# Does your state or county have a minimum fencing standard?



## greybeard (Jun 29, 2012)

I hope this doesn't violate any rules. I re-read the rules on politics and proposed legislation/petitions and didn't think this fell under either, so I put it here. 

Fencing in Texas.
I was just curious, as I have always heard so many myths and 'rules of thumb' type things, so I looked into what my state has to say about it, and to be honest, I was really surprised to find 'not all that much'.  We do all need to keep our fences in good repair, so I will say a "few"  words about what Texas law seems to say on the matter. (gonna be a long read......)

Every livestock owner dreads the thought that one of their animals might get harmed by geting out, or worse, cause damage to a neighbor's property or be hit by a motorist on a road or highway. Laws vary from state to state, county to county--precint to precint and if my state is any indication, the laws pertaining to livestock and fencing are vague and ambiguous at best, but the chance of being involved in legal problems is always there, lurking in our minds.  I will leave it to others to post the statutes of their own state if they wish--or links to them, but will endeavor to post those of Texas here, keeping in mind that _No wall can be built of a height around the field of law that can keep the lawyers inside and the laymen outside_.  



This will sound convoluted, but the statute law is as well--as you will soon find. And there are 2 kinds of law in Texas.
1. Statute--equals criminal=felony
2. Common law=civil (most of the time) 
Here's the Texas fence law regarding what kind of fence is required--and it is the ONLY fence description on Statute in the State.:



> b)  In order to be sufficient, a fence must be at least four feet high and comply with the following requirements:
> (1)  a barbed wire fence must consist of three wires on posts no more than 30 feet apart, with one or more stays between every two posts;
> (2)  a picket fence must consist of pickets that are not more than six inches apart;
> (3)  a board fence must consist of three boards not less than five inches wide and one inch thick;  and
> (4)  a rail fence must consist of four rails.


That's minimum. Sounds simple again, and this is the description most in Texas pull out when asked, but they would be 100% wrong. Why? Because this is what that sub-section says beforehand:



> Sec. 143.028.  FENCES.  (a)  A person is not required to fence against animals that are not permitted to run at large.  Except as otherwise provided by this section, a fence is sufficient for purposes of this chapter if it is sufficient to keep out ordinary livestock permitted to run at large


IOW, this is the minimum a land or property owner should have to keep OTHER people's livestock OUT of their property, and there are lines and lines of text telling Texans what they need and whatthey can and cannot do in regards to keeping livestock OUT, but only a few short blurbs about keeping your own stock IN. 
There is no standard fence in Texas statute.

It does go on to say that no fence may exceed 3 miles straight run along a roadway without a 10' unlocked but latched gate. This is so the landowner can run other people's livestock OUT.
The law also expounds on when and how you may disconnect from a fence you share with a neighbor--you are to give 6 months notice before doing so.  IOW, if your fence joins his at a corner or property line, you can't take your fence down without prior notification. (I didn't know this) 


Texas, for the most part, is regarded as an open range state, even tho less than 25 of it's 234 counties are "officially" open range. 
Even the state AG in 2003 stated that Texas was still open range. With only 23 of the counties being officially open range--how could that statement be true?  It's easy, but not simple. The state's statute law is fairly simple and is found in the Texas Agriculture Code. It has 2 restrictive parts to it.

1. Texas Agriculture Code--Sec. 143.102.  RUNNING AT LARGE ON HIGHWAY PROHIBITED.  A person who owns or has responsibility for the control of a horse, mule, donkey, cow, bull, steer, hog, sheep, or goat may not knowingly permit the animal to traverse or roam at large, unattended, on the right-of-way of a highway. Sec. 143.101.  DEFINITION.  In this subchapter, "highway" means a U.S. highway or a state highway in this state, but does not include a numbered farm-to-market road.  The term includes the portion of Recreation Road Number 255 that is located in Newton County between State Highway Number 87 and the boundary line with Jasper County.

