03/05/2025
Lock up your lambs and brand your bloody rams – someone’s been rustling sheep in Lexton like it’s the Wild Woollen West! 🐏
A local farmer (pictured) has been hit again – for the third time in under two years – with a jaw-dropping 1,115 Merino sheep vanishing into thin air between February 25 and March 28! 😮
And no, that's not a typo. That’s one thousand, one hundred and fifteen four-legged cash machines hoofing it off the property, leaving the bloke out of pocket to the tune of about $130,000 this round alone. 💰
According to the Western Region Crime Squad, this wasn’t just some spur-of-the-moment animal abduction by a couple of bogans with a trailer! 👨🏻
Detective Senior Constable Greg Broom didn't mince his words, saying, “This was not a random act – we believe this was a carefully coordinated theft that has left a local farmer significantly out of pocket.” 👮🏻♂️
Among the missing were around 600 of the farm’s best Merino lambs – hand-selected, mixed s*x, and unshorn at the time of the theft – worth roughly $60,000. 🐑
Also taken were 300 older Merino ewes aged between three and six years, along with three rams, all unshorn and valued at approximately $42,000. 🤑
To round out the heist, another 200 Merino ewes – a mix of home-bred and bought stock – plus three more rams, were snatched, adding another $28,000 to the growing list of losses. 🐏
And this isn’t the first time these woolly crooks have struck. Back in 2023, the same property copped it twice – once between July and September when 585 twelve-month-old Merino sheep were swiped, and again in November when 16 Merino rams disappeared! 😠
Inspector Paul Hargreaves, Victoria’s State Farm Crime Coordinator, summed it up best: “Offending of this nature isn’t just opportunistic – it’s organised, targeted, and deeply damaging to farmers and our economy.” 👮🏻♂️
He added that livestock theft remains a top priority for Victoria Police, and they’re throwing everything short of a wool-classer at the problem, working closely with industry bodies and regional cops to stamp it out. 🚔
Now they’re calling on anyone and everyone – especially those in the farming and transport game – to keep an eye out for anything dodgy! 🧐
One Lexton resident commented: “Mate, it’s gettin’ so bad out here, I’ve started counting empty paddocks to get to sleep! These wool-nabbing wombats must be running a black market Baa-Baa shop!” ✂️
📷: Charlotte Wilkes
