Good read ---> TFB. Five Strands. A LO's guide to fence law in Tx

Good fence is one of my best investments.
I sleep better knowing my livestock are where they belong.

Sounds like you need some brush clearing down your fence line. If you can’t drive down your fence line, your doing it wrong.

I would take a sack of feed, feed the cows a time or 2, then get them to follow you out the front gate. Problem solved.

Get the names of the adjacent land owners call them. Tell them you have put poison out and you didn't want their cows dead.

Maximus had a good suggestion. When my cow problem was the worst, I had fences down in some really heavy thick brush. I had to cut my way to the fence with a chainsaw, just be able to then fix the gap. I knew a guy with a dozer and gave him some hay bales in payment to clear the fence line. I can now get to the fence with the Kubota and all the fence gear. And I can hire out the job if it’s too big and I don’t feel like handling it.

So, back to something I mentioned earlier, I hope there is enough existing fence to be repaired. In another stretch of fence that I kept repairing, it finally got so bad it was like putting a band-aid on a dead guy. I went to the land owners and got them to pay half of a new fence, and got my dozer guy to clear a road to be able to work on the fence. Cost me serious money, even paying half.

I sympathize with the OP. It’s a bad situation, with no easy quick answer. I guess it took me at least 5 years to get good fences in place in all areas. I spent a lot of time seriously PO’d.

as was stated before Navarro in 2014 became a "fence in" county......at the time of another article it said about 10% of the counties in Texas are still "fence out" which was 23 counties......with Navarro it is not 22 or less that are still "fence out"

https://www.corsicanadailysun.com/n...5bb3912-bd62-11e4-8700-93b0f42d5a4f.html

the A&M article from Rustler tells you what to do to deal with the situation in a "fence in" county...in a "fence out" you fix or build a fence...

Would that be 'inconsiderate' of them?

Yep, sometimes a tree will fall across our fence and the neighbors cows will get onto the property here (we have property on both sides of the road), but don't run cows on this side. They NEVER seem to miss them and Lord knows would not consider repairing the fence. That always seems to fall on me. Neighbors on the other side of the road are good as gold.

Gotta keep em out. They have knocked over 2 feeders, broke the solar panels, ate all the corn and stepped on the feeder motor/spinner. Basically destroyed the feeders.

Yep.

Had a neighbor that the neighbor's bull who kept coming into his place to visit his cows. He asked his neighbor to keep his bull at home a couple of times with no resolve.

He finally lost his sense of humor and took his shot guns with some No. 8 shot at about 50 yards and waited for the bull to turn his rear end to him and drove the bull onto another neighbors place. Bull never came back.

Baiting the cows out the gate and onto a county road works, then the Sheriff will have to get involved after enough complaints about cows on the road.

Bad idea, if someone hits one of them and it becomes known you baited them out there you will be in a mess, especially if they make it to the highway.

A conversation with the adjacent LO about splitting cost on a good fence would be step one.

Not if you were trying to take hem back to their home but then they quit following.

I just hate cattle owners who don’t do a dang thing to keep their cows on their own place. Guys who lease are the worst, they don’t wanna do a buncha fencework to a place that ain’t theirs. & the landowners don’t wanna do any fecework, as that costs money & time. So they just turn out the cows & hope for the best, but they dang sure don’t give a care if they get out.

If you have a set of pens, feed them & pen them & have somebody haul them to the local sale & turn them in as strays. You can charge a set rate for damages, hauling, grazing, etc. Talk to the brand inspector at the sale barn.

It’s not your job to find the owner of the cows. F them if they can’t keep their own stock on their own place.

Talk to the neighbors and offer to go in half for fixing the fences and then you should also put a fence around the feeders to keep the cows away from them..

I will speak as a rancher AND hunter - believe me, after doing both on same place for 50 years, I know the in, the outs and more outs.