Sounds simple enough? No--it isn't. No state statute addresses the over 90,000 miles of Farm to Market, County, and town or city roadways. That brings us to the 2nd restriction to running at large livestock in Texas. Each county, with the exception of Andrews, Coke, Culberson, Hardin, Hemphill, Hudspeth, Jasper, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kinney, LaSalle, Loving, Motley, Newton, Presidio, Roberts, Schleicher, Terry, Tyler, Upton, Wharton, or Yoakum county has the authority to vote in a stock law, preventing open range in all or part of that county.  The  Ag Code spells out how and even when a county may decide to enact a stock law.

Most Texas counties have a stock law, but they vary county to county and even differ regarding which livestock they cover.  You can find your county regulations at your county clerk's office, but be prepared to find a very vague law. Most that I viewed, were about like my own county and say something to the effect, that "Reasonable care and effort should be made to prevent the free roaming of livestock". Everyone i saw also allowed for only a misdemeanor fine should the county stock law be violated, and the words usually just say it is (paraphrased) "Unlawful to permit animals to roam at large and the owner must take reasonable care to ensure stock stays within it's confines".  The lawmakers realize that the old "grass is always greener" thing will always hold true and that no fence can keep in an animal that really really wants out, but we need to do our best nonetheless to ensure it happens as infrequently as possible.  That's why they put the "to permit" thing in. 

And, that's where we come in--the stock owners. We are expected, under common law and just good sense, to make reasonable care that we do not permit our stock to roam free.  We have a responsibility to our neighbors and their property to keep our stock where they belong.  So, how do we do it. Here's what the counties look for when deciding whether to access a misdemeanor fine or not:

1. Weak, damaged or downed fences.
2. Open or poorly secured gates.
3. Repairs, or lack therof to fences and gates.
4. Age of fence and gates.
5. Quality of material used in fence and gates.
6. Abscence of cattle guards at gates.
7. Abscence or presence of forage, feed, and water within the confinement.
8. Presence or evidence of presence of third parties who might have entered and left gate unsecured. (hunters)
9. Amount of traffic thru the gates.
10. Frequency of other loose livestock attributed to same owner.
11. Frequency of inspections to fences, gates, and livestock.
12.Actions or lack thereof by owner upon learning of loose livestock.

We should each routinely inspect all our fencing, our pasture condition, our livestock condition, do a headcount daily, and keep our fences and gates in good working order. This is especially true right after any high wind condition. My county keeps a list of all livestock owners  and their contact phone #s and I think that is a good idea as well. You won't always know when (if) your stock wanders out, and if someone calls one in to the conty, they start calling around to try to find the owner to let him/her know before they send out the county mounties. 

For Texans, here is where i got a lot of this info--and a whole lot more. it is written by lawyer types who deal with the livestock community. I found it insightful.
http://equinelaw.alisonrowe.com/uploads/file/Eyssen Stock Laws.pdf

The Texas Agriculture Code:
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/docs/AG/htm/AG.143.htm

Ok--that's Texas--any of the rest of you care to share what your state fencing laws may entail--or not entail?


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## Roll farms (Jun 29, 2012)

I haven't dug deeply into it, but here in IN, where Corn / Soybeans are king....Crop farmers could care less if their property line fencing is on the ground.

Our land (18 acres) borders a golf course in the back.  When we bought it, the East side had a new property line fence put up the entire length.  The back side my DH and FIL replaced themselves (at our expense b/c we wanted better fence than the existing busted up farm fence on that side).  The West side they repaired / strung new barbwire / hung no tresspassing signs on.

Our county office told us that fencing is 50/50 - ea. property owner pays half....but getting anyone to go in 1/2 w/ you on a new fence is next to impossible.

Hunters have *no* respect for fencing.  We have a 30' section of fence that just got cut out on the west side.  Literally, they cut the fence and left it lie on the ground so they could drag deer across from our property.  It's right under a tree stand.  BUT, ask the hunter sitting up in the tree stand, and he denies that he did it.  
There are 7 property owners along that side.  
Ask them to clean out their fence rows and you get either no response or cussed at and threatened and told to leave their property.

