A Kerry farmer suspects thieves of taking sheep from his farm in October.

"I had 20 sheep stolen and another man in the area has reported 14 of his missing also," Annascaul sheep farmer Ger Kennedy told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“The ewes were on commonage land up the mountain, roughly half way between Annascaul and Dingle. We took them down for shearing in July and all was well, but when we took them down for the winter, some were missing."

The search

After searching the mountain on numerous occasions, Kennedy came to the conclusion that the sheep had been stolen.

“There was no sign at all of the ewes after a couple of days searching. There usually is no trouble getting them back down, they usually come with ease.

“Someone must have ran them off the mountain and picked them up. It’s very hard to recover sheep, the tags could easily be cut out of them at this stage.”

Suspicious case

Castlegregory farmer Sean Reidy has said 14 of his ewes remain missing since July.

“We keep our ewes on the Stradbally Mountain during the summer and when we took the flock down in July for shearing, we noticed the batch missing.

“A couple would always go missing as a result of natural causes, but never 14 at once. It’s a wide open mountain with 100s of acres, so some may easily have wandered off, but this case is suspicious.”

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