€30,000 worth of cattle stolen in Cork

Up to €30,000 worth of cattle were stolen from an outfarm overnight in Cork on Sunday.

Skibbereen farmer Brian Lawlor told Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 on Tuesday that 12 Friesian heifers and six Friesian bulls were loaded into a lorry and taken away.

Lalor said his main worry, aside from the financial impact, is that the thieves will return and take more stock.

"We've all heard of stories of cattle going missing, but you'd never think that it'd come to your own door.

"The clever thing that they did was they took all the cattle out of one pen, then when they were finished stealing our cattle, they moved other cattle to fill that pen to make it look less obvious. When we landed, we didn't realise straight away that we had cattle missing until we stared counting," Lawlor said.

Replacements

The stolen heifers were destined as replacements for Lawlor's 240-cow dairy herd and were all genotyped.

Gardaí are investigating the incident and are appealing for anyone who may have information to contact them.

Any persons including road users who were travelling between the R637 road and the R593 road overnight and who may have camera footage are asked to make this available to investigating gardaí.

Investigating gardaí can be contacted at Skibbereen Garda Station on 028-23088.