Things are bad in Antrim

farmer_dave

Weather is tough and lots of dead sheep, lambs and cattle:

http://www.u.tv/News/Chinook-to-resume-NI-food-drops/df3f2f37-feb1-4ec2-a478-04498cacee48

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21936592


A sad sight.

blue5000

Down south we don't know just how lucky we are.

20silkcut

Imagine walking out in the morning to a collapsed hay shed with animals trapped under it. We are lucky but it is terrifying when you think how close to home this really is.

68Murph68

Absolutely horrible conditions.

As an aside does anyone else think RTE has done very little in terms of reporting this?

Maybe I missed it but it seems like RTE havent really mentioned how bad things are up north.

farmer_dave

I am surprised about RTE not covering it. There is an Irish Air Corp Helicopter up too. ESB are up helping to restore power as well. It's bad. Drifts are massive - over 10ft in places.

Suckler

farmer_dave wrote: »

I am surprised about RTE not covering it.

I'm surprised RTE manged to pull together the small bit of info they have. As the national broadcaster, the news updates are always painfully slow in coming through. The internet update is about 12 hours behind what it should be.

Images like this a very disturbing, some farmers reckon they've lost the lot.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0326/378444-weather/

yellow50HX

was chatiing to lad from near belfast yesterday, i didnt relise it was so bad till i was chatting to him. he said belfast and the lagan valley was clear but one you when north or south of that you were into 10ft snow drifts. a neighbour of his came woke up in the middle of the night earlier in the week to find the roof had collasled in one of his shed. he was half afarid to look. was haunted lucky that the feed barrier broke the fall and prevented complete carnage.

Cavanjack

farmer_dave wrote: »

I am surprised about RTE not covering it. There is an Irish Air Corp Helicopter up too. ESB are up helping to restore power as well. It's bad. Drifts are massive - over 10ft in places.

Sure how could rte afford to cover that story after sending a team of 15 to Rome for the election of the new pope!

whelan1

oh gone north today in the lorry.... will let know what its like... amazing to think 20 miles down the road from us there are snow drifts etc, we dont know how lucky we are with only snow showers

Bizzum

I,m in the glens of Antrim as we speak, on holidays. Fair bit of snow in places. I'll get out and about today.
I spoke to only 1 farmer yesterday, he was lucky in that his sheep were all accounted for. He said his neighbours had some unaccounted for but he didn't really know the scale of the losses yet.

Conmaicne Mara

Can only imagine how devastating the snow is on animals up there. Blessed here really with no snow.

moy83

This will be a winter they will never forget up there , a right long slog feeding cattle for so long and just when they hoped to be coming into spring they get this snow that might be the last straw for alot of farmers that have stock and sheds lost . I hope the weather improves for the next three years in a row to make up for it .
Will insurance pay out on losses from snow like this ?

AntrimGlens

Bizzum wrote: »

I,m in the glens of Antrim as we speak, on holidays.

Bizzum,
i've a spare shovel or two if you find yourself getting bored.:D
thankfully i've lost nothing yet stock wise, but the early lambers were up on the higher ground and i was able to get to them with feed on the quad and get the lane cleared with the loader to get silage to them by sunday. I've ewes that lambed in september out on the hill and have seen three of them with the binoculars but nothing else moving yet, it's just impossible to get to them until now as the hill is to steep to get the quad onto and with lambing going on i haven't been able to spend the time to walk the hill. All the mules are lambing now and spending much longer inside than i'd prefer, just hope i don't get any scours or ecoli. Growth is non existant and i can't see anything thawing here until well into next week and it's just getting more and more depressing by the day. there are neighbours and friends who are much worse off than me, one of my neighbours has about 1500 ewes on the hill to lamb in the first week in april and so far they have only managed to find about thirty of them alive. These would be easycare ewes with little wool so really not able to withstand these conditions, abortions will be rife even if the ewes do live. Just fooked off and then there are wan*ers on the radio going on about farmers getting handouts and tax payers having to subsidise this and that - drives me mad.:mad:

yellow50HX

AntrimGlens wrote: »

Bizzum wrote: »

I,m in the glens of Antrim as we speak, on holidays.

Bizzum,
i've a spare shovel or two if you find yourself getting bored.:D
thankfully i've lost nothing yet stock wise, but the early lambers were up on the higher ground and i was able to get to them with feed on the quad and get the lane cleared with the loader to get silage to them by sunday. I've ewes that lambed in september out on the hill and have seen three of them with the binoculars but nothing else moving yet, it's just impossible to get to them until now as the hill is to steep to get the quad onto and with lambing going on i haven't been able to spend the time to walk the hill. All the mules are lambing now and spending much longer inside than i'd prefer, just hope i don't get any scours or ecoli. Growth is non existant and i can't see anything thawing here until well into next week and it's just getting more and more depressing by the day. there are neighbours and friends who are much worse off than me, one of my neighbours has about 1500 ewes on the hill to lamb in the first week in april and so far they have only managed to find about thirty of them alive. These would be easycare ewes with little wool so really not able to withstand these conditions, abortions will be rife even if the ewes do live. Just fooked off and then there are wan*ers on the radio going on about farmers getting handouts and tax payers having to subsidise this and that - drives me mad.:mad:

do the army or mountain rescue crowd have any snow mobiles? surely if there were a few of these around (or just flown in for the week) a proper plan could be made to get up the hills. or am im beein thick? not sure if they would be able to cross the type of snow ye have.

Bizzum

AntrimGlens wrote: »

Bizzum wrote: »

I,m in the glens of Antrim as we speak, on holidays.

Bizzum,
i've a spare shovel or two if you find yourself getting bored.:D

I'd help in a heartbeat. Here for a week, if I can be of any help at all PM me. I mean that.

AntrimGlens

Thanks bizzum, but we're managing ok. If you are looking something to do on friday theres a good mart in Ballymena and i have a couple of first calvers going so if you want to head over and wave your hand around the ring there'll be a couple of pints in it for ya. that would give the dealers a bit of a shake. hha

Bizzum

And good lookin stock they are too. Best of luck with them.