Livestock Laws in Texas: Fencing, Liability, and Estrays

Livestock laws in Texas cover how you prove you own an animal, whether you have to fence it in, what happens if it gets loose, how theft is punished, and how sales, taxes, and worker pay are handled. The rules pull from the Texas Agriculture Code, the Penal Code, the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and several federal statutes, and some of the most important ones change depending on whether your county is still open range or has adopted a local stock law.

Which Animals Count as Livestock

The Texas Agriculture Code defines livestock to include cattle, horses, mules, asses, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, hogs, and exotic livestock such as elk and elk hybrids.¹ That statutory list controls which animals fall under branding rules, estray procedures, theft penalties, and health regulations. Domestic pets and poultry are covered by separate statutes with different penalty structures.

The classification has tax consequences too. Land used primarily to raise these animals can qualify for agricultural appraisal under the Texas Tax Code, which cuts property tax bills significantly compared with market-value assessment. Falling out of compliance with livestock management requirements can cost you that qualification.

Proving You Own an Animal

Branding is the most legally significant way to identify livestock in Texas. Chapter 144 of the Agriculture Code requires anyone who owns cattle, hogs, sheep, or goats to record their earmarks, brands, tattoos, or electronic identification devices with the county clerk where the animals are kept. Horse owners must record an authorized identification mark on the same basis.² Recordings must be renewed every ten years, even if the brand has been recorded before.

When two people claim the same animal, the county clerk’s records decide it: the brand with the oldest recorded date wins. Registered tattoo marks go further and serve as prima facie evidence of ownership in both criminal and civil cases.²

Ownership also gets established through bills of sale, purchase agreements, and inheritance documents. Chapter 146 of the Agriculture Code requires a bill of sale or transfer document when selling horses, mules, jacks, jennets, oxen, or cattle. Even livestock sold on the range through transfer of marks and brands requires the buyer to have a recorded bill of sale. A good bill of sale identifies both parties by name and address, describes the animals, and lists identifying marks. Without paperwork, you’re fighting uphill in any dispute, especially against someone with a recorded brand.

Open Range or Stock Law: The Question That Changes Everything

Texas is historically an open-range state. The default rule is that livestock owners have no general obligation to fence their animals in, and that default still applies wherever no local stock law has been adopted.

Counties can change the rule by election. Under Sections 143.021 and 143.071 of the Agriculture Code, county freeholders can petition the commissioners court to hold an election on whether horses, mules, donkeys, hogs, sheep, goats, or cattle should be allowed to run at large.³ If voters decide against roaming, the county becomes a stock law area and containment obligations take effect for the animals covered by the vote.

One rule applies everywhere. State law prohibits knowingly permitting horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, hogs, sheep, or goats to roam unattended on a highway right-of-way, regardless of open-range status.⁴

Anyone buying rural property should confirm which system applies before closing.

What Counts as a Lawful Fence

In stock-law areas, a fence has to meet statutory standards. A lawful fence must be at least four feet high and satisfy one of these construction types:

Barbed wire: three wires on posts spaced no more than 30 feet apart, with at least one stay between every two posts.
Picket: pickets no more than six inches apart.
Board: three boards at least five inches wide and one inch thick.
Rail: four rails.

County freeholders can petition for an election on whether three barbed wires without a board qualify as sufficient in their area.⁵ In open-range areas, the burden flips: a landowner who wants to keep livestock out has to fence their own property.

Liability When Your Livestock Gets Loose

Your county’s stock-law status largely controls what happens if your animal causes damage. In stock-law areas, an owner who fails to contain livestock can be held liable for injuries or property damage on a negligence theory. Courts look at whether fences were maintained, gates secured, and prior escapes addressed. Knowing your fence was down and doing nothing is the kind of fact that decides cases.

In open-range areas, liability generally requires proof of some negligent act beyond simply letting animals graze freely. The highway exception still applies. Because state law bars unattended livestock on a highway right-of-way regardless of open-range status, an owner whose animal causes a highway wreck can face liability under that separate prohibition.⁴

Texas uses proportionate responsibility. A claimant recovers nothing if their own percentage of responsibility exceeds 50 percent.⁶ A driver who hits a loose cow at night but was speeding with broken headlights may see their share of fault push them past that threshold. Witness statements, dashcam video, and fence inspection records often decide the split.

