We are in Oregon. Here is the story, no personal information:
January 2018, the neighbor lady calls County Animal Control to accuse us of animal abuse and that our chickens come into her yard and defecate on the porch. Animal Control Officer subsequently visits us. ACO was allowed on the property to investigate. He found no evidence of abuse and stated in his report that “All of the animals appeared healthy”. He told us to keep our chickens in our yard. I agreed to make significant changes to the property to help keep them in. I also informed him about the neighbors feeding the animals and that they had not complained to us.
So after ACO left that day we cut off contact with all three of the.
After months of my wife and I obviously ignoring them, the neighbor lady’s son tries to get my attention while I am in the back yard. I ignore him completely. He yells louder and louder thinking I cannot hear him. I continue working in the yard. Frustrated, he walks around to our front gate, on our property, standing in front of our “No Trespassing” sign, and begins yelling at me again. He is getting angry now and is demanding to know why we are ignoring them. I made sure he understood how disappointed we were with their actions.
The neighbor lady then calls Animal Control to “talk to ACO about current events… Owners are becoming hostile”. Apparently they ignore her. A few weeks later in June the neighbor lady calls again, this time asking about “a farrier coming out”, ostensibly because she wants us harassed with another welfare check. On June 14, ACO finally talks to the neighbor lady who lies to him and says that I threatened her son while he was in his own yard. She revised the story to make me the aggressor. ACO told the neighbor to call the sheriff if there were threats to their lives. It appears from the complaint detail that ACO dismisses the neighbor when he writes “I advised [the neighbor lady] to attempt to de-escalate the situation and that we will follow up with the animal owners with a patrol deputy soon”. No deputy visited us. The last entry in the complaint detail, dated June 14, states, “RP calling again to ask about this complaint. Message will be forwarded to an ACO”. No ACO visited us. It seems clear from his notes that ACO has figured out this woman is trying to use him to settle a personal conflict.
Then soon after, the neighbor lady is yelling at me, “get out here quick!”, as if their house was on fire, which it was once. She began breathlessly explaining how a hen had hatched a bunch of eggs in her flowers and now she was worried they would all die, because of the heat I guess. I said I would take them if they wanted, just wait until dark when they are asleep and put them in a box and hand them over the fence.
The neighbor lady, apparently not satisfied by my offer to take the birds, decides to contact Animal Control.
For unknown reasons ACO passed the complaint to ACO D.
ACO D attempts to contact us. When she could not reach us, she left a “red card” on our gate which had a box checked for “A Humane Check”. We knew right away it was about the chickens. Interestingly, a box left unchecked was for “Livestock”. My wife called ACO D later that day to find out what was the problem. ACO D told my wife there was a law governing chickens at large. My wife said we had checked and had not found any laws and would appreciate if she would provide documentation of the applicable laws. ACO D said she would be out the following day and would bring us documentation of the law.
ACO D notes in her complaint detail that when she comes to talk to us a sheriff’s deputy is waiting nearby “in case back up was necessary”. This is likely a product of the neighbor lying about me being the “hostile” party. I confronted ACO D about why she needed to do another welfare check on the horse just months after ACO had been here. She wrote in her detail, “I informed him that I wanted to follow up regardless with him, due to concerns about the animals in general on the property”. What was there to follow up on? If ACO thought there was something to follow up on surely he could have done it in the previous months when the neighbor lady was continually bugging him to do something. The only reason ACO D is aware of our situation is because the neighbor lady sent a histrionic text message about chickens in her flowers. She attempts to justify her position by explaining further,
“I stated to him that similar to a welfare check on humans, a follow up when there is concern for the animals a follow up, especially if the animals are fine as he stated, isn’t a bad idea…”
There is no “concern for the animals”, ACO had confirmed that. The only reason she was there was the chickens, period. ACO D tries to use some terribly twisted logic to imply that continuous welfare checks on well cared for animals are the norm.
In any case, ACO D dispenses with “concern for the animals” when she contradicts herself by admitting, “…however my main objective today was to retrieve the chickens and issue the citation”.
ACO D hands us a printout of the law she is citing us under, ORS 607.045, “Livestock at Large in Livestock Districts”. She also hands us a printout of ORS 609.125, which is a definition of livestock. She explains in her complaint detail,
“I then discussed with [me and my wife] the issue of the chickens. That they are considered livestock because of the nature of the area they are kept in. The property is completely fenced with fencing to keep the chickens in and on their property, defining them as livestock. I then informed them that I would be citing because of this issue and due to how long the chickens had been off their property.”
The fine for livestock at large is $265 per animal. ACO D tells us she could write the ticket for nine animals total, one hen and eight chicks.
Later that night, we took time to look over the citation. ACO D had also provided us with printed documents of the applicable law. One of the two documents was the text of ORS 607.045 of which ACO D had highlighted certain text in yellow. Nearly all of section 1was highlighted which says,
“No person owning or having the custody, possession or control of an animal of a class of livestock shall permit the animal to run at large or to be herded, pastured or to go upon the land of another in a livestock district in which it is unlawful for such class of livestock to be permitted to run at large.”
Right away I have a problem understanding “livestock district” so I read more about them. It looks like section 607 is mostly concerned with fences and grazing, there is a sense it pertains only to range animals, which chickens are not. I decide it is time to read the definition of livestock for chapter 607.
“’Livestock’ means animals of the bovine species, horses, mules, asses, sheep, goats and swine.”
It looks like chickens are not considered livestock under chapter 607. The second document ACO Dawson gave us is the text of 609.125 “Definition of ‘livestock’”, which reads,
“Definition of ‘livestock.’ As used in ORS 609.135 (Applicability of ORS 609.156, 609.162 and 609.168) to 609.190 (Subrogation of county paying claim), ‘livestock’ means ratites, psittacines, horses, mules, jackasses, cattle, llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats, swine, domesticated fowl and any fur-bearing animal bred and maintained commercially or otherwise, within pens, cages and hutches.”
ACO D highlighted the words “’livestock’… domesticated fowl… maintained commercially or otherwise, within pens, cages and hutches”
OK. So I read the heading of chapter 609 to find out what it covers. Chapter 609 is focused on dogs and dog attacks. For the purposes of a dog attack they expand the definition of “livestock”. But that expanded definition is not applicable to any other chapter. It states right in the definition that it only applies to certain sections of chapter 609.
We decide to check with a lawyer to confirm our suspicions. The lawyer says we are right in our understanding and we should fight the citation.
ACO D shows up at the property unannounced, even though she has my wife’s phone number. I am outside watering plants. I alert my wife, who is in the house, that ACO D is at the gate and to come video our interaction. I meet ACO D at the gate. She is saying she is there to offer further “solutions”, ostensibly to solve the problem she herself created. I do not listen to her, instead I tell her to go next door and tell the neighbors to stop feeding our animals. I then inform her that her ticket is unlawful. She disagreed and welcomed a court challenge. She still wanted to come do the welfare check and I told her to go pound sand. At that she then threatened to “get the sheriff” which we interpreted as she was willing to use force, and employ other law-enforcement to help her do so. I then restated exactly how she had screwed up the ticket and that she was misapplying the law, to which she continued to disagree. We walked away from the gate and she eventually left. We later confirmed that a sheriff deputy was waiting down the street but never came up.
I would present here ACO D version of events that day, but she did not think it worthy of documenting in her complaint detail. There is no entry for September and the visit is not described. We do know that the sheriff deputy logged that he was back up for an animal call concerning us on the same day.
We go to court. ACO D presented her case, Then it was our turn. My wife presented the judge with the statutes and pointed out the problem. ACO D had no answer when asked to explain herself. The case was dismissed.
