Dukey and I are both in NJ.  We seem to have endless issues with non-horse, non-farm neighbors (particularly of the McMansion breed) who do thoughtless, crazy things.  Is this indigenous to NJ, or do other states have their required population of fools who think all open land is fair game and horse people are fun targets? 

I live on a family farm so my close neighbors are family who have horses or are used to them. There is around 150 acres to ride etc.  My grandparents started it all then 1 aunt ,my parents an uncle and a cousin all have houses besides us. Our non family neighbors are great,some are like family i'v known them forever. We've been very lucky, sorry to hear they are'nt as nice in your area. Most of the non family neighbors let us ride on there property, some have horses most don't.Hope things get better for you,I would guess your horses were there before the McMansion breed .

Thanks!  Me too.  LOL

The problems Dukey and I have been discussing have to do with trespassers and folks who just don't "get" that that field where they're tossing their trash actually belongs to someone who's going to have to go out and clean up the mess.  I'm guessing you don't have that situation since you're all family.  That is VERY cool! 

I must add, though, that several houses across the street from me all belong to members of one family, and they spend a great deal of time complaining about each other, particularly about the one that can't quite keep her livestock contained on her own land.  LOL  But overall they seem to have a pretty good thing going. 

Funny . . . originally my SO and I planned on marrying and moving to his family's farm in PA.  It took only one conversation to discover that the dairymen in the family were in no way anxious to have my horses (or my horse business) on their land.  It was a feud in the making, and we hadn't even said "I do" yet!  People are funny sometimes.

 Thanks. Me too!!!! That must be nice to have family surrounding you. In my area there is only 3 small horse farms including ours. I just don't think non horsey people understand us.

 I board my horse and we don't have problems because the property is pretty far back off of a country road.  The neighbors across the street however, have the fence to their horse pasture llining the road.  They have a sign posted that says something like "This property is under camera surveilance 24 hours a day", so they've apparently had problems like you mention.

Growing up, my street was a dead-end and next to a diary farm.  There was a corn field, then a cow pasture.  The farmer was a nice guy and I remember him coming to my house to report to my mother that my brothers had been upsetting his dairy cows.  His brother owned the neighboring farm and had horses.  He wasn't as nice and we all knew to stay off of his property because he had guns and didn't think anything of firing them off.  That was 40 years ago, of course - sure couldn't get away with that these days.

 Hey JMF, maybe we should get signs like that. Maybe it will help.