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pics: What to do: Landlord cows in corn
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nar
Posted 11/23/2012 22:26 (#2713384 - in reply to #2711886)
Subject: Clarifications and such


Wyoming
Well thanks to the guys with helpful comments and suggestions. I really don't think we would get anything out of asking him for damages but we are planning to show him the yield map that shows the damage anyway.

martin - 11/23/2012 04:57

Just some questions here. I suspect that I know the answers, but I am going to ask anyway.....

any wording in the contract regarding keeping cows off the crop land?

any wording in the contract regarding damages to the crop?

edit: I think Deereman has the right way to handle it. If you do that, I think I would include a copy of the yield map you show here, complete with a description spelling out what it shows.


The contract states cows allowed on to graze stalks after harvest is complete and to be removed when we request in the spring to start farming. Nothing about damages, never thought it would be necessary but guess we were wrong.

garvo - 11/23/2012 05:19

will you have proof with your pictures-but you fail to say how much rent-personally-I would pay him and forget it-your chasing doughnuts!
Well that was the way we were leaning but so many older guys here told us we should do something about it. Seems simplest to us to just pay him and not go back there. The main thing that made us so mad was the lack of caring/respect when he said "that's the way she goes, I heard it was a bad corn year".

redoak - 11/23/2012 05:29

Maybe just go with a credible witness and explain yield loss with the field map and ask how he would like to settle this up .
That was actually what the insurance adjuster suggested when we gave him our yields.

jonas grumby - 11/23/2012 05:45

why didn't you go harvest the corn as soon as guy called and said hey you should come and combine the corn? Why didn't you at least go and look at the field when you were told there were cows out in the field. If I was called and told there were cows in my field I sure as heck would have been there in the next 30 minutes (figure I could drive the 20 miles in 30 min) but you decide to not go and look at the field for 4 days? Your combine breaking down is not landlords problem.

What would the corn have yielded if you would have combined it and hour after the landlord called? I say any damage done after an hour after landlord called is as much on you as on the landlord. The moisture is 14.5%. Surely you could have combined it earlier.

When someone calls and says they got out but doesn't seem concerned you assume he meant he put them back or else he would be saying something like "hey come help me get them back in". He never said they were STILL OUT. The corn was 20 moisture the day before. Dryers are not a HERE thing. Until I got on agtalk a few years ago I had never even heard of drying corn. The feedlot we were selling it to wants it 15 and under for bins with no airation at all. What would you suggest, we just dump it there anyway? So for here the moisture was way high when we checked it and perfect when we combined it. We were busy with harvest already sunup to sundown, he called after dark and it sounded like they weren't a problem now and he was just wanting it out sooner so his cows could stay out there eating the stalks. Based on that we didn't see a reason to run over just to say yep they had been out and now weren't. I never said my combine breaking down was his problem just that it made the field take a couple days longer to combine and the 6 bales of hay he could have fed then would have saved my brother a hell of a lot of money.

When our cows get out we put them back in and feed them more so they stay in. If they were on the neighbor's we call the neighbor and apologize and if the cows messed up a hay pile or crop we offer to make it right. Guess we were just raised wrong, trying to take responsibility for our animals. Or let's put it another way, if we had wrecked into his pivot then he would expect us to apologize and fix it. And we would, because that's what is right. I would feel terrible about causing that much damage to someone else's stuff.

iseedit - 11/23/2012 07:59
If I was in the middle of harvest, I would assume you would take care of your cattle . . .
If I was just waiting around for others cows to get out - then, I'd offer to help you get your cattle out of my corn.
There are situations, where things happen, and assumptions are made, that the situation will be corrected, while life goes on - It really appears the landowner is at fault . . .
If the land owner would have called back and indicated, he couldn't get the cows out of the field and needed help - bring the combine. That'd be far different and the needs of harvest rush would then move to that field 20 miles from home . . .
The amount of time is more proof the landowner really wanted to take advantage of the situation.
Good neighbors (reguardless of distance) would do what ever is neccessary to correct situaitons and problems . . . . . .

Good post, pretty much what we were thinking. He didn't indicate he needed help, just sounded like he wanted to get them on the stalks rather than feed them. We were in full harvest mode already.

garvo - 11/23/2012 08:16

And then again there was alot of corn that didnt make 50bushel?-hopefully your brother and you are better operators then your question-wow and a yield map-
Not entirely sure what you are saying here? The heavy pivot ground here did 130-170 and that's what this was so that was why we expected at least 120. Since it did that last year with a bad stand and had a better stand and looked better all year it seemed reasonable. Sandy light pivot ground, which most of mine is, went 110-140, just couldn't keep it wet enough. Even with pivots rain is needed. Flood irrigated was 0-80 depending how heavy and how well it irrigated, everything my brother had irrigated hard and had to be irrigated up so most of it was chopped. Lots of guys this year just insurance farmed their flood ground, ran water on it once and then collected insurance. We, being stupid young guys that were raised to try our hardest to grow a crop, ran like mad all summer irrigating and still netted way way less than the guys that got paid 7.50 insurance price for doing very little. Non irrigated here is called pasture or bare dirt. Some wheat guys south of us have dryland wheat and it makes 15-25. Where we are is too dry.

