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A Co Tipperary farm has had a fifth of its flock wiped out after a vicious dog attack in the past week.
Twenty ewes from a flock of 100 were killed with more injured and the farmers fearing that many of the in-lamb ewes will abort before lambing in May.
The attack happened between Nenagh and Thurles last Thursday morning.
Mary Ryan relayed the details to the Irish Farmers Journal this week.
“The husband checked on the sheep at around 10am last Thursday morning,” Mary said.
“We have great neighbours and we got a call at around 3.30 in the afternoon from one of the neighbours to say that dogs were at our sheep. We got people in and went up to the sheep but it was too late at that stage.”
Mary is convinced that there were a number of dogs involved.
“I’m sure there were at least two big dogs and maybe a Collie there too. The way in which the sheep were savaged … it could only have been a big, big dogs. We didn’t see them when we got up there. They had done their bit and moved on,” she said.
While there is such a large portion of the flock dead, the real fear for Mary is the other in-lamb ewes.
“Sadly that’s the big danger – that we could lose more in-lamb ewes or they could abort because of the fear they got.”
Mary said the biggest loss is the emotional one after spending years building up the flock.
“This isn’t the first time we have had dogs attack our flock and the emotional loss is something serious. You spend years working on getting the flock right.
“We’d replace 10% of the flock every year so you have younger ewes coming through. It’s like torture to us to see them killed like this.”
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