Four suckler cows were lost on the farm of John Fleming in Wexford, after the roof of one of his sheds collapsed as a result of the heavy snowfall.

The roof of the shed, a cubicle shed, fell in on 12 cows. John and his son Patrick pulled out 10 of them alive and two dead. Two of the 10 then had to be put down as a result of their injuries.

Meanwhile, five of Jason Kenneally’s grandfather’s sheds suffered damage as a result of the heavy snowfall.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal Jason, from Cloyne, Co Cork said that the roofs caved in as a result of the heavy snowfall and it was made all the more stressful, as calving is still ongoing and a freshly calved suckler cow and calf narrowly escaped being injured.

“On Friday morning I went out to the shed and one of the cows was having a calf. She’s a first-time calver.”

Jason said it was a tough calving for the Charolais cow and that when they got the calf out, he wasn’t making any effort to stand.

Not long after that, the roof of the shed fell in.

“The shed they were in, the roof fell in about 10 or 15 foot – but it didn’t do any damage to the cows or calves.

“We moved them to another shed and a couple of hours later the roof in that one went as well from the weight of the snow."

The damage from Storm Emma on Jason Kenneally's grandfather's farm.

“So I made a pen for the cow and this calf in the shed where we keep the ration, with a heat lamp for the calf.

“Yesterday morning [Saturday], I went out to check on them in the shed after I dropped messages to my grandfather and I found that the roof of that shed had fallen down too.

“It missed the cow and calf but the heat lamp got turned off as a result.

“I then had to separate the cow and calf, I had no other shed space for them. I put the cow back in with the rest of the cows and brought the calf into the stores shed.

“I got the heat lamp and the blankets. I thought he was on the way out then this morning [Sunday] so I called the local vet. He got a drip then and a litre of milk every three or four hours."

Lucky the Charolais calf on Jason Kenneally's Cork farm

“He’s standing up now which is a big improvement, so I think he might have turned a corner."

I’m calling him Lucky, between the tough calving and the sheds falling down about him.

Jason said that the roof of a fifth shed on the farm, used for storing straw, fell in as well. A JCB is holding that one up at the minute, he said.

Jason and his grandfather, James Northridge and James' two sons run a suckler, tillage and contracting enterprise. Of 20 cows, they have three left to calve.

Wexford

In Wexford, the roof of a shed where one of Willie John Kehoe's tractors was being kept collapsed under the weight of the snow.

There was also a sprayer underneath it when it caved in.