**List of available counties updated 11-15-10**

I have recently, with the help of my assistant (and soon-to-be law student) Christina Heddesheimer, taken on the monumental task of compiling the local stock laws for all 254 Texas counties. 

Oh, and when I say with the "help" of Christina, I mean that Christina is doing all of heavy lifting and all of the county-by-county research.  Her work has been invaluable.

We are so grateful to the many people who have taken time to assist us in this research project in over 100 Texas counties so far.  Thank you, Texas county officials!

This project takes extraordinary persistence, hours and hours of time, and lots of patience.  And money.  It’s probably for these reasons that no other lawyer or organization has ever, in the history of the State of Texas, compiled all the stock laws in one place.  Until now….

So, why is this project so monumental, you ask?  As discussed in an earlier post, the default rule in Texas is that livestock may roam freely in Texas ("open range") .  The only state-wide exception is a prohibition of open range grazing/roaming on interstate and state highway right-of-ways.  Pursuant to the Texas Agriculture Code and its predecessors, counties have the right to hold one or more elections to restrict the free roaming of livestock.  The individual elections can include one or more species (such as cattle, horses, mules, hogs, sheep and goats), and the elections can be held for the whole county or part(s) of each county.

These laws are very difficult to find as they are only located in the commissioner’s court minutes of each individual county.  The dates these laws were enacted range from the 1800s to now.

The stock laws are important because they often determine who is liable when, for example, a motorist collides with a horse on a farm-to-market road, or a horse gets loose and destroys someone else’s property.

So far, we have obtained the stock law status of 234 Texas counties, and we continue to receive more updates daily.  We will periodically post updates as we gather more information from more counties.  For each of the following counties, we currently either have a copy of the stock law, or we have a confirmation that the county is open range:

 

 

 

 

1.     Anderson

2.     Andrews

3.     Angelina

4.     Aransas

5.     Archer

6.     Armstrong

7.     Atascosa

8.     Austin

9.     Bailey

10.   Bandera

11.   Bastrop

12.   Baylor

13.   Bee

14.   Bell

15.   Bexar

16.   Blanco

17.   Borden

18.   Bosque

19.   Bowie

20.   Brazoria

21.   Brewster

22.   Briscoe

23.   Brown

24.   Burleson

25.   Burnet

26.   Caldwell

27.   Calhoun

28.   Callahan

29.   Cameron

30.   Camp

31.   Carson

32.   Castro

33.   Cherokee

34.   Childress

35.   Clay

36.   Cochran

37.   Coke

38.   Coleman

39.   Collin

40.   Collingsworth

41.   Colorado

42.   Comal

43.   Comanche

44.   Concho

45.   Cooke

46.   Coryell

47.   Cottle

48.   Crockett

49.   Dallam

50.   Dallas

51.   Dawson

52.   Deaf Smith

53.   Delta

54.   Denton

55.   DeWitt

56.   Dickens

57.   Dimmit

58.   Duval

59.   Eastland

60.   Ector

61.   Edwards

62.   Ellis

63.   Erath

64.   Fannin

65.   Fayette

66.   Fisher

67.   Floyd

68.   Foard

69.   Fort Bend

70.   Franklin

71.   Freestone

72.   Frio

73.   Galveston

74.   Gaines

75.   Garza

76.   Gillespie

77.   Glasscock

78.   Gonzales

79.   Gray

80.   Grayson

81.   Gregg

82.   Grimes

83.   Guadalupe

84.   Hale

85.   Hall

86.   Hamilton

87.   Hansford

88.   Hardeman

89.   Hardin

90.   Harris

91.   Harrison

92.   Hartley

93.   Haskell

94.   Hays

95.   Hemphill

96.   Henderson

97.   Hill

98.   Hockley

99.   Hood

100.Hopkins

101.Houston

102.Howard

103.Hunt

104.Hutchinson

105.Irion

106.Jack

107.Jackson

108.Jasper

109.Jeff Davis

110.Jefferson

111.Jim Hogg

112.Jim Wells

113.Johnson

114.Jones

115.Kaufman

116.Karnes

117.Kendall

118.Kenedy

119.Kent

120.Kerr

121.Kimble

122.King

123.Kinney

124.Kleberg

125.Lamar

126.Lamb

127.Lampasas

128.La Salle

129.Lavaca

130.Lee

131.Leon

132.Liberty

133.Limestone

134.Lipscomb

135.Live Oak

136.Llano

137.Loving

138.Lubbock

139.Lynn

140.Madison

141.Marion

142.Martin

143.Mason

144.Matagorda

145.Maverick

146.McCulloch

147.McLennan

148.McMullen

149.Medina

150.Menard

151.Midland

152.Milam

153.Mills

154.Mitchell

155.Montague

156.Montgomery

157.Moore

158.Morris

159.Nacogdoches

160.Navarro

161.Newton

162.Nolan

163.Nueces

164.Ochiltree

165.Oldham

166.Orange

167.Palo Pinto

168.Panola

169.Parker

170.Parmer

171.Pecos

172.Polk

173.Potter

174.Presidio

175.Rains

176.Randall

177.Reagan

178.Real

179.Red River

180.Reeves

181.Refugio

182.Roberts

183.Robertson

184.Rockwall

185.Runnels

186.Rusk

187.Sabine

188.San Jacinto

189.San Patricio

190.San Saba

191.Schleicher

192.Scurry

193.Shackelford

194.Shelby

195.Sherman

196.Smith

197.Somervell

198.Stephens

199.Sterling

200.Stonewall

201.Sutton

202.Swisher

203.Tarrant

204.Taylor

205.Terrell

206.Terry

207.Throckmorton

208.Tom Green

209.Travis

210.Trinity

211.Tyler

212.Upshur

213.Upton

214.Uvalde

215.Val Verde

216.Van Zandt

217.Victoria

218.Waller

219.Walker

220.Ward

221.Washington

222.Wharton

223.Wheeler

224.Wichita

225.Wilbarger

226.Willacy

227.Williamson

228.Wilson

229.Winkler

230.Wise

231.Wood

232.Yoakum

233.Young

234.Zavala

If you would like a copy of one or more stock laws in our compilation, please call 979-229-9718 or send an email to Rick Rowe.  Please do not contact Alison Rowe or Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP with respect to stock law copies, as these requests are not being processed through our office.  We charge a fee for copies due to the time-intensive and costly nature of this research project.