, and a deputy and a neighbor had seen them grazing on the right-of-way and assumed they were mine that had gotten out, so they put them up for me.

 

[TLCfromARK]

A couple times we've had a cow get into the pasture. Always one of the neighbor's, one phone call and they were gone in a couple of days.

One odd thing that happened a few years ago that comes to mind. I was deer hunting ( our lease has backs up to several different pieces of private land ) and right at dark 5 cows, 3 calves & a bull came through one of our food plots. They acted wild as deer, really on their toes, spooky at any noise. I called all the neighbors and described the cows to them but no one claimed them. I called around some more and no one was missing any cows. I saw them once more and then they were gone, never did find out who they belonged to.

Just wondered if anyone else had ran across a "wild" herd of cows before.

;-)

 

[greenwillowherefords]

Some customers got their start with about three or four stray cows that showed up in their empty pasture. They called all the appropriate authorities and their neighbors. Never found where they came from, so started their herd.

 

[memanpa]

here in az you have to have proof of ownership before you can sell or transport cattle, have had several show up around my place, always call livestock inspection , they come out and inspect for brands etc, if there is a brand they contact the owner of the brand.
if no brand, they take pictures, and leave it with you(if you say ok) after 60 days they offer to take the animal to sell and pay you $$$ (i think this is $3.00 per day for feed etc from the proceeds or will give you full ownership paper, have a hereford charleigh cross in the pasture that showed up 3 yrs ago, dropped a nice calf 90 days later and has done the same every year since lucky on that one
had another reserevation cow come visit, tore up a bunch of fence trying to get her in a holding pen for the inspector to have a look at, had her hauled off as fast as i could, got paid for feed only!!!!

 

[sidney411]

memanpa - how do they require you to prove ownership of calves?