Michigan Horse Abuse Story

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Joe Boy

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
692
Last year there was a man here that they were going to take his horses away.  I do think it is not good the way he cares for them.  He has moved them lots of time and some have only been sold by feed dealers trying to collect some for their feed.  It turned out that they decided 12 out of 150 were malnourished, but they were brood mares with large colts and the state vet over ruled.

Yet, I tried for years to get them to take the cattle away from my neighbor.  It seems the county attorney kept blocking it as he and the man's son had been classmates.  One night after church a bull, probably 3-4 years old and waist high on me was on our porch right in front of the door when we got home.  I made him move.  He was killed on the highway in front of my house an hour later.  There were several killed over the years.  My sister hit one and totalled her car and messed up her knee.  Dad called them and they said they would be right out.  Dad said last year, "I know those people are Christians and would not lie, they must be still on the way."  It happened 30 years prior to that.  I went to the district judge to go over the head of the county.  The Sheriff went over his head too by getting a group from Dallas involved.  They rounded them up and sold them.  They has starved so long and in bred so much that when they fed them several died.  His fence is 30 feet from the back of my house.  There were 48 carcases behind my house, some 30 yards away in the mesquite.  Several died in the lake.  Two died and slid under the fence into my pasture.  This man should have been shot at dawn.  A neighbor and I fed them sometimes.  I have seen calves no bigger than blue heelers when I fed them.  I once set up a pen in the pasture to catch my landlord's bull who had gone there.  There was one cow in heat and 23 bulls following her.  I caught them and told the people that I would haul them to the sale barn for nothing.  They told me to let them go.

I do not understand either of these issues.  Why would someone want to blame an innocent person?  Why when someone is guilty can't we save the livestock?

Both issues make me sick.
 

shorthorns r us

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 9, 2007
Messages
900
Joe Boy said:
Last year there was a man here that they were going to take his horses away.  I do think it is not good the way he cares for them.  He has moved them lots of time and some have only been sold by feed dealers trying to collect some for their feed.  It turned out that they decided 12 out of 150 were malnourished, but they were brood mares with large colts and the state vet over ruled.

Yet, I tried for years to get them to take the cattle away from my neighbor.  It seems the county attorney kept blocking it as he and the man's son had been classmates.   One night after church a bull, probably 3-4 years old and waist high on me was on our porch right in front of the door when we got home.  I made him move.  He was killed on the highway in front of my house an hour later.  There were several killed over the years.  My sister hit one and totalled her car and messed up her knee.  Dad called them and they said they would be right out.  Dad said last year, "I know those people are Christians and would not lie, they must be still on the way."  It happened 30 years prior to that.  I went to the district judge to go over the head of the county.  The Sheriff went over his head too by getting a group from Dallas involved.  They rounded them up and sold them.  They has starved so long and in bred so much that when they fed them several died.  His fence is 30 feet from the back of my house.  There were 48 carcases behind my house, some 30 yards away in the mesquite.  Several died in the lake.  Two died and slid under the fence into my pasture.  This man should have been shot at dawn.  A neighbor and I fed them sometimes.  I have seen calves no bigger than blue heelers when I fed them.  I once set up a pen in the pasture to catch my landlord's bull who had gone there.  There was one cow in heat and 23 bulls following her.  I caught them and told the people that I would haul them to the sale barn for nothing.  They told me to let them go.

I do not understand either of these issues.  Why would someone want to blame an innocent person?   Why when someone is guilty can't we save the livestock?

Both issues make me sick.

got this from another site.  sounds like your neighbor.

IT'S THE PITTS -- ALL NATURAL

by: Lee Pitts

In this installment I'd like to tell you how you can top the market with your cattle every time you sell them at auction. I'd like to be able to tell you this but I must confess, never having actually topped the market, I have absolutely no idea how it's done. The only time I ever made the sale report was when I sold an extremely fat slaughter cow that was in that condition because she had spent six years on my place without ever having calved. The reason I double wintered her twice and never sent her to market before was because I never had a horse fast enough to catch her.
Realizing that some livestock publications like to print stories from extension agents and college professors advising their readers on how to top the market I thought I'd give you the benefit of my experience. First of all, I realize that I should invest in better genetics by buying better bulls that can cost between five and nine thousand dollars, but when you sell the leppy kind of calves I raise who has that kind of money? At this point my only attempt at improving my genetics is cutting the fence and hoping my cows get bred by my neighbor's five to nine thousand dollar bulls.
Another popular way to get a premium at auction is to sell “natural” cattle. This means that you must promise that your cattle have never been fed or injected ingredients that could contain antibiotics. I'll go even further than that and state categorically that my cattle have never been fed or injected period! And I think I can guarantee that they have had no ionophores, although I must admit I have no idea what they are. They sound expensive so I know I've never given them to my cattle. I'm so cheap that if my cattle need minerals they have to suck on rocks.
I find the entire vaccination thing very confusing. Who names these things, anyway? Arsenal, Elite, Ultrabac, Boss, Vista, Express and Titanium sound more like canceled TV shows or teams in the Arena Football League than they do anything that kills microbes. And what's with this IBR, BRSV and PI3-BVD thing? Can't the scientists who invent these things spell? If I wanted BVD protection I'd go to Pennys.
Always the top recommendation from those people without any cattle is to wean your calves because feeders will pay more for them. Of course they will, who wants to deal with a bunch of sick calves? That's why we send them to the auction where they have employees to deal with that sort of thing. And who wants all those bawling mamas standing around the house crying for their babies while the calves tromp on expensive hay? I'm no pitchfork gladiator and I don't want any part of that bawl game!
I'm told that buyers these days want uniform calves that are the same weight and color but that's difficult to achieve when your cowherd has been bred-up from Holstein, Pinzgauer and #2 Mexican genetics and your cows have more brands on them than are found in a state brand book. Sure, I suppose you could call my cattle “slightly uneven” but they are always greener than a Prius-driving Sierra Clubber and they are all age and source verified. Yes, I'll swear on a stack of Bibles that my calves all calved in a 365 day interval sometime between January first and December 31st and if you want verification just ask my neighbors.
I know I'm not the only one who practices low-input ranching. My friend Russell told me about a sale barn event that proves my point. A South Dakota rancher (very much like me, it sounds) was dispersing his cowherd. This gentleman was well known in the area for never castrating his calves and then letting those bull calves breed his cows. When his motley cows entered the sale ring a potential buyer asked, “When will they calve?”
The owner of the cows got a puzzled look on his face and sat speechless. Finally the auctioneer asked him, “Well, when did you turn the bulls out?”
The owner scratched his beard, thought deeply and said, “I think it was 1962.”
 

garybob

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 4, 2007
Messages
1,634
Location
NW Arkansas
cowz said:
Gotta love that Lee Pitts!!
Funny, producers in my neck of the woods (literally, as I'm in the 2nd-roughest part of the Ozarks) pay more attention to the "Rural humor" , antibiotics, and equipment ads than they do the articles or Ads for ID technology and Vaccine...... .Most of my neighbors wouldn't understand what ''source verified'' means, but, they'd understand the 365-day calving season.
 
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