I live in Bastrop County and the Sheriff's Department has an animal control group that will help handle it.
We had a rouge bull that could jump a 6' fence like a gazelle and played Romeo to at least 6 different herds around my area.
He was fairly gentle and would take a cube from your hand but next to impossible to get in the pen.
The one time I did, I got to witness his gazelle-ness in action and figured out why there was never any holes in the fence.
They came out and darted him in neighbors garden and walked him into the trailer.

Don't blame or mistreat the cows, chances are they are hungry and just looking for something to eat.
This year has been pretty bad and my cows roam the fences looking for a hole because they grass is always greener.
I rotate them thru the pastures and try to give the grass a little time to recover but without rain, there is no grass.
I am feeding cubes and hay but that's what they do.

Like someone already pointed out about getting behind them with a 4wheeler will usually make them go for the hole.
A good trot to the hole, then let them ease thru.
If you run them, they will plow thru the hole and you will have a bigger hole to fix.

I quit messing with feeder fences as it has proven to be a waste of time and money.
Cows usually are just rubbing their backs on your feeder legs because it is at a convenient angle and feels good, not to get your corn.
When they get under the feeder and rub, it spreads the legs until the feeder falls down.
Stake the legs of your feeders properly with TPosts driven into the ground at the same angle as the feeder leg.
Then wire the leg to the post securely at bottom, middle and top of post and the cows won't knock them down.
Your feeder and wallet will thank me for that tip - I haven't lost a feeder in last 7-8 years since I started staking them like that.

They may not necessarily be an adjacent landowners. I had a dozen or so strays show up at my place one evening and we tracked the ownership to a leased property that was several miles away. I herded them into one of my sectioned off pastures so they would be easy to gather, watered them overnight, and called the SO. Owner came and picked them up the next morning.

I currently have a stray heifer on my place and have had no luck finding the owner. She isn't hurting anything, so just letting her hang with the other cows. Someone will come looking for her eventually.

I know your frustration. Try this

I got rid of my cows some years ago rather than re fencing. Then wound up with a neighbor who ran out of grazing. His cows were on my place all the time and he was just too busy to fix the fences. So, I informed him that I had removed my front gate and he could probably find his cows on the county road. He was pissed but fixed the fences.

And some of them are pretty good. When I was growing up in Austin (circa 60's-70's-80's) we had Quarter Horses and Tennessee Walkers. I was out at the Horse Barn one afternoon feeding the horses. We normally fed a commercial pellet, some grain and hay each day. I had a big 4 wheeled buggy full of pellets going down the aisle and putting out feed in each stall.

I was finished on one side and was headed to the feed room to get some more pellets when I spotted a big Hereford Bull walking up the drive onto the property. I'm talking a pretty healthy one too, easy 1500 lbs. He kept coming straight for the barn. I knew he was going to smell the little bit of feed I had left in the buggy...so I hurried toward the feed room. We had a small 4' wide by 5' high walk through gate that separated the two sides of the barn and the feed room was also on that side. So I went though that and closed it behind me. It was one of those pressed steel gates with channel like panels.

Once that bull smelled the feed he took one of his horns and put it on the bottom of the gate then lifted up. The gate flexed until the sliding lock came out of its anchor and then the whole thing popped up in the air with a big 'sproing...' like sound. The hinges were not facing opposed...so it just flew right off of them. It looked to me like that bull knew exactly what it was doing. I locked the feed room and grabbed and aluminum grain shovel and banged it against the fence post...which started the bull enough to make it retreat.

We called the Sheriffs dept and they showed up with two trucks. One had a horse trailer and a couple of horses in it, the other was a short 12' pipe sided stock trailer.

The bull wasn't cooperating at all about being driven toward the trailer and it looked like he was about to go through a fence. So we got a bucket of feed and THAT got its attention. They were able to lead the bull right up to the rear of the trailer and while the bull was eating just slipped a rope over its horns. Then fished the rope up through the front of the trailer. The bull wouldn't step up into the trailer though...so one of the guys takes his horse (a big line-back Dun gelding) up to the front of the trailer. Got the rope end, dallied off, dropped the reins and squeezed the Dun with his legs.

