Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Oklahoma Cattle Rustling at all-time high

here they usually forge sale paper work.....branded cattle do change hands and you just get basically a sales reciept saying it was sold to you....with this you can then also sell the cow at a sale barn.....least thats one of the last guys up here did with the ones he didnt butcher himself and then sell the meat.....

I can see how they'd be worth stealing. Beef is getting so expensive that my family is getting priced out of eating it.

when the girls were in the house we would buy it by the half.....just bought a quarter of a 4-H steer a few weeks ago....as much as i like wild game, i also like our local prairie raised beef....

Where's Tom Horn when you need him?

Setting aside the fact that "ION" rustlers are thieves, I reckon they are damn good cowboys. Too bad they can't make a good enough living to suit them on the square.

P.S. When they get caught, I'll take their horses. What do you say, Sammo?

I've got some "neighbors" - been seen @ 2AM pulling trailers.
They both should be gunshot victims. There are places, even the crows wouldn't find a body.

Mark

Where in the hell is TOM HORN when ya need him???

Really? Lots of stockmen around here brand. There are also a lot of guys out at night messing with their cows. Years ago a local prankster called my Uncle up about 2am and said his cows were all out. He and my other Uncle spent the rest of the night out looking for them. Turned out they were laying down in this pasture just out of eyesight. The guy who called knew that. Lots of reasons to be out herding cattle at 2am.

Maybe I spent too much time in the milk barn?

All my buddies that run momma cows back home and over here just ear tag.

LOL! Milk makes malts. The DQ rocks.

What is your intentions Rooster? You think one on four is a dog's fall?

...shoot the horse??

If you leave them thieves out there walking, theyll think twice. Long way to wherever.

Then surround them. And brand them with the scarlett thief letter.

You can have the mares, I dibs the geldings....grin

It's probably a regional thing.

Pretty much everybody around here brands their cows and calves.

What happens when a cow loses her ear tag(or someone cuts it out)? Zero way to identify.


We always have a couple slick calves in the Fall though. Little 500 acre pasture close to home where we will turn out a few late calvers in the Spring. They calve out in the pasture and we brand the calves this time of year.


Yesterday we sorted up a few yearlings and found 3 slicks. Took a minute to remember why they didn't have a brand.

i do believe Montana law says you have to brand doesnt it?

Most people that have more than a few brand! In Oklahoma

I can empathize with you.

I assure you, there are things you could do to make your hunting friends not want to be on your property. Sad to say, but if they lost dogs whenever they came on your property, I'm guessing they wouldn't be wanting to come on your property a whole lot longer.

I wouldn't shoot a dog based on the owner's actions unless it was harming my livestock or something of that nature.

But, I have taken care of a frequent trespass problem by catching one, and holding him at gunpoint until the sheriff's dept. arrived and he was taken to jail and booked for criminal trespass. When you have them on your posted private property when the deputy arrives, it is pretty hard for them NOT to take the guy to jail.... Further, once word of that got out, the trespassing problem dropped to zero.

No, you don't have to brand, but you do have to abide by brand laws, meaning you have to get an inspection to move cattle across county lines, sell etc.

We have a couple registered brands. Up until the past few years, we would only brand the heifer calves we planned on keeping as replacements. Recently, we have been leasing a little more pasture further away from home so we are branding everything now.

When I lived in eastern Montana rustling was a big problem.

There were a few guys that everyone knew was a thief but not much could be done until they were caught. This is big country, and as the story RE rustling in the ION area, these guys were born and raised there and knew the country really well.

Sheep thefts were the big issue then for a number of reasons. Paint brands were easy to clip out and groups of sheep could be easily handled by a guy with a dog or 2. A good dog can load a group of sheep in a trailer parked alongside a tight fence pretty easily.

Also similar to the Oregon rustling story, the history of that area was rife with stories of guys who got their stake stealing mostly horses. Cowboys used to ride north into Canada and gather horses, drive them south to Miles City and sell them. Then the enterprising buggers would steal horses from down in the Yellowstone Valley and drive them back up north to sell them there. Crossing through their home area, but like a coyote, didn't do much thieving in their own back yard.