Cattle Rusting Troubles
Cattle Rusting Troubles. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Today we begin a series of shows that highlight a growing problem of the cattle industry here in the west. You might know that I’m a big fan of Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and John Wayne...and one of the popular themes in their movies was cattle rustling. Jack Field is the Executive Vice-President of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association.
FIELD: Obviously as we see dramatic increases of value as producers have been able to enjoy this past fall through the marketings with the short supplies due to the weather issues in the southwest and other factors that have combined, it certainly adds dramatically more value to the value of cattle and calves and as a result whenever there’s an opportunity to profit; and I think that’s across the board in anything there’s always that increased potential for theft and other nefarious activities.
The theft of cattle has a very long and often times colorful history. In the U.S. a person of steals, raids or rustles cattle is called a rustler but in Australia it’s called “duffing” which makes the person a “duffer.” Field says that there is one thing producers need to do to help quell rustling.
FIELD: To identify that with a brand. That’s one of the things in Washington State we are a brand state here in the west. We’re very fortunate to have a brand program that we do at every change of ownership it’s the responsibility of the owner or that individual that’s presenting the animal for sale to prove ownership on that animal.
Field explains how the process works.
FIELD: The way that’s done is through a brand inspection and a livestock inspection to insure that the individual presenting that animal has clear title and ownership to it so they are legally able to sell the animal and then receive the proceeds. In the event that an animal is sold, say at a public livestock market and through the inspection process that ownership has been disputed - if say for example you had an animal with an “M” brand on the right hip for the Martin ranch and I stole that animal, ran it through the sale, I had my name on the hall slip to get the proceeds from the animal I didn’t legally have of yours the brand program would check to see - now wait a minute, we see another brand on this and noticed Jack didn’t have a brand inspection.
If I hadn’t sold that animal, I would then receive the proceeds from the sale. Tomorrow we will talk more about how important the brand is in protecting your animals from rustling. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
