# CATTLE RUSTLERS



## cmjust0 (Aug 12, 2009)

So, a buddy of mine works one day a week at a stockyard in North Central Kentucky..  A guy -- a kid, really -- whom is often seen at that particular stockyard pulls up with two fat, slick cattle that looked to be heavy bred..

He normally hauls trashy killers from one yard to another trying to turn a buck..  Red flag #1.

So, my buddy asks why his cows didn't have mud on them like usual...  Kid stammers and says the owner had them up in a barn..  Indicates that he's just hauling for another guy.

My buddy asks for the owner's info for the paperwork..  Kid stammers that he didn't know the address, and just to put a city name down and he'd take care of it later...but make the check payable to HIM.

Buddy asks how he wants them sold...preg checked, or pounders.  The kid doesn't know what the guy wanted done with them...asks my buddy if he thinks they look bred.  

Uh..._yeah._

He agrees to go ahead and have them preg checked and sold as replacements, then asks if my buddy if he thinks they'll bring at least $700/ea.

:/

Buddy said there were an awful lot of red flags going up, but he didn't have much to go on...until someone handed him a card with a name on it and said "You need to call this guy _right now_."

It happened to be a neighbor of ours.

Neighbor says he's got six cows gone...not escaped -- stolen -- because there apparently was a missing feed bucket, too.  Describes the cows right down to the colors of the eartags.

My buddy goes out to look and, sure enough, two of the six were standing in line to be sold.  Still had the eartags in!

They called the state police and waited...there were four other guys with the one who signed them in, all waiting for the sale so they could collect the check..  Instead, they all got arrested.  

The four ratted out the one on the spot, and he eventually confessed..  Even admitted stealing the neighbor's feed bucket, which was still in the trailer.  

What's scary is that this kid has been at my place twice trying to sell me stuff...showed up one day, right out of the blue, and told me he had a goat for sale.  He just noticed that we had goats and wondered if we wanted one more...like a door-to-door goat salesman.  We said no, and he proceeded to offer us a horse.  Um, no.  A few days later, he rode the damn horse to our house just to show him to us...

Idiot.

Scary though, to think that a stock thief sat in our driveway and eyeballed our herd..  Luckily, this punk also saw and heard the gigantic livestock guardian dog at the gate right by the house, barking his head off with giant shoestringy slobbers hanging out of his cavernous, powerful maw..



What's perhaps even scarier is that this kid actually worked at Bluegrass Stockyard, in Lexington, KY...  Chew on that for a minute.


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## big brown horse (Aug 12, 2009)

Wow, what a story!!  

That kid is addicted to something I'll bet.  To be that blatant and stupid enough to think nobody is paying attention.

Thank God for our livestock gurdian dogs hua? (Mine also produce shoestrings of slobber!)


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## amysflock (Aug 12, 2009)

Oh my gosh, how scary. One of my fellow Highland breeders is so concerned about rustlers he tatoos all animals, including his steers (he leases pastures away from his house) so if they do disappear and turn up at a sale yard, they can be identified. He told me, too, about a Mexican gang that'll pull up to gates with their slaughter truck, kill and gut the animals on site, and get away with the carcasses. Unbelievable.


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## cmjust0 (Aug 12, 2009)

bbh said:
			
		

> Thank God for our livestock gurdian dogs


Indeed.  The good thing about our place is that the gate to the barnyard is right by the driveway, so even if someone thought they'd just sneak up and shoot him, they'd almost have to realize what a racket it would make..

My wife and I were just talking about that, too..  She's not normally a gun-totin' kind of a gal, but if someone shot that dog?  Yeah...they'd be dead and buried in a shallow grave near the back fence by the time I got home from work..

She absolutely, positively  's that dog.  And so do I.  



			
				amy said:
			
		

> He told me, too, about a Mexican gang that'll pull up to gates with their slaughter truck, kill and gut the animals on site, and get away with the carcasses.


Jeez..  And here I thought it was just despicable that these low-life scumbags would steal the poor guy's _feed bucket_ as they walked off with about $7000 worth of his cattle..

But to steal, kill, and gut someone's stock on site and leave the offal for the owner to find...I just don't have the words...


