Thirteen heifer calves died in a farm building fire on Paddy Kelly’s farm in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan on Sunday morning. He told the Irish Farmers Journal that at 7am on Sunday his son was getting ready to start milking when he noticed smoke coming from one of the farm’s sheds.

After alerting the fire service he was able to rescue five of the calves, but 13 perished.

“After getting the first pen of calves out of the shed I prevented my son going back in, the smoke could easily have smothered him,” Kelly said.

“The shed was used to house my 18 best replacement heifer calves and to our misfortune 13 were killed.”

There was a loft with 25 straw bales above the pens.

Kelly believes an electrical fault caused the fire in the shed.