The wife of a man cited for harassment after a Mercer County Humane Society agent told him the agency was taking his underfed cattle said the society has no right to seize the herd.

Sarah Bagnall, 78, said she and her husband Robert J. Bagnall, 81, are doing the best they can to care for the animals.

"What are they going to do -- sell them?" she said.

Humane Society agents went the Bagnall's 200-acre farm in East Lackawannock Township Thursday to tell Bagnall that 30 cattle they say are underfed would be removed from his farm Monday. Bagnall kicked agent Cindy Sankey, Mercer, police said.

Mrs. Bagnall said her husband "shouldn't have kicked (Sankey) -- but she was too forceful."

"We do the best we can; they get fed twice a day," Mrs. Bagnall said, noting that her husband is on dialysis and has had three strokes, so he can no longer work the farm.

She said two hired hands help her.

"I do manage as good as I can," Mrs. Bagnall said. "We pay $600 a month for his medicines alone and that doesn't leave much to eat. I make everything we eat.

The Humane Society agents say 14 pigs at the farm are in good condition.

Sandy Drabick, the society's executive director, said several reports have been filed about the condition of animals on the farm over the years.

"We kind of laid back until now, but now we're at the point where something has to be done," she said.