The fence on the west side is not maintained properly b/c - nobody cares if the fence is overgrown or not....or even if there IS a fence.
I can promise you that 6 of the owners have never even seen that fence.  They're city folk that moved out to the country, bought land, and live in the front, never leaving their manicured lawns.
The 7th owner has trees that have killed our goats and damaged our barns in storms, and took out our chain link along the driveway but won't do anything about it.  We've repaired the fence by the driveway 4x w/out asking him to help cover the cost.  The last time a tree landed on our side, he flatly refused to help cover anything.....Currently the fence is busted / twisted / just hanging there b/c my DH is so fed up w/ it he just can't see doing it again.

The 'new' fence that borders the golf course in the back has literally been tromped to the ground in multiple places.  Golfers climb it to get the golf balls that land over here.  We have tried putting up extra signs, hot wire (the golfers short it out) and you can't keep a dog back there b/c the dogs get on the golf course....b/c the fence is down.

We tried to get the golf course owner to pay half to repair / replace it w/ something the golfers couldn't tear down and he said no (and not very nicely), said he could care less if there's a fence there at all, and if we *force* him to, he'll only pay for 1/2 of the barbwire it'd take to legally be considered 'fenced'.

I clean our side out and use strong weedkiller around the perimeter every year, so that DH isn't smacked in the face by brush when he bushhogs.

You can politely inform people that it's their place to maintain something....and be ignored, cussed out (in front of your kid even), and still not have anything happen.

We've basically given up.  :/


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## greybeard (Jun 29, 2012)

It's situations like yours (Rolls Farm) that sometimes/kinda makes one wish there _was_ a more strict and enforceable fence law. (yeah--be careful what one wishes for) 

OTOH, you ought to be glad you don't have a 1900' long neighbor fence like I do along MY westernmost propery line. I've seen them exactly once in the last 5 years, and all they did was come and make sure their yellow and black "NOTICE-US NATIONAL FOREST Beyond this POINT"  signs were still up. (The signs point in my direction.)  My side of the fence is clean--theirs is just what one would expect in a primitive East Texas hardwood and pine forest--a tangle of trees, vines, yaupon and briars.  My other neighbors--my siblings-- are almost as bad--neither lives on that property and they just don't care. 



> I clean our side out and use strong weedkiller around the perimeter every year, so that DH isn't smacked in the face by brush when he bushhogs.


Well, bless your heart--wanna give my wife a call and talk to her? 
What herbicide are you using? Since I don't have an applicator's license, I use Remedy Ultra-$84/gal--an ester oil base systemic that takes out just about everything but yaupon and some stubborn vines. I go back over it a few weeks later with a generic glyphosate (Roundup type stuff) -$32/gal) mixed 2 qts to 25 gals--keeping the livestock off of it for 2 weeks afterwards. If I ever go get my applicator permit, I'm going to use Grazon Next on the fenceline and pasture for broadleaf control. Maybe Banvel every other year for pigweed control--wiped, not sprayed on. 

I wish I had a fast connection and internet provider so I could start a "How i took 60 acres away from the forest" type journal--it's been a tough job--and that was the easy part--taking it away from the forest. The forest always wants it back and it never sleeps.

Back to fencing....


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## ourflockof4 (Jun 29, 2012)

I have never looked into state reg's on fencing in Ohio, but the vast magority of townships have fence rules in there zoning ordanance. In my area, if you want your property fenced in it's all on you. Maintance is 100% on you. The fence is required to be X' off the property line so you can maintain both sides of your fence. Maybe it's just me, but if you choose to put up a fence why would you expect someone else to help pay for, or maintain it? If you and your adjancent owners both decide you want to install a fence and do it together, and both have livestock, then it should be maintained together. To me, that just seems like common sense. What if the hillbilly next door (I can say that because it's usually me) decides he wants to start raising rodeo bulls and needs a guardrail fence 6' high to keep them in, should you have to pay half of that? I sure wouldn't.

