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This is most likely the source of the problem. While I don't doubt that it's sometimes domestic dogs out for a day of "fun" because they are owned by irresponsible people, the sad fact is that too many dogs are abandoned on country roads. These dogs have no choice but to pack up with whatever other dogs they can find, which tends to be a lot with this kind of irresponsible behavior going on. And normally docile family pets aren't the ones who are abandoned; it's dogs that had behavior problems at home because of a lack of training. The owners didn't want them to die in the pound so they just released them into the open and drove off.
My husband's grandfather has more acres than I can count in Southern Alabama on the Mississippi line, and I once accompanied him in rounding up some wild dogs that were threatening his farm and roaming on his acreage. He was lucky enough to catch them, and they did have collars on. We called the owner, who took two hours or so to get to us from Mississippi. He said that he hunts deer with a pack of "beagles" (they weren't beagles at all, just large mixes. He lets 30 or so dogs loose and runs them through the woods toward hunters who await on the other side of the forest. At the end of the hunt, he tries to round up all his dogs, but doesn't always find all of them. No crap, really? You let loose 30 dogs over 150 acres and you didn't get them all back? Especially after they ran into a bunch of guys firing off shotguns?
Anyway, I'm just acknowledging that the dog thing is a major problem and adding things that I know cause it. Sure, family pets will kill, but your big problems probably come from lots of dogs left out to fend for themselves. And no, they probably won't go after deer, because deer have the great outdoors to get away from them. It's easy pickins to get a farmer's fenced livestock who have nowhere to run. And domesticated/wild dogs don't have the fear of people that coyotes and wolves might.
