The silence on the Cooley peninsula is being felt like a pain by people in the area, says Cooley vet Bernard Wynne.
"It's very, very obvious to anyone in the farming community. You would notice, like a pain, the silence and the visual absence of sheep on the landscape. There is nothing on the landscape. There are no more white dots in the green fields or mountains. It's shockingly obvious. At this time of year, you would have little lambs dancing around the fields. But now there's nothing.
"If you stand and listen, you will hear the grey crows. These scavengers are hungry because have nothing to pick up out of the fields now."
Bernard Wynne has been involved in the foot-and-mouth crisis since news broke of the Meigh outbreak in Armