Should someone complain?

[PineBurrowPeeps]

This has been eating at me for awhile now...

Not far from my house, about a 20 minute drive, is the landfill. It's located in one of the only very rural areas of RI and there are several big farms out there.
There is one that literally seems to be ON the property line for the landfill and they have TONS of animals. You can drive by on any given day and see 100+ sheep and goats in one large pasture and the house, and then another pasture on the other side of the house with 60+ meat cows. They apparently have another pasture somewhere because my husband and I have seen two large horses and various goats grazing ON THE LANDFILL! These animals seem to be out there rain or shine, no shelter, and they are grazing amoung lots of stray trash (there is grass, it's just huge hills of it as the landfill buries more garbage and plants grass on it).
These hills come down right next to the road, and there is a tall 6 foot barbed wire topped fence all around the landfill property. These animals are always inside their fencing, we have seen the two white horses right next to the road (these are back roads).
I just worry that one of those animals is going to eat something one of these days that is really going to hurt it and nobody would care. The landfill is huge, absolutely enormous so I doubt anyone even knows they are grazing on it.
All of their other animals look to be in great shape, plenty of grazing and nothing is emaciated or sickly looking.
Furthermore, I'm not even sure who to complain to, animal control or the landfill itself...
Weird situation.

 

[chickensioux]

If I were you, I would at least check with animal control and ask who you would ask regarding this situation. Perhaps everything is ok, but it never hurts to check.
Good luck

 

[EweSheep]

Most landfills follow the strictest codes for ground recovery or recycling back to nature. It has been commonplace in some areas that they would revert back to nice pastures, golf courses and they have been building houses too! If I remember that science program, the landfill might have ten or twenty feet of dirt and they start planting trees on it too!

So it is not all that unusual to find livestock in recovered landfills. I would not worry about it but I will not build a house on top of a landfill because of settlement occurance (like our underground coal mines).

 

[greathorse]

Have you ever seen sea gulls at a land fill? If it were that toxic you would see dead gulls everywhere. Leave the poor folks and their animals alone.

Why would anyone here assume that these animals are in any peril when by your own admission they look good.

I take excellent care of all of my animals but do not choose to house them in the same way some of my neighbors house theirs and have had to justify my position a time or two.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Quote:
My issue was simply that I have seen these particular animals with trash strewn all about them, old innards of VHS tapes, plastic bags, aluminum food cans, diapers, etc. They are clearly not on reclaimed pasture space, but in a trash area. This is all open space. For acres and acres you can see the horses in one end of the spectrum and the trash trucks driving over the hills at the other with no fencing in between.

*ETA* Just because they look fine, means that they should continue to live in what potentially could be a hazardous environment? That doesn't really make sense to me. For all I know they could be escaping their own pasture and getting out and the owners know about it.
I was simply worried about their well being. I could see the nightmare of one of the horses getting something stuck around their legs or ingesting something....

 

[mamagardener]

Someone probably should complain. If a horse eats some of that trash it could get really sick. I don't know why it is so hard for some people to keep there animals on their property

 

[Chickie'sMoma]

i agree that it doesn't seem a great place to keep grazing animals on it. we have a similar situation at our local landfill. the operating company has turned most of their areas that are no longer in use into pasture mounds and they have a few cows of various types running around grazing. i don't know if they are using them for their milk or meat but i highly doubt it.

though they have piped under the mounds to collect the methane given off by the decaying garbage and send it to the local university to help power some of their stuff.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

This is facinating to me...
So your landfill actually purposely has cows on it?
I had no idea that they did this.

 

[Davaroo]

Before you complain, why not try educating and inquiring? There may be more (or less ) going on than you know. You simply assume the worst before you know the facts.

GO to the landfill first, then to the farmers. TALK to these people face to face. Find out from them what is going on and get both sides of he story. Risk a little personal contact by way of investigation.

They may indeed need a paladin or pariah, but it may be that they don't need you to "worry" over them at all. Check it out first.

 

[Marlinchaser]

You could always look at the bright side, if one of them gets sick and dies they owner wont have far to drag the animal to be buried