A farmer in Ballybay, Co. Monaghan had a trailer with a dead sheep inside stolen from his farmyard in the middle of the night.

The theft took place on the night of Sunday 1 October to Monday 2 October.

The farmer had used the trailer on Sunday to collect the sheep from a field and left it in the trailer for collection this morning.

The trailer is a Hudson twin-axle sheep trailer with specially fitted LED lights and a lift off top. It has an estimated value of €2,000 and was bought new by the farmer 10 years ago.

The farmyard was located 150m off the main road and the thieves had to pass through two sets of farm gates to enter the yard.

Photo of stolen trailer

In a recent Red C poll of 1,000 farmers conducted by the Irish Farmers Journal, 40% of respondents said they had been victims of rural crime.

This is a 2% increase compared to 2015, when 38% of respondents said they had been victims of rural crime.

An Garda Síochána has been informed of the theft of the trailer. The affected farmer believes that there has been a spate of robberies in recent weeks, with reports of farm tools going missing in the local area.

Gardaí in Ballybally are investigating and can be contacted on 042-974 1002.

Read more

Two arrested in Co Mayo stolen farm property raid

Rural crime: ‘The security you feel in your own place is taken away’