10th July Mr Larkin has fourteen animals on his property seven cows and seven babies he informed me he lost one of the twins.He said he was still on track to only having his seven babies by October and come February would only have six heifers on the property as he only had six that were old enough that he could impregnate this year so when they gave birth there would only be twelve all together. I said unless they all had twins and he Laughed and said I wish. I have closed this case as he is only two baby animals over, but will be monitoring him over the next twelve months.

Mr. Larkin called 6th June and talked to me about his violation he informed me that he farmed a total of fifty (50) acres although the land wasn’t contiguous which was causing him these problem, as his calves were under four (4) months and two (2) more of his heifers had given birth so he now had a total of 26 large animals on this small piece of property. He informed me he had already moved the horses onto another piece of property which was two (2) acres, he also moved his bull. He asked if he could keep his nursery until the calves were four (4) months old with their mothers, he said that four (4) of the calves were almost there now they only had a couple of weeks and he would separate the mothers from the babies and move the cows from the property on to another piece of his property. And then the newly born calves and their mothers as soon as they reached four (4) months would also be moved. He also said that he would only keep a maximum of twelve (12) animals at any one time on the three acres after that if I could only work with him until he could separate his herd it would help him out. As he had moved four (4) of the animals already three horses and one bull, he would be moving another eight (8) animals in two weeks which would leave him a total of fifteen (15) large animals once the last heifer gave birth. He wanted to keep at least seven (7) of the calves as they were female together and would use the three (3) acres as his nursery in future as they were close to his home and he could keep an eye on the birthing process and the first few hours after the cows had given birth. He would make sure that there would be only a maximum of twelve animals at one time after that. I did allow him the time as the fifteen (15) livestock included seven (7) cows eight (8) calves (one cow had given birth to twins) under four months old and as animal control does not count animals under the age of four (4) months. I also informed Mr. Larkin that I would be monitoring him, he said “that’s fair”. As soon as the calves were four (4) moths old he needed to move them and by the time October came along as he wanted to keep this property as his nursery he should have only a maximum of twelve (12) animals at one time. He agreed.

Tuesday 5th June, Received a phone call from Commissioner Gibson asking me to explain the notice I sent to the Larkin Land Company. I explained that in an Agricultural property allows property owners to operate a Livestock feed lot from September 15th through April 15th. After that there can be only four (4) large animals per dedicated acre unless the property owner has 5 acres or more and is a dairy farm and as this property owner only had three (3) and a quarter acres he could not have twenty four (24) large animals on the property. Commissioner Gibson understood but was very concerned about the welfare of the farmer, he said that he was a dairy farmer that was struggling to make ends meet and he had put his animals on one small piece of property that he owned, or his company owned to grow feed on the other pieces to be able to sell a little of the overage to carry his company through this year. He also said sometimes bureaucracy gets in the way of farmers trying to make a living. He understood the need for the ordinance and he would never personally put so many animals in such close quarters as he didn’t think that it was good animal husbandry but he also said that desperation to save our way of life makes us do strange things. He said that Mr. Larkin would be calling me and asked me if I could work with this farmer. I informed him that I would as long as the ordinances were being followed, that I could not over look a violation once it had been brought to my attention. He acknowledged that I had a job to do but asked me to be gentle. I said I would.