Rancher says dogs killed nearly two dozen cows

NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. — A Newton County man says something has killed tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of cattle on his ranch.

Keith Mitcham believes one or two dogs may be responsible for the deaths of 21 cows over the past few months.

Several of Mitcham’s calves have also been attacked and had their ears chewed off.

“These cattle are not baby calves. These are from 500- to 900-pound calves so we're talking about some fairly, relatively good-sized cattle,” he said.

Mitcham has moved many of the surviving calves to their own pen to keep them out of the main pastures for now.

He believes the dogs run the cattle so hard that they simply collapse and die of exhaustion.

“We kind of determined that it wasn't coyotes because they were doing it more out of sport. They weren't actually eating the cattle,” Mitcham said.

Mitcham says he contacted animal control officials and got a trap. He says he trapped a dog on his property but had to return it to its owner because there wasn't any evidence it killed any cows.

Newton County deputies are investigating.

“If it's a dog and we can determine who the owner is and the owner allowed that dog to run at large and be a nuisance and kill animals, then the owner will be held responsible for that animal’s actions in that,” said Courtney Morrison, with the Newton County Sheriff’s Office.

The cows’ deaths and the amount of fences torn down by whatever is killing them has cost Mitcham more than $20,000, he said.

Cox Media Group