Cows Stuck in Household Inventory

One day I noticed my cow was gone. I eventually found it in my household inventory, only accessible through build mode. I tried to place the cow onto my lot in front of the shed and it said that the cow can only be placed on certain objects. I tried to place it directly on the shed. I received the same error message. I tried resetting the shed. It did not work. I tried deleting the shed, buying a new one, and assigning the cow to the shed. it did not work and i still could not place it. My cows are not aging nor will they run away despite many messages stating that they are going to run away. I tried moving to a new lot but even when I sold the furniture, the household inventory remained and the cows remained there as well. I am at a loss. Buying a new cow ended up putting my cow directly into my household inventory and they never show up in the shed. They are starving and dirty and unhappy but I cant do anything about it and they wont leave.