At least in Ohio, I can trim any part of a tree that hanges over my property. I can trim right along the line straight up if I want to. I'm sure most states are like that also.

As for the golf course, well that sucks. I hate it when poeple dont respect property lines. If it were me, I would have a 6 or 8 wire hi-tensile fence in that area with a VERY hot charger. I would also have no trespassing signs every 50'. I would then have anyone that got through that ticketed for trespassing. 

The deer hunter thing would really tick me off. I hunt myself, and would never do that. Some of them are just morons though with no respect for anyone else. In Ohio, it's illegal to hunt, track, or collect any game animal on anyones property without written permission. The game wardens in my area do strickly enforce that also. I would call them if you ever have that happen again. They should be able to pull up who tagged animals in that area and may be able to find who did it (if they legally tagged the deer.) They can make them pay to fix your fence, charge them with trespassing, charge them with poaching, and pull there hunting license.


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## greybeard (Jun 29, 2012)

I should have added the hunter, and police/fire personell entrance part to my initial post.

Up until a few years ago, if fire crews, utility crews or other "officials" had to break a lock or cut your fence to enter your pasture, it offered no protection from the "stock owner must not permit livestock to roam" thing. Due to fairly recent legislation, it does, providing you aren't aware they did the damage.  Same with hunters--if they cut your fence and you are unaware of it, you are not held responsible for their permitting your stock to roam freely, and in fact, they and their actions fall under other State felony statutes.  But again, once you are aware of the damage, case/common law requires you to take reasonable action to not permit your animals to roam freely.  

Another thing I found while researching Texas law was something called "Estray laws". If an animal (not yours) wanders into or breaks into your pasture, you may NOT keep or sell it. It must be (in a timely manner) reported to the proper authorities (usually county sheriff's dept) and they will take care of it. Anything otherwise is considered by law as theft.


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## Roll farms (Jun 30, 2012)

I get putting the 'new' fence up on 'your' side / maintaining it.  But the fencing around here is property line fencing.....put ON the line...why should I have to take care of both sides? 

What I don't get is why everyone doesn't keep their side up.  You 'own' the land....you should WANT to see / check on what's yours.....to my way of thinking, anyway....

I found some pics I took last summer....

Golf course....this is just a small section of it, but the entire line fence is like this.....and there are 10 "No Tresspassing" signs on the posts / fence.  We asked the owner to keep his golfers off and he says, "They're not supposed to cross the line....but how can I stop them?"  







The tree stand / missing fence section.....There's a "no hunting / no tresspassing" sign on the post in the middle.....






Did I mention I like to take LOUD morning gator rides around the property during hunting season?  *halo*


This is the 'good' side, where the neighbor on that side at least mows it 1x a year.






As for weedkiller, I mix glyphosate w/ Pramitol and use it at 3x the label rates.  As you can see by the brown / crispy grass.....it works.


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## greybeard (Jun 30, 2012)

RollFarms:

That's a shame about the golf course manager. I have a sister with property adjoining mine with the same attitude. I've come to expect nothing from them and am rarely disappointed. I take it you have no livestock in that area.
The wooded area with the treestand:
That, is the problem with allowing trees to stand on a fenceline. You can't easily maintain it, and little by little, creepers, vines, then shrubs, then more trees grow and it's soon a jungle and more of a barrier than a fence. I have an area along a couple of waterways like the that I'm working on, but it's slow a  process, labor intensive and I'm not getting any younger. 

What kind of sprayer do you use?
I reallly want to start a stand alone discussion on herbicide use, but from what I've seen, there isn't much appetite for it here--maybe because most are hobby farms with smaller acreage and no invasive plants.


