A Donegal farmer is missing several ewes and lambs estimated to be worth between €1200 to €1500, which he believes were stolen from his holdings in Glenties a month previously.
Both the ewes and lambs have distinct blue and red paint markings, which should make identifying them easy. Andy Dunleavy identified the six missing ewes after he was originally alerted to three missing lambs a week prior.
Dunleavy has looked extensively for the missing livestock since noting their absence, including the mountain in which the fenced field sits afoot of and along the road where the field stands astride, but to no avail: “It’s like they just vanished into thin air.”
The sheep farmer raised the alarm with his neighbours who looked for the lost sheep on their property and deployed a friend’s drone to extend the search to a nearby forest, but these efforts were in vein.
Dunleavy insists that an escape from the field would be impossible and that theft is the only plausible explanation left for his missing sheep.
He has reported the incidence to the local gardaí, who are actively investigating the incidence, however Dunleavy does not have high hopes that a culprit will be found as he has no evidence which would point to anyone in particular.
Dunleavy said: “There’s no way in heaven that they could get up to the mountain, I looked three or four times already just for my own peace of mind, and so did the neighbours. We even got the drone up to look for them but we saw nothing.
“Listen I would say they were lifted, but I can’t prove it. It’s an awful thing to say, but I would rather find them in a hole rather than [have had] somebody take them. You’d be driven mad with paranoia, you’d be wondering if its safe to put them back out at all,”
Dunleavy’s suspicions were raised even further when he took a call from another farmer in the area, a few hills over, who is also reportedly missing eight lambs in very similar circumstances.
Although this is the first livestock theft the Ardragh farmer has encountered since he started farming in the Glenties area three years previously, he fears he may have caused an element of upset among the local farming community, who may have felt provoked by his arrival.
Despite contacting the gaurds and advertising the missing animals on Donedeal, Dunleavy doesn’t hold high hopes that his missing ewes and lambs will be recovered.
He does however, want to raise awareness of the incident in the hopes that it may save another farmer from experiencing the same ill fate.
“I’m from Ardragh, which is 10 to 15 minutes over the road from Glenties. I don’t know if they’re [locals are] sore that I came in – that I shouldn’t be there. Are they giving me a wee warning to bail out? I don’t really know. I have an inkling but I just can’t prove it.
“It’s a huge loss and farming’s hard enough as it is. I wasn’t going to make a big deal of it but I thought, well, I could prevent it from happening to somebody else, I could save another man’s stock,” he added.