There is this cow at an apple orchard near me, they got him & 4 goats & chickens before Haloween of last year as a petting zoo type of attraction. They were all babies then but they are growing fast. They have since gotten rid of the chickens though.
The 5 of them are all crowded in a fenced in area that is about 20'X20'. Its about the size of 2 of those common chain link dog pens you see often.
The cow is too tall to fit into the little veal type cow houses that they have for their shelter. He has been too tall for a month or so now. And the size of the encolsure is not nearly big enough for them all to live comfortably in & in peace.
I have been feeling so bad for him, stuck in that tiny area with the rambuncious goats litterally climbing all over home & he can't get out of the cold rain & snow & winds either. So I called animal control to find out what the regulations were for keeping farm animals.
There are NO laws stating they need shelter and the only law about the size of the enclosure is that they have to have enough room to stand up, turn & lay down in. I couldn't believe it. I know they are "only" farm animals but I would think they would need shelter of some sort.
What makes it weird is that my ex's parents bought a piece of land about 5 years ago and they built a house on it. They were renting a farm house while their was being built. Things were going slower than they thought & were forced to move into the house before the barn was built. They had some farm animals & a pasture already done so they moved them in as well. They were in the process of bui,ding a barn but the town told them they had to have shelter before the animals moved onto the property. Because of the confusion he was lucky, he still had to go to court to fight them from taking the animals but he did got the town to give him a week to build the barn before they would fine him or take the aniamals away.
I wonder if that was just the towns rules (as they live in a different town than this cow lives in but AC didn't ask me what town I was reffering to). Or a way for the government/state/whatever to screw people out of more money or what.
Does your area have any regulations on farm animals? Like shelter or size of pasture?
UPDATE:
I was driving home from work yesterday & the cow is gone! I drove by again on my way to work & the cow is still gone. They did ask me on the phone where the cow was that I was reffering to. The goats were still there though but I am not too worried about them, they can get in & out of the weather & are also small goats so although the area could be bigger it is bigger than some pastures I have seen for goats.
I don't know if this is just a coinicidence or if they lied to me or if they found some other problems too.
I am driving by the humane society on my way home to see if by chance the cow is there.
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This rule is one that I've gone beyond breaking.
) and I rarely see shelter for the cattle. Other farm animals generally do seem to have shelter though.
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