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## jodief100 (Jun 30, 2012)

I don't know all of the details but here in Kentucky, you and your neighbor share the cost of a fence.  When you are looking at the border standing on your property, each of you are legally responsible for the right hand half of the fence.  I get reimbursed by the Commonwealth 50% for fence I put up for "agricultural purposes"  but I can only get money for fences on the right hand side.  The other half is not my responsibility so I can't get reimbursed.  


 That being said, my neighbor has falling down 2 strand barbed wire that won't contain his cows, let alone my goats.  I have been told by the Ag agent that technically, I can put up the fence I need and charge him for half, even take him to court.  I have no idea if this is true but I do not want to cause trouble with the neighbor.  He is a pain but doesn't cause any serious trouble.  My other neighbor is a really nice guy but all he does with his land is hunt on it.  So he doesn't care of there is a fence or not.  He didn't even get mad when my goats came over and cleaned out his deer feeders.  SO I out up the fences I need, get reimbursed for 25% of it and don't worry about it.  

If the neighbor's cows get onto my property, I have to inform him and if he has not removed them in 30 days, I can keep them.  

He came over and informed my my goats were on his place last summer.  I showed him his cows on mine.  He came over and fixed the fence, sort of.  He quit complaining about the goats when he realized that my goats were improving his cow pastures by clearing out the weeds.  

The only standards for fence is if I raise "exotic animals".  They have to be contained by 8' high fence of a certain standard.  That would be if I raised Bison, Emus, Giraffes, Lions or anything else "exotic".


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## Roll farms (Jun 30, 2012)

We have a 25 gallon ATV sprayer from TSC, "County Line" brand but I'm not sure who makes them for TSC, probably Fimco.

(I work at TSC for the discount....most of what we use comes from there....)

I posted a while back in my journal about using chemicals on fencerows and got a *crickets chirp* response....I think either most people don't maintain them or are against chemicals.  I don't LIKE using them, but I'm not going to let someone else's thistles and poison ivy take over MY land, either.

For years, probably 10, my FIL cleared out our fence rows to give himself something to do every summer.  We (DH and I)  both worked FT then and he was retired / bored.  
He passed away 3 yrs ago (but stopped being able to do the clearing 5 yrs ago) and it was A.Maz.Ing how fast the suckers / trees / vines, etc. came back w/out his attention.

Now that I'm semi-retired, I figure it's the least I can do around here, both to honor FIL's memory / hard work, and to help DH.

I've gotten almost everything cut and killed off along that woodsy side to at least 1' back off our side, but the following spring it all comes right back.  

It IS a neverending job trying to 'take from the forest'....

BUT, It's also peaceful, mind-clearing work.  As long as it's not 110 degrees, I enjoy doing it.


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## greybeard (Jun 30, 2012)

Roll farms said:
			
		

> We have a 25 gallon ATV sprayer from TSC, "County Line" brand but I'm not sure who makes them for TSC, probably Fimco.
> 
> (I work at TSC for the discount....most of what we use comes from there....)


TSC--You work there? Oh buddy ol pal ol friend of mine--what ya want for Christmas?  If I had a friend down here that worked at TSC, he could have my best dog, use my tractor and I might even throw in my wife. 

All I can say about TSC is that it is a good thing the nearest one is 50 mles round trip for me--otherwise, I'd be in there every day. BUT, I made the mistake--ONCE--of taking my better half with me. I went in to get a couple  tractor pins and 2 gal of Remedy Ultra--she went over to the clothing section.  The bill, after she loaded up with a pair of boots, 3 pair of Wranglers, and a bunch of shrits, and decorating doo dads was over $300. Never ever again. 

As far as the 25 gal sprayer, I probably have the same one--I bought mine there as well. Boomless sprayer and handheld wand. I made a rack for it on the back of my 4 wheeler, with 4 1/2 studs sticking up, then took an old garden disc that was no good, and made another matching rack from the disc's frame. I just undo 4 wing nuts on either rack, and I can switch from 4 wheeler to tractor in less than 5 minutes.  It's ugly, but it works. I need to put a longer hose on it tho.

