BENTON COUNTY (KFSM) -- A Benton county farmer is looking for answers after one of his heifers was shot several times on Wednesday morning (May 26).
“I don't know what's going through somebody's head to be able to hurt some innocent animal that wasn't doing anything to anyone," said Jeff Chambless.
Jeff Chambless and his family woke up to the sound of gunshots early Wednesday morning. After going down to his barn and checking his cows, Chambless noticed one heifer had been shot multiple times and was in a lot of pain.
"We rely on a lot of things to go right to make this thing profitable," he said. "Unfortunately it only takes one thing to go wrong to make it not profitable and when it`s at the hands of somebody with malicious intent, it makes it all the more hard to deal with."
Chambless said the heifer couldn't be saved and it had to be butchered. The morning of the shooting there were eights cows in the front pen near Wager Road. Chambless found footprints and tire tracks, which led him to believe that someone stopped their vehicle right in front of the fence, got out walked through the grass and shot at his cattle.
After 15 years of living out in the county, Chambless said he never expected anything like this to happen.
"We take for granted sometimes that everybody's got goodwill, but unfortunately that's not the case," he said. "We've taken some steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again."
All Chambless wants is the person who shot at his cows to be found so they can't hurt anyone else's property or livestock.
"It could've very easily been someone's dog or one of our horses or anything like that," he said. "Luckily nobody got hurt and we'll move on."
The Benton County Sheriff's office is investigating. The Chambless are offering a reward to anyone with information that leads to an arrest. They ask that anyone with information to contact the sheriff's office at 479-271-1008.