Man....I got to tell you, I was impressed. That bull never got a chance to step up. His front legs hit the trailer, he went down on his brisket and that horse skidded him the next eight feet into it. He never had a chance to set back against the rope. A 'good' horse that knows what it is doing is amazing. I was also impressed with the guys that came out. They knew when NOT to pressure the bull and went to a plan 'B' that worked out well. Being a teenager still...I had to admire the way they handled it. Learned a little something at the same time.

I have no idea where that bull came from, none of our immediate neighbors even had cattle.

I have seen some professional cowboys go after particularly crazy feral cows with similar tools.
They darted the cows and let them lay down then put the special rope around their horns and one man sat on them so they couldn't get up while they backed a trailer up close to them.
They ran the rope up thru thru the trailer and hooked it up to a 3/4 ton Dodge 4x4 truck and gave the cow a shot of antidote.
As soon as the cow started to stand up, they pointed her towards the trailer door and the guy in truck hit it.
Got her in trailer and closed intermediate gate and the cow went crazy in the HD trailer.
They did same thing to second one and got her in trailer and locked down and she went crazy for quite a while.
It took longer to wait for the medicine to take effect than to load both of them.

Good cowboys are amazing men. There should be a badges given to all old cowboys that they can hand out when they run into a good young cowboy. It should read “Real Cowboy”.

Thanks for all the great info, VERY helpful.
I'm gonna search the county tax website for the owners on the sides and see if I can contact them.
Meanwhile I have really enjoyed the cowboy stories
At the very least, if they are still there this weekend, I'll try to trot them back where they came from and see if I can fix the gap.
They seemed pretty tame, walked right up to us while filling the feeders 3 weeks ago.
Thanks again for all the help and info.

I had a great bull that was born on the place. When he grew up I got rid of my other bull and couldn’t have been happier. The I got a call from a buddy. He had jumped a fence, went about 2 miles and was in another guys pasture breeding a couple of his heifers. He had also whupped up on the neighbors high dollar bull. I headed that way and found the neighbor in the pasture. He wasn’t real upset since my bull looked better than his. I penned him and hauled him back. Next day, same problem. I penned him again and immediately hauled him to the Bowie Sale Barn. Had to buy another bull. After about 6 months, I sold the whole bunch and changed my Ag exemption to a Wildlife exemption. Life is much simpler and I don’t worry about fencing.

I can't believe you said that. We are having the same problem on our lease and what they can do and do do is crap all over your camp, huddle under the awning in front of your trailer and nearly knock it down, rip the top off of your work table behind your trailer, knock over your gas grill propane tanks, wood splitter, burn barrel not to mention as someone else said bedding down at your feeders and keeping the deer away.
What planet did you just arrive from.

If you're tech savy at all I would suggest downloading the onX Hunt app on your phone. It will show you satellite imagery wherever you are but it will also list the landowner's name. From there, you can go knock on their door and ask for them by name. Good luck!

this reminded me of a joke I know

sheriff comes screeching up to an old trailer one night about 2am and jumps out of the car and runs up and starts knocking hard on the door saying "Elmo hurry up Elmo come quick get out here Elmo"

Elmo gets to the door and says "what's wrong sheriff whats wrong"

Sheriff "Elmo someone backed a cattle pot up to your place and cut the fence"

Elmo "oh no sheriff how bad is it how many did they get"

Sheriff "oh no Elmo it is worse than that.....they dumped load"

I woke up a few weeks ago to a mule standing in my front yard. After some calling around I found out that a guy about 1/2 mile down the road lost 12 of them earlier in the week. Turns out it wasn't because he had bad fences or didn't care. There were some kids riding backroads on their 4wheelers cutting fences so they could ride on people's land. Sheriff caught the kids and the guy got all his mules back in. So don't just assume the cattle owners are at fault, unfortunately we are surrounded by idiots that just don't care about anyone other than themselves.