The only thing I don't like about the bbomless is you can really adjust the spray pattern--it puts out too much unless you open the mixing bypass, then that cuts down on the width and the flow being reduced causes significant increase in droplet size.  I wish the diaphram pump could handle Remedy, which is  an ester oil base product, and the booklet says not to use petroleum products as a carrier--it damages the diaphram supposedly. 

I have a Stihl weedwhacker with a saw balde instead of string, and it works great on small stuff under the fencelines that I can't spray. (too close to watershed for my pond)  That sawblade attachment is a thing of destruction.

You know anything safe I can use on lilypads in my pond system?


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## Roll farms (Jun 30, 2012)

I use glyphosate in our ponds, but we don't have lilly pads so I can't swear it'd work on those.  
I noticed that our "Weedtrine" pond weed killer is glyphosate....so I started using it at the same rate as the "Weedtrine" bottle suggests, to kill pond weeds last year.  

Cattails and weeds in it and grass around it = TOAST.  The fish, frogs, and dragonflies are (seemingly) fine.

I'll go ya one better than saving by using glyphosate instead of weedtrine, too....we carry a product called Big and Tuff - 41% glyphosate -  that is the 'cheap' version of regular roundup....right?

Well, we have something else even cheaper, called Compare and Save concentrated grass and weed killer....41% glyphosate!  For 20$ a gallon.  Throw in my discount, and that's 17$ a gallon!

Granted glyphosate doesn't last long like Pramitol....but...it works for the pond and pasture fence just fine and dandy.

The sprayer we got has a boom, we've just never used it b/c I sold the 4-wheeler shortly after buying it.   
(Seriously, how many ride-on toys does one man need?  I put his 4-wheeler on C-list and had it sold in one day....)

I figure DH can rig up some way to attatch them to the gator if we ever need to.....I spray it all by hand.  We bought a 'better' hand sprayer to use b/c I have carpal tunnel and tendonitis so squeezing a trigger for hours locks my hand up.

I lack the female shopping gene that makes clothing shopping fun.  Animal accessories, yes....clothes / shoes / etc....Blech!

The closest I've ever come to quitting the store was when they wanted me to become *gag me* "clothing specialist".....  

I have a genormous set of Lopers I use to take out large branches / small trees / annoying children.  (just kidding about the children....sorta....)


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## greybeard (Jul 1, 2012)

My wife, up until last week--worked at Walmart------women's apparel.  I swear she spent more on clothes, even with her discount--than she made every week. 

I don't get enough rainfall here for Pramitol to work well, since it does most of it's work thru the root system, and relies on rainfall for it to be carried down to the roots.  
If, you are having trouble with tough or even woody plants coming back next spring, you might want to give Remedy Ultra a try. It's expensive--$87/gal at TSC, and needs to be mixed with diesel for it to work well, but it will kill most plants I have thru the foilage, and kills the roots as well. I can spray 3' tall Chinese Tallow with it one day, and 2 days later, it's as if autumn has arrived--3 days later, the leaves are all gone and a week later, trees 8" in diameter are dead. (On bigger stuff, I do the hack and squirt thing, cutting a frill on 3 sides of the trunk, then squirting about 2 ml into the frill. 
I have looked into what is called a HypoHatchet for the bigger tallow trees using Remedy Ultra. It is expensive, but 1 gallon of Rem Ultra will treat all my exterior fencelines and my 3 crossfences--about 4 miles of fence.

I have also used Crossbow, which is the same as Remedy Ultra + 2,4d--can't say i saw any difference tho. 

Now, since you work at TSC, you may be able to order Remedy--(not Remedy Ultra) The difference is, regular Remedy will mix with water--Remedy Ultra will not.  As soon as I get my applicator's lic, I will be using a lot of Grazon Next on the open pasture--with a weed wiper instead of a boomless sprayer. If I can't find a wiper locally, I will be going with Banvel--a broadleaf herbicide--to kill off some of the pigweed.


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