Stock thieves target expensive Mpumalanga stud bulls

Brazen stock thieves, believed to be part of a syndicate, have stolen three stud bulls worth more than R100 000 each from various Mpumalanga farms over the past two months.

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Tommy Ferreira of NMTB Farming in Piet Retief said he had exhausted his network of informants to try recover his prize animal, but without success. The award-winning Simbra bull stolen from Ferreira is worth around R150 000 alone.

“I bought Ben-Bee in Klerksdorp three months ago. On the night of 4 August he was on the veld with other bulls and cows, and when we counted the herd the next afternoon, we discovered that he and three commercial Simbra cows were gone from our Heyshope farm.  They appear to have been driven far away because tracker dogs could find no trace of them, and I also spent five hours in a helicopter trying to find them.”

According to Ferreira, the other stolen bulls belong to BP Greyling and Piet Dafel, both of Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga.

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Farmer’s Weekly couldn’t get hold of the Wakkerstroom stock-theft unit for comment. But commander of the national stock-theft unit colonel Oosie Oosthuizen said, “It’s very difficult to establish if these thefts were the work of a syndicate, and what the purpose of the thefts was, without further investigation”.

Meanwhile, an anonymous source, with links to the Mpumalanga livestock farming industry, said that unconfirmed reports speculate that one or more of the three stolen stud bulls could be in Mozambique. Ferreira is offering a R10 000 reward for information leading to Ben-Bee’s recovery. The bull can be identified by a tattoo in his ear with the code CPL055.