Not that I would ever do that. I don't even own a firearm.
I grew up in the city and suburbs and never really knew much about farming. I made a friend who lived out in the country and I went to go visit him. One time he has his farmer friend over so I asked him a lot of questions. Knowing people shoot regualr animals like deer and such for sport, I made a joke (and it was just a joke) asking what would happen if someone shot one of their cattle.
The guy immediately stopped smiling and started to look very serious. He told me there is an unwritten law that you just don't go and shoot another farmers cattle. I told him, maybe with no motive. Maybe it would be just a bunch of city kids driving through the country. They saw a cow and decided to shoot it.
He told me those types of occurences don't involve the local sheriff and the city folk would wind up missing and never be found.
What is he talking about? Why would farmers take it so personal if someone shot one?
2007-12-21 16:47:37 · 38 answers · asked by CuriousMaude 1 in Pets ➔ Horses
It's difficult to impossible to make a living at cattle ranching these days.
Each cow that dies is money out of the rancher's pocket, and food off the dinner table.
Besides, how would you feel if someone threw a rock through your window and broke your iPod, computer or something? You'd be pretty dang pissed!
If it happened a couple of times every night, you'd go idiot hunting as well.
"Country folk" are fond of saying they can make people dissapear. I don't know, maybe they can. I've never pissed one off enough. LOL!
2007-12-21 16:56:10 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 9⤊ 0⤋
You posted your question in the horse catagory. As a horse owner, ex-dairy princess ( dairy=milk=cows), and gun owner, I will try to be nice beings you say you are from the city.
I grew up and live in rural area trying to keep the family farm/lifestyle going even though it means land developements (higher taxes) higher price of corn ( to feed these "targets") and generally all the things that are forcing some of my neighbors to abandon this lifestyle that they love because of finances.
As a supporter of the hunting lifestyle, I grew up with it. Guns are (or were) just something people carried around like a pliars or a fence streacher. It wasn't a big deal. Do you know what varmint means?
If there was a stray calf, (baby cow) you pretty much know whose it was by the breed, the brand, or sometimes the age. The calf is someone elses property, not a lost and found item.
Whoever owns this animal is probably counting head at least every other day and will get the word out at the grain elevator, local gas station, etc (cattle owner internet) that he is missing one. I bet he knows the ear tag (plastic colored thing with a number on it) number and a pretty close description of the missing critter. It's absense won't go unnoticed.
What I'm trying to say is that this is an important animal for the owner and for a person to for no reason shoot one of these animals, the farmer you speak of has every right to get his fur ruffled up (boxing your ears (oh, sorry, um, how about setting you straight)) when you ask a naieve question about his livelihood.
As far as his statement about the occurences not involving the local sherrif, I would say that means don't mess with his cows. Respect him and stay off his land.
You can't just bunch city kids together either. There are people in this catagory that live in the city and they would never think of shooting someone's livestock.
2007-12-21 19:14:08 · answer #2 · answered by Ayla B 4 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Let's make it personal. You have a cow that you paid, perhaps $1000.00 for. You have paid for vet bills, feed, shelter and plan to sell this cor for a profit. Suddenyl you find this asset - something like your car, or motorcycle or computer, laying dead in the field for no reason than some stupid kid decided to destroy your property.
Better yet - since a cow is preperty - How about someone inserts a virus into your computer that makes it impossible to boot it and destroys every file and program in it. How about they just come into your house and utterly destroy the computer. Would you be upset?
Sure, you could buy a new computer just as you can buy a new cow. But when that somputer wejnt, so did your business.
No one has the right to kill someone else's animals - especially for the sheer pleasure of killing a living thing.
What is the mentality of you, even though you are not familiar with farming and the country, that you would find the destruction of someone else's property acceptable. Why should they not be as angry over that as you would be if the farmer came, and without motive, burned down your house or apartment - and that is not taking a life. OK, Lets get closer to home. The farmer comes and shoots your dog or cat. Just to kill it, no other reason.
You would not be angry? You would not want revenge on the people who came in and killed you pet or destroyed your home? Remember that his does not take into account that the farmer may use this cow to make a living from milking or for production of beef - In any case someone has cost him a great deal of money.
Put yourself in his situation and then say that you are surprised that farmers get angry when their property is wantonly destroyed.
2007-12-22 00:07:20 · answer #3 · answered by organbuilder272 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
My Grandfather had a farm and he had cattle. I've been around a lot of farms that have had animals. I doubt very much that any farmer thinks of his cattle as pets. Cattle are money to the farmer, but it goes deeper than that. Most cattle farmers raise their own, so that means that they had Mama cow and Daddy cow on the farm. They take great pride in breeding sound cattle, and they should. It's a way of life that most likely was handed down to them. It's a hard life and doesn't earn much respect...especially these days.
I know a farmer who has cattle and for 53 years he was unable to take a vacation because there was no one reliable enough to look after the farm. Imagine that.