Agritourism and Farm Animal Activities

If you host visitors for horseback rides, hayrides, or livestock demonstrations, two Texas statutes limit your exposure to lawsuits from injured participants.

Chapter 87 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, the Farm Animal Liability Act, shields farm animal professionals, farm owners, and livestock show sponsors from liability when injuries flow from the inherent risks of working with animals. Those inherent risks include an animal’s tendency to behave unpredictably, its reactions to sudden movements or unfamiliar people, hazardous terrain, collisions, and the participant’s own negligence.⁷ Protection is lost if you supplied faulty equipment you knew or should have known was defective, failed to assess whether a participant could safely handle the animal, didn’t warn about a hidden dangerous condition on your land, or acted with willful or wanton disregard for safety. To invoke the statute’s protections, you must post a clearly visible warning sign with the specific language the statute prescribes.

Chapter 75A, the Texas Agritourism Act, provides broader protection for agritourism entities. You qualify by posting a sign with the statutorily required warning language or by obtaining a signed release from each participant. The sign must state that under Texas law, an agritourism entity is not liable for injury to or death of a participant resulting from an agritourism activity, must reference Chapter 75A by name, and must be clearly visible on or near the premises where the activity takes place.

Livestock Theft Penalties

Texas treats livestock theft more seriously than ordinary property theft. Stealing any cattle, horses, or exotic livestock in a single transaction is a third-degree felony if the total value is under $150,000, no matter how many head are taken. For sheep, swine, and goats, stealing fewer than 10 head valued under $30,000 is a state jail felony, and 10 or more head in a single transaction is a third-degree felony.⁸ A third-degree felony carries 2 to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

Stray Livestock and the Estray Process

Chapter 142 of the Agriculture Code covers what happens when stray livestock, exotic livestock, bison, or exotic fowl are found without an identifiable owner. The chapter sets procedures for reporting strays to local authorities, impounding them, and giving the rightful owner a window to reclaim the animal. If no owner appears within the statutory period, the animal can be sold. Daily impoundment fees and administrative costs accumulate quickly, which is a practical reason to keep animals contained and clearly identified.

Selling Livestock and Getting Paid

Documentation matters at every sale. Chapter 146 of the Agriculture Code requires a bill of sale or transfer document for the sale of horses, mules, jacks, jennets, oxen, and cattle. The document should list the number and type of animals, identifying marks or brands, and the seller’s authority to transfer ownership. Livestock sold on the range by transfer of marks and brands still requires the purchaser to hold a recorded bill of sale.

Federal Prompt-Payment Protections

Sellers who deliver livestock to packers, market agencies, or dealers have safeguards under the Packers and Stockyards Act. A buyer must deliver full payment before the close of the next business day after taking possession. For carcass-weight or grade-and-yield purchases, payment is due by the end of the first business day after the price is determined. If the seller isn’t present at transfer, the buyer must wire funds or mail a check within the same deadlines.⁹

The Act also creates a statutory trust that protects sellers if a buyer goes bankrupt. Payments from buyers to commission market agencies are treated as trust funds, and agencies must deposit sale proceeds into a designated custodial account before the close of the next business day after the sale.¹⁰ Sellers can waive this trust protection through a written credit agreement, but that step should follow a hard look at the buyer’s financial stability.

Cruelty and Care Standards

Penal Code Section 42.09 targets cruelty to livestock animals. It prohibits torturing a livestock animal, failing to provide adequate food, water, or care, abandoning an animal in your custody, transporting or confining an animal in a cruel manner, causing animals to fight, using a live livestock animal as a lure in dog racing, tripping a horse, and seriously overworking an animal.¹¹

Penalties vary by conduct. Failing to provide food or water, abandonment, cruel transport, and overworking are Class A misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine. Torture, poisoning another person’s animal, causing animal fights, using animals as lures, and tripping horses start as state jail felonies carrying 180 days to 2 years in a state jail facility. Repeat offenders with two or more prior convictions under this section or the companion animal cruelty statute face upgraded charges: misdemeanors become state jail felonies, and state jail felonies become third-degree felonies.¹¹

Moving Animals and Controlling Disease

Moving livestock across state lines triggers oversight by the Texas Animal Health Commission and federal agencies. As of January 1, 2026, all import certificates of veterinary inspection must be electronic. Horses entering Texas for sale need both a valid certificate of veterinary inspection and a current equine infectious anemia test before crossing the state line.¹² Federal orders can add pre-movement testing during outbreaks; the USDA has imposed testing requirements for lactating dairy cattle related to highly pathogenic avian influenza, and requirements like these can shift on short notice.