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## cmjust0 (Aug 12, 2009)

Something I forgot to add was that my buddy is a retired LEO..  Everybody knows it, too, including the idiot kid who brought the stolen cattle to the sale.  He's trained to look for red flags, for pete's sake...after 25 odd years, he does it without even trying to do it.  It's who he is, at this point.

I asked my buddy if he knew what the penalty was for stealing livestock, as some of those laws go WAAAAAAY back on the books....  He said that as best he remembered, it was still on the books as a hanging offense.

Not that this stupid kid and his buddies are going to be hanged or anything, but...I sure hope the judge points that out in sentencing and lets the possibility linger for a few minutes before shuffling them off to the pokey.

I hope they're in a while, too..  If and when this moron gets out, he'll be met with cold steel if ever he decides to darken my doorstep again.  

Believe that.


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## ksalvagno (Aug 12, 2009)

That is a shame that that kid was doing that. Why don't they try honest work. Maybe help with hay baling or something. Do some real work for once in his life. I don't have a guardian dog but 5 dogs at the fence barking like idiots does keep people away from here.


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## cmjust0 (Aug 12, 2009)

He had a job.  He drove a decent little truck..  Made a few bucks on the side as a 'yard jockey,' buying killers at the big yards and driving them to different barns where there were less animals competing for bids.  

I think he just saw an easy target -- this was a "satellite" farm, if you will, a few miles from the owner's actual residence -- and thought everybody was dumb and slow enough that he'd get away with it.

He was a real idiot, though, I can tell you that just from the two brief interactions we had with him..  Even before all this happened, he'd already earned himself a moniker in our household:

"The s***head with the horse"

For instance, if my wife and I talked about getting more goats, I might say to her "Well, we could always call the s***head with the horse and see if he's got one"...then we'd laugh and laugh.. 

He seemed fairly harmless at that point, though..  :/


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## amysflock (Aug 12, 2009)

cmjust0 said:
			
		

> Something I forgot to add was that my buddy is a retired LEO..  Everybody knows it, too, including the idiot kid who brought the stolen cattle to the sale.  He's trained to look for red flags, for pete's sake...after 25 odd years, he does it without even trying to do it.  It's who he is, at this point.
> 
> I asked my buddy if he knew what the penalty was for stealing livestock, as some of those laws go WAAAAAAY back on the books....  He said that as best he remembered, it was still on the books as a hanging offense.
> 
> ...


I believe it's still a hanging offense in WA State, too.


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## ksalvagno (Aug 12, 2009)

I guess that is where having a conscious comes in. Too many people looking for easy money.


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## jhm47 (Aug 12, 2009)

We also have a case of rustling going on in our area.  One of my older sons classmates had taken in a fairly large herd of cows on shares.  The owner of the cows is a guy who I went to high school with many years ago.  The owner has MS, and is a banker.  He doesn't walk well any longer, and has a lot of trouble getting in and out of his pickup.

Well, the kid had kept the cattle for 3 years, and everything seemed to be going OK.  In March, the owner came to see his cattle, and they were all missing except for 17 head.  Cows, calves, yearlings, and bulls.  All missing.  175 head of cows, all the calves from last year, and his bulls.  Estimated value----300,000+!  The kid admitted that he had sold them, but will not say to whom.  I have talked to him several times (he's out on bail), and he seems to be afraid of something.  In my opinion, he got in with a bad crowd, and they took the cattle and have threatened him with whatever.  It appears to me that this kid may be going away for awhile, and the masterminds that concocted the crime will get away scot free.

I'm not defending the kid, but I hate to see him ruin his life when the others get away.  Obviously he could have not done this in his own, and there has been several other strange events that have happened to others lately too.


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## ohiofarmgirl (Aug 13, 2009)

amysflock said:
			
		

> cmjust0 said:
> 
> 
> 
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i was just about to ask about this.... wow wont he be surprised. 

lock the gate and let the dogs loose!


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## cmjust0 (Sep 4, 2009)

Well...I saw the little punk at the grocery store the other day.  My guess would be that he's out on bail, awaiting trial or something.

I didn't bother to ask.

In fact, when I saw him sitting there, I shot him the most passive-aggressively disgusted look I could muster and tried thereafter to pretend he didn't exist.

He should be in jail...why's he in our little town's grocery store, not five miles from my barnyard?!?


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