A Co Tipperary dairy farmer has appealed to the public for any information after thieves stole 11 of the 14 clusters on his milking machine in the dead of night.

David Hickey from Grange, Nenagh, went into the milking parlour as usual on Monday morning only to discover that most of the clusters on his Fullwood machine had been cut off and taken under the cover of darkness.

“They cut them at the swing-over arm, through the rubbers and the rope for the automatic cluster removers,” Hickey told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“They must have been stolen to order for someone who wanted 11 or 14 clusters,” he maintained. “They didn’t take anything else or do any other damage.”

The dairy farmer, who runs the farm with his father, mother and younger brother, believes the intruder was someone who had previously been on the farm.

They must have known exactly where each camera is

“I have cameras up everywhere, recording and on my phone, but they must have known exactly where each camera is,” he explained. “It’s scary, it’s a bit eery around here now because the parlour is only 50 yards from our house.”

“They parked in a second yard down the road and walked down the cow roadway to the back of the parlour. You can see two sets of footprints, one coming down the lane to the home yard and the other going back out, with the tracks of the pipes being dragged behind them.”

With the help of a dairy neighbour who loaned his clusters, the Hickeys’ milked their 130-cow herd on Monday morning.

However they then had to buy 11 new clusters and pipes, at a cost of over €5,000.

No insurance

The clusters are not covered by insurance because they were not specified on the insurance details, only the machine itself was listed.

“I don’t know why they only took 11 of the 14 clusters, maybe they were disturbed by one of us coming home after a night out.

“We were all gone out of the house on Sunday night for a time.”

The theft comes less than a year after the Hickeys’ shed was deliberately burned down in December 2016.

Two tractors, a mower and a sprayer, as well as 600 bales of straw and 300 bale of hay, were lost in the blaze.

“I don’t know what that costs us. We would probably be out of farming if we did the maths on that,” said Hickey.

Anyone with any information on the theft is asked to contact Nenagh Garda Station on 067 50450.

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