Farmer finds pregnant sheep skinned alive with legs chopped off

'How anyone could do this to an animal is beyond me,' says farmer

A sheep was found skinned and butchered in a field in Northern Ireland (Rex Features)

An intruder skinned a heavily pregnant sheep and chopped off its legs after breaking into a farm in Northern Ireland.

The pedigree Dorset ewe was found butchered outside its pen in Kilrea, County Londonderry, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The sheep’s throat had also been slit.

“How anyone could do this to an animal is beyond me,” said farmer Arron Lamont.

He added: “Someone knew what they were doing as this wasn’t a five-minute job. Wasn’t a pretty sight to come across this morning.”

He said a wire fence around his field had been damaged during the break-in and other ewes in the field were “badly shook up”.

Mr Lamont, a part-time farmer and lorry driver, believes the slaughtered sheep has hung up on barbed wire to be skinned. He said he thought the animal would have suffered.

“You can see the clean lines of the knife, and the wool and the skin was cut off – not pulled off,” he told the Belfast Telegraph. “It was like a butcher job.”

He said he had kept what happened from his children, aged eight and six, as it was too disturbing.

A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman told The Independent: “Police received a report of the remains of a badly mutilated sheep being found in the Bann Road area of Kilrea on Sunday, September 30.

“Enquiries are ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact officers in Limavady on 101, quoting reference 510 of 30/09/18.”