Ewes that had been scanned just days earlier were recently attacked by two dogs in Co. Wicklow.
The attack occurred on the farm of Fergus Moore in the Grangecon area of Co. Wicklow, upon a flock of his speckled face ewe lambs.
On Saturday, January 20, Moore had them scanned, with 36 of them in-lamb with an average scanning rate of 1.8 lambs per ewe.
However, just days later on the following Thursday (January 25), when Moore went out to check his sheep just before daylight, a sight that has happened on many farms nationwide greeted him.
He told Agriland: “I went out early on Thursday morning, I saw sheep in a huddle and I knew there was something wrong.
“I looked down and I saw a sheep dead, some in the river, some in wire.”
He immediately noticed that these sheep were “in the wrong field” and there was also “wool everywhere”.
In the corner of the field, Moore spotted two dogs. Moore was in his quad at the time, and said the two dogs followed him back to his yard, before they then began attacking more sheep close to the yard.
The dogs were subsequently shot during the attack.
Local Gardaí were called, and Moore said Gardaí are “following a definite line of enquiry” on the incident.
A vet then visited the farm to stitch some of the ewes that were attacked, and also to put some of them down.
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In total, there were two killed, with two ewes subsequently having to be put down, and three requiring considerable stitching by the vet.
There were also “eight to ten” that were “torn” from the attacks, Moore said.
With the ewes due to lamb between the last week of March and the first week of April, Moore has not yet begun to count the cost of the attack.
“The problem is, you don’t know what the damage is, you don’t know what way the lambs are.”
As Moore said the dogs had travelled from “close to two miles away,” he appealed to dog owners to keep better control of their dogs.
“Put them in early, in daylight. Don’t leave them out in the dark,” he said.