An untagged sheep has recently been rescued by members of animal welfare organisation, My Lovely Horse Rescue after it was found “running around” in Co. Meath near the N4.
There were no other sheep in the area and it is not known where the animal came from or if it potentially had been “dumped”, My Lovely Horse Rescue co-founder, Martina Kenny said.
“We searched the bushes around the bank of the main road leading to the N4. When we saw him, we blocked off either side and finally caught him. He was in brambles and a stagnant stream,” the co-founder told Agriland.
The rescue team also included goat Lilly.
“We brought Lilly to see if we could catch him that way as we were told that sometimes goats are used to get them into the slaughterhouse…awful, so we tried it, he came right up to her and stayed in the area we searched,” Kenny said.
The sheep, which the organisation later named, Philip, will stay at My Lovely Horse Rescue farm as the organisation said “no one has come forward” and it does not expect this to change.
Philip has a “severe infection” in his ball sac and is currently being treated by the organisation’s vet and will then go to the veterinary hospital at University College Dublin (UCD), Kenny said.
The animal welfare organisation said that it does get calls about sheep which are “very lame” or malnourished and “full of worms”. Kenny said that a sheep a few years ago in Navan was “literally eaten away by maggots, right into his flesh”.
In did this incident the sheep was rescued by the organisation which then called the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) “straight away”, Kenny said.
In Philip’s case, the DAFM was not alerted since he was untagged, the co-founder said.