hinfarm - 11/23/2012 08:22

The landlord should have no say when the corn is taken off unless it is stated in the contract. Heck the OP could have left it stand till March if he wanted too. Bottom line is the landlords cattle shouldn't have been in that corn field and the landlord did almost nothing to get them out of there other than call the OP to tell him to get his corn out of his way so he could shag them in with the ATV. Had the LL had a good fence and feed the cows would have no reason to be in there. If you see it differently please let me know where your fields are so I can drop some cattle off, I'd love to be able to cut my feed bill around here.
Good post. Funny enough the guy we sold the corn to was telling me when this landlord used to farm here he was one of the guys that left his corn into next year before combining it.

play in the dirt - 11/23/2012 08:54
I'm with you jonas grumby. When I read this I new what I would have done and nothing the LL said makes me assume he got his cattle out. What I get from it, he isn't going to/be able to get the cows out. Since we're all assuming around here....I'm going to assume the OP planted the corn too close to the fence and the cows started leaning on it which makes it very difficult to keep any cow in.

Besides...if the LL was such a bad guy that the OP tries to make him sound like......HE WOULDN'T HAVE CALLED!
Honestly I think he called because he didn't want to feed them and he wanted to leave them out on the stalks. He didn't say "BRING THE COMBINE EMERGENCY" he said it like he just wanted to not have to keep the cows out. When told that the corn was too wet he didn't say anything else that indicated they were still out there. The fence is 700 feet from the field. Also between the field and the fence is a river/irrigation canal with trees along it. The cows couldn't even see the corn, but they were out there last year on the stalks. Last year he didn't put them in the pasture next to the corn until we were done combining so they just went from the pasture right to the corn field. Seems they wanted to do that again when he didn't feed them.

His neighbor on the other side of this field HAS penned up and sold horses and cattle that were out on his place for months. Some were this landlords. So that guy claims anyway...

hillfarm91 - 11/23/2012 11:15

Is it a MULTI YEAR contract ? If so and you really want to rent it. Irragated is hard to come by. Possibly see if he would reduce rent for damages next year or two for damages. Then put up a HOT wire . He may be mad because he couldnt get the cows out and you didnt come and help. Your lucky to find them in a corn field without driving through it and doing more damage. DId he graze the stock fields after harvest? Would be hard to adjust now. Should have been handled sooner. My insurance has covered damages his should, if he has any. If you rent it again make him get liability for next time it happens.
It was a 2 year, this was the second year. When he called day after we were done my brother suggested that they make a deal on rent for next year for the damages and that was when he hung up on brother. Brother doesn't really want to lose irrigated ground but it may not be worth going back there again with this kind of situation. He never sounded like he wanted help, he had a bunch of family there helping at the time, if he had said they were still out and he needed help we would have went. Since he gave the impression they were contained we kept combining other fields.

Guernseyfitter - 11/23/2012 11:06

I also would have been there every day a few times a day if i have time to make sure there staying out. Also i would been in there harvesting long before it got to 14%, how much of that yeild lost is from header shelling?
Everything here is combined under 15.5 except when the one feedlot does high moisture at 22-40. We are used to setting the heads and combines to run dry corn. There is some head loss but not near what some guys that do it all at 22 assume when you are used to always doing it this way. The short day varieties we plant don't seem to shell in the head bad until under 10. Generally we get it all in the 12-15.5 range. So we kept working on the stuff that was 15 so we could hit that field when it was 15 and it was just right when we got there.

mac4440 - 11/23/2012 12:00

Don't know how your contract is written, but if you haven't been told otherwise this late in the year, you probably have the right to farm it next year.......
They say January x year to January y year. No autorenewal or anything that really says we get to farm it again unless we do another contract far as I see. Been wondering lately if I should have the lawyer look over our contracts and see what he would add but hate to get lawyers involved in anything.

BALZY - 11/23/2012 17:51

Guess I'm old fashioned. If I had rented the farm, I'd have some kind of relationship with the guy. Would have offered to come help get the cows out and help fix the fence,because I would be hoping to
rent the pasture as soon as he no longer wanted to use it. A lot of guys push snow and other things as extras for LL, fence fixing's same thing. You make him sound like a crook, where I can picture him a worn out old fellow that's still wanting to be in the game. I'd say go see him, say you want to settle up on the rent and ask if he'd consider cutting the rent some to offset your yield loss. Things are better face to face, but be respectful. If he says "nuthin'doing" you'll know you don'y want the place again.

Well we thought we had a relationship with him, hadn't had any problems before. If he had made it sound as if the cows were still out we would have offered to help but it sounded as if they were contained. And he has a bunch of rodeo grandkids hanging around there that would much better be able to get cows rounded up than we would. But when he said "that's the way she goes" then we knew he didn't really care about it.


I also have a field I rent from a rancher that keeps cows right next to the pivot. The fence is so close that I water some of the grass in the pasture so the cows stand within 10 feet of the corn all year. They feed the cows in there once the grass gets down a bit and not once have they gotten out in my crops.

Here at home we have 2 miles of pasture fence alongside our pivots. When the cows start crawling the fence we fix it and start feeding them more because the pasture is depleted. It's just part of having cows, you feed them because otherwise starving cows WILL find their way to feed. There is no barb wire fence built that will keep hungry cows in.
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