daf bit: Bava Metzia 30-31

[cellio]

The talmud is discussing lost animals and the obligation to return them to their owners. A mishna teaches: if one finds an ass or a cow feeding by the way, that is not considered lost. But if one finds an ass with its trappings overturned or a cow running among the vineyards, those are lost and must be returned. If he returned it and it ran away again, and he returned it again and it ran away again, he must keep returning it, even four or five times. If his lost time is worth a sela (this is more than typical wages) he can't demand that price but is paid for his time as a common laborer. But if a beit din is present he can stipulate a wage in their presence. (30b)

Today's daf is 31, and contains the g'mara that expounds this mishna.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember some of the details of lost animal statutes in medieval Welsh law. I have this vague recollection that they specify what happens to the milk if a dairy animal strays onto your property and you have to milk it before its owner retrieves it.

[richardf8]

The talmud will soon be discussing what is to be done with shorn wool, and even dung.

[cellio]

That would be interesting to see.

Your comment got me wondering, so I asked on Mi Yodeya about products of lost animals (like milk and eggs). The answer is that under Jewish law the owner of the animal, not the finder, owns the proceeds, but the finder can take from that for the animal's upkeep (e.g. to pay for what the animal eats). Basically, the finder isn't expected to incur expense because he found a lost animal, but a lost animal also isn't meant to be a source of profit for him.

Found animals that can't provide for their upkeep (by what they produce or by being hired out) can be sold after some time. The money belongs to the owner.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Looking over the Welsh law texts again, the focus is all on compensation for damage done by strayed animals, not really for simply detaining an animal that isn't under control. (This makes sense because a lot of livestock were relatively free-ranging.) So if large livestock is found in a grain field, they may be removed and detained until redeemed for money. For small livestock, if they trespass in a group, the landowner is entitled to keep one beast out of the group for the damage. For laying hens, the landowner keeps an egg from each bird, but only if they trespass when the seed has just been sown (the only time it's vulnerable to damage from chickens).

But for harvested grain and other foodstuffs, there's no compensation for animal trespass because it's the owner's responsibility to make the storage building strong enough they can't break in. There's a special item on animal damage to growing flax, that assumes the potential trespassers might be chickens or cats.

The bit about milch cows is a bit vaguer than I remembered. In the main section, it says that the taker (i.e., the landowner) isn't entitled to anything but a specified monetary fee to redeem trespassing horses or cattle, but elsewhere it says that no one is entitled to the milk from them while they're detained without the taker's permission--not even the owner of the cattle. So it isn't actually clear what the law specifies about milking them during detention. I think the closest to what I thought I was remembering was the bit about one egg from each chicken that's detained.