It's not the cow that matters. It's not even the money you'd be taking from him...and thereby the food out of his children's mouths. It wouldn't be that you are killing the animal he raised from an infant and that he watched grow and thrive. It wouldn't be that you just made all his time, effort, hard work, blood and sweat be buried in the ground. It wouldn't even be that you made the cow suffer for no reason....
It's that you would be attacking, unprovoked, his way of life and all that he stands for. It would be that you came in without warning or reasoning and disrespected him enough to not just do something stupid like knock over his garbage cans, but to actually kill. It would be the idea that you don't have to answer to him and that he's not important, what he does is not important. That you don't understand him and that you think so little of him.
About the remark he made about not involving the Sheriff...I wouldn't take that literally. Most likely they wouldn't involve the Sheriff, but no one would go missing. The farmer would want you to know that whatever happened to you was a result of what you did to him...that he wasn't going to take it. He would want to "teach you a lesson".
2007-12-21 17:36:27 · answer #4 · answered by heathrjoy 4 · 7⤊ 0⤋
Farmers are independent people and their cows are their money. Shooting one is like someone going to your bank and emptying YOUR account when it is not insured (it isn't worth it to insure cattle) and then only getting a slap on the wrist for doing it. You lose your money you have been saving and the criminal gets community service.
In reality it probably wouldn't happen the way the farmer suggested. But some of the old type farmers are still there, so it could.
Its not a pet thing or an attachment thing like it is with horses. A farmer does not love his cows (or even really like them a lot for most farmers) They enjoy the breed and enjoy raising them, but a farmer does not become attached to his cattle. If he did he could not bear to sell them.
2007-12-22 01:19:15 · answer #5 · answered by Jeff Sadler 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
That is the most idiotic question I have ever seen. First off you shouldn't shot any animal. Yes I know there are those that kill deer but, that doesn't make it right. As for a cow that is someones personal property. They are expensive and the biggest part is they have feelings just like humans.
Joking about something like that is stupid and you deserve the punishment coming just for saying it. Sounds like you are the one that has the problem not the farmer.
2007-12-22 04:41:38 · answer #6 · answered by Animal Lover 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i live in the middle of farm country. I clean a dairy barn with my skidsteer occasionally and buy hay from beef farmers. rarely, but sometimes an animal is found shot from a hunting accident or worse.
the sheriff is called first to gather evidence. if some farmers caught you in the act they may return fire but very very few.
i don't allow anyone to carry loaded firearms on my property and don't like to see anyone near my horses with firearms, they are about the same with their livestock.
someone was probably having a little fun scaring a dummy.
if you go to a corporate farm and start shooting things the consequences may be more serious like that, i know very little about the actual security measures there but they are not ran by farmers anyway.
that 500 piece of meat could be more like a 2-6 thousand dollar cow or bull, a 400 lb dairy calf is worth around 1500.
2007-12-21 23:01:52 · answer #7 · answered by Michael 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
A farmer's/rancher's cattle are their livelihood. Without these cattle, their business will take a blow. Think of it this way..if each cow represented a considerable amount of money (both in already invested/spent amounts and in future profit) each cow that was shot and killed would mean the owner would have to "eat" their investment. NOT cool. If the cows are beef cattle, a dead cow wouldn't be able to be processed for its worth in meat (slaughterhouses only take animals that are living). Even if they could haul the dead cow to a rendering plant (think, dog food) the amount they'd get for the meat would be peanuts compared to the amount they could get if the cow had be alive, fully fattened up and sold for their weight. Likewise for a dairy cow (no cow, no milk..or no bull..no future breeding with the cows..no milk..etc).
I could go on and on, but I think I've explained my point pretty well.
2007-12-23 19:29:39 · answer #8 · answered by :-) 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A farmer's cattle is how he earns a living, each cow is worth it's weight in gold. In some countries farming does not provide a big income for farming families anymore because of importing meat etc. so everything counts for both well-off and not so well-off farmers.
2007-12-22 07:15:07 · answer #9 · answered by moodymare 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Ask yourself would a city person take it personally if someone blasted their car with a shotgun? Then go on and assume that there is no motive for it. (Like if you had a good motive, it would be all right?) If you don't own a car, substitute "pet" for "car." If you don't have a pet, substitute, I don't know, "front door" for "car."
You should educate yourself on the value of "life." If you don't think cattle are that important, then at least educate yourself on the value of "property." Particularly other people's property. Sheesh!
As for "missing and never found," farmers tend to have land and big farm equipment. A bunch of city kids could just disappear in a deep hole and be good fertilizer for the next crop of corn.
(Is this person for real?)
2007-12-21 17:02:53 · answer #10 · answered by driver 2 · 7⤊ 0⤋
That cow is an investment that farmer hopes to sell and make a profit from. He bought the cow for so much, fed it with his hay and hopes to sell the cow for some what more than he has tied up in the cow. A person can go to jail for shooting or stealing a farmers cow. That is if the sheriff finds the shooter before the farmer finds the shooter.
2007-12-21 17:00:20 · answer #11 · answered by david d 5 · 9⤊ 0⤋