The hunt is on for cattle rustlers in southwest Iowa. Montgomery County authorities are investigating the theft of more than 30 cattle from a local sale barn. Livestock owner Don Wolfe says the calves were stolen early Sunday morning from a sale barn a few miles west of Red Oak.

“There are 34 head of black and black-white faced steer calves, with an average weight of 416 pounds. They were stolen in the early morning hours of January 7th,” said Wolfe. He says it appears the thief or thieves targeted a particular pen inside the sale barn.

“We had left the barn at 2:30 in the morning,” he said, “and had went home. We had to leave it unlocked, because there were two of our guys that wanted to load out. We got the okay. Then, this one man had bought two pens of cattle. But, we had three pens of cattle. The cattle walked right by three pens, and they picked this particular pen of calves.” “There’s something fishy about it, but we don’t know what it is,” Wolfe added. He speculates the stolen cattle may still be in the area.

“They’re probably within a two-county area from us right now,” said Wolfe. “They’re probably in a background lot, and they probably took all the green tags. All these cattle were weaned and vaccinated, with Iowa green tags. And, I would say they probably took the green tags out when they got them there, and they’re in a background lot within a 60-mile radius of us.”

Anyone with information regarding the cattle theft should contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office at 712-623-5107 or Montgomery County Crimestoppers at 888-434-2712. A $3,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of suspects involved in the thefts.

(Radio Iowa)