Around 25 or so years ago for some in-laws of mine: they had some nice Holstein cattle they had leased out actually end up rustled and sold on by the lessee, with some worthless culls from auctions someplace else substituted into the herd. A stupid bank then actually lent the crooks money on the culls, having failed to check the ear tags when the animals were put up as collateral the crooks didn't even freaking own to begin with. A few other local farmers who had leased out their cows were also similarly cheated. Some of the animals were recovered and held in a barn and looked after by a law enforcement contract while the finances were sorted out. Nice bank: of course they tried to step in in front of the animals' owners when it came to trying to get restitution. A court sided with the in-laws though, when the kids in the family demo'd they could identify their cows via photo comparisons to some of them, and also that each critter would perk up ears and moo in response to hearing their pet name called out. But that bank's reputation took a real beating for awhile around the area. Jokes were made about "farm credit analysts wanted, must have own barn boots..."
I spent two years in Georgia (Caucasus Georgia) around a decade ago with the EU (immediately after the August 2008 conflict between Georgia and Russia).
Fields weren't fenced in parts of rural Georgia, and cattle roamed during the day, nibbling at the proverbial "long acre", scavenging and foraging, returning to their respective farms and barns, on foot, at night all by themselves; you'd see them in companionable groups on the roads, peeling off one by one as their own by-road appeared, and plodding, heading home to their own farm or barn, accompanied neither by farmers nor dogs.
While I won't comment on what this said about the (dismal) enough state of Georgian agriculture, and how some Georgian farmers cared for (or didn't care for) their animals, I will note that it was remarked at the time (after a number of incidents) that cattle didn't recognise boundaries, not the sort of "administrative boundary lines" that had come into place in the wake of the conflict of 2008 between Georgia and South Ossetia and Georgia and Abkhazia.
Cattle wandered across these ABLs, and were sometimes rustled across these ABLs - by both sides on either side of the disputed lines; (I remember my boss - an ambassador - querying my use of the verb "rustling" in a report I had written - he, a German, had never come across this verb before, and he observed that I was the only person on the entire staff who would have thought to use it, for it is a verb used in a very precise and specific context, he was fascinated to learn).
Anyway, I was asked to look into the possibility of how the EU might fund a scheme to tag these roaming cattle; they had owners, but not specific locations as they were released in the morning to fend for themselves and sought food where they found it, scavenging and foraging, and sometimes somehow got rustled as well.
Thus, I spoke with aid experts, (including some improbable agriculture experts from the US who were attached to USAID, gentlemen fetchingly attired in khakis and pressed button down shirts, who came complete with Boston accents, who smiled displaying flawless gleaming teeth, and who were blessed with perfectly proportional and evenly tanned features, and beautifully cut blond hair) agriculture experts, and sundry others.
Agriculture experts (including a sardonic Finnish reindeer expert - himself originally from the Arctic - from the Finnish agriculture ministry, temporarily seconded to the Georgian agriculture ministry to advise on the care and husbandry of roaming and migratory animals) were unanimous that tagging the cattle "wasn't worth it" as - from a breeding perspective - the quality of the stock was brutally bad.
My concerns were a little more political, of course; tagging might defuse ownership issues (and disputes that stretched across the "administrate boundary lines", for, of course, we didn't recognise the Russian annexation of these regions, and hence, the noun "border" was not employed), and by confirming ownership, might serve to reduce instances of opportunistic rustling, which might, in turn, help to lower possible political tensions.
In any case, during these discussions I asked what the quality of Georgian cattle was actually like. "The worst in the world", came the gloomy reply from the Finnish expert from the Arctic whom I interviewed. There wasn't much of an answer to that. Now, I knew the cattle roamed and scavenged and foraged but I still wondered what their diet consisted of. "Dried leaves and plastic bags," was the lugubrious response.
Some years later, observing an election in Georgia, I told my (excellent) interpreter that story. She roared with laughter, saying "I've seen this!" and subsequently sent me a picture of cattle tucking into plastic bags (with greedy enthusiasm) in a rubbish container.
