Quebec farmer's stolen cows found in Ontario, two suspects arrested
3 animals still missing after thieves rustled 16 cows from the Laurentian region in September
A farmer from Quebec's Laurentian region was reunited last month with most of the cows that were stolen from his land in September.
Now he hopes the rest will be found.
"We're still missing two cows and a calf," Guillaume Lachaine told CBC on Saturday. "Maybe we will find them. We never know."
Lachaine says, under the cover of darkness, 10 cows and six calves — valued at roughly $33,000 — were herded from his farm near Mont Laurier, Que., into at least one trailer in the early morning hours of Sept. 19.
He immediately began a search, contacting police and putting out a call for help in the farming community.
News of the cattle rustling travelled fast.
"A lot of information came in," he said. "A lot of sharing. A lot of publicity."
Lachaine thought for sure the thieves had a buyer lined up to quickly sell the bovines for meat, but then there was a break in the case about a week later.
On Sept. 26, three calves were located for sale at the Livestock Exchange Auction in Vankleek Hill, Ont., 150 kilometres south of his farm.
On his Facebook page soon after the animals were found, Lachaine offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the rest of the cows.
Untagged cows spotted in field
Then, a month later, Ontario Provincial Police noticed the ear tags had been removed from about a dozen cows spotted wandering around a pasture on Aberdeen Road in North Glengarry, Ont.
The officers contacted Lachaine to identify the animals. Lachaine said seven cows and two calves were found at first, then police found another cow within a few days.
Getting that call from police was good news, Lachaine said, as adult cows are worth about $2,500 a piece and calves are valued at around $1,700.
Lachaine went to Ontario to recover his cows in mid-November. He said they had lost a substantial amount of weight as they weren't well cared for.
"They were thinner," he said. "They had nothing to eat."
The OPP released a statement earlier this month, saying the pasture where the cows were found had been rented for livestock.
A 34-year-old man and 53-year-old woman, both from East Hawkesbury, Ont., have been charged in the case, police say.
The three remaining cows have the brand "IJ" stamped on their backs, OPP said. Anyone with information is asked to contact Hawkesbury OPP.
With files from CBC's Sarah Leavitt