An appeal for information has been made after 15 pure-bred Swaledale in-lamb ewes were stolen from mountains in Co. Kerry.
The ewes were taken from the Slieve Mish Mountains in Castlemaine, at the eastern end of the Dingle Peninsula.
Speaking to Agriland, the farmer who owns the sheep, Patrick Dwyer, explained the
“One thing that’s very noticeable is they’re not lambing until around May 1; I don’t lamb until them. They could be in lamb to a Swaledale or a Lanark.
“They were left out on Slieve Mish around January 12 and it’s only in the last week or so we’re gathering them for lambing. There’s no sign; I’ve searched the back and front of Slieve Mish.”
The farmer added that there are “only a couple of points” for bringing sheep off the mountain, so someone might have seen something.
“Two years ago we marked all the ewes with yellow paint on one horn. It didn’t seem to stay but if you look closely at the horns, especially to the back of the horn, there are specks of yellow on it. I would know them wherever they would be.
“The Swaledale is a very easy sheep to identify and they’re not a very popular breed. We would also mark them with paint: red on the poll; and a blue stripe down the left side on the centre of the sheep.
“This is not the first time we’ve been targeted; it’s about six or seven years ago since a good few went missing but previous to that we were targeted for 20 years solid. We were plagued with sheep theft, myself and my father.
“We used to keep around 1,000 sheep – and definitely 20 ewes around August or September always went missing.
“A few years ago there were a few sheep taken from a few neighbours here and there; there would only be two or three – but they were taken.
“Sometimes when people hear two or three were taken they’d say ‘oh, they died’ – but in one particular instance, one evening at 5:50pm, my cousin had three sheep stolen off a piece of mountain.
“The person that stole them had the exact same van as the owner so nobody took one blind bit of notice. There were two young fellows seen but the person who saw them thought they were the owners of the sheep – they took them in broad daylight.
“It’s desperate. There’s nothing worse when you’re out on open commonage across thousands of acres trying to find them when they’re not there.
“There are two fields near me; my neighbours had them taken for 20 years. About 10 years ago they had 23 Texel ewe lambs there. They were to take the lambs to the mart on the Tuesday – on the Monday night 21 of them were stolen.”
It’s a local problem Patrick maintained, with local knowledge – adding that “that’s the really maddening thing about it”.
“I’m not going to stay sheep farming if this keeps going on; I’ve enough to do besides chasing sheep for somebody else.”