Inside Texas, the Animal Health Commission oversees disease prevention, mandatory testing, vaccination requirements, and quarantine authority, and can restrict animal movement in affected areas during outbreaks. Federal authorities maintain a separate list of reportable diseases, and animal health professionals must immediately report emergency incidents such as foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy.¹³ Ongoing testing and monitoring obligations attach to regulated diseases including brucellosis, scrapie, equine infectious anemia, and chronic wasting disease in farmed cervids.

Tax Treatment of Livestock

Sales produce different tax results than ordinary income. Under Section 1231 of the Internal Revenue Code, cattle and horses held for draft, breeding, dairy, or sporting purposes for at least 24 months qualify for long-term capital gains treatment when sold at a profit. Other livestock (except poultry) held for the same purposes qualify with a 12-month holding period.¹⁴ Precise acquisition-date records can be worth thousands of dollars per sale.

Depreciation of Breeding and Working Animals

Purchased livestock used in your operation can be depreciated over IRS-assigned recovery periods:

Dairy and breeding cattle: 5 years under the standard system, 7 years under the alternative system.
Breeding sheep and goats: 5 years under both systems.
Breeding hogs: 3 years under both systems.
Breeding and working horses age 12 or younger when placed in service: 7 years standard, 10 years alternative.
Breeding and working horses over age 12: 3 years standard, 10 years alternative.

These figures come from IRS Publication 225, the Farmer’s Tax Guide, which is updated annually.¹⁵

Drought-Forced Sales

If drought, flood, or other weather conditions force you to sell breeding, draft, or dairy livestock beyond normal business practice, you can defer the gain under the involuntary conversion rules. The standard replacement period is four years from the end of the tax year in which the gain was first realized. The IRS can extend that deadline when drought conditions persist for more than three years in the applicable region.¹⁶ Many Texas counties appear on the IRS drought list, giving affected ranchers additional time to reinvest proceeds.

Hiring Workers on a Ranch

Agricultural employers get broader Fair Labor Standards Act exemptions than most industries. Several categories of ranch employees are exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime requirements:

Small-operation exemption: if your operation used no more than 500 “man-days” of agricultural labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding year, all your agricultural employees are exempt. A man-day is any day an employee performs at least one hour of agricultural work.
Family members: a parent, spouse, child, or other immediate family member of the employer is exempt regardless of operation size.
Range production workers: an employee who spends more than half their time on range production of livestock is exempt. Range production covers herding, feeding, watering, branding, and similar activities on uncultivated land.

These exemptions come from Section 13(a)(6) of the FLSA and its implementing regulations.¹⁷

Wage exemptions don’t cancel safety rules. OSHA requires roll-over protective structures on tractors over 20 horsepower manufactured after October 1976 and operated by hired workers, and general duty clause obligations reach hazards like animal handling injuries, equipment entanglement, and animal-borne infections.¹⁸

1
State of Texas. Texas Agriculture Code Section 1.003 – Definitions
2
Justia. Texas Agriculture Code Chapter 144 – Marks and Brands
3
Justia. Texas Agriculture Code Chapter 143 – Fences and Range Restrictions
4
State of Texas. Texas Agriculture Code Section 143.102 – Running at Large on Highway Prohibited
5
State of Texas. Texas Agriculture Code Section 143.028 – Fences
6
State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001 – Proportionate Responsibility
7
Justia. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 87 – Liability Arising From Farm Animal Activities
8
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code Section 31.03 – Theft
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 USC 228b – Prompt Payment for Purchase of Livestock
10
eCFR. 9 CFR Part 201 – Administering the Packers and Stockyards Act
11
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code Section 42.09 – Cruelty to Livestock Animals
12
Texas Animal Health Commission. Animal Movement
13
USDA APHIS. Voluntary 2026 U.S. National Animal Health Reporting System Reportable Diseases List
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1231 – Property Used in the Trade or Business and Involuntary Conversions
15
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 225, Farmer’s Tax Guide
16
IRS. Extension of Replacement Period for Livestock Sold on Account of Drought
17
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 780 – Exemptions Applicable to Agriculture Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
18
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Agricultural Operations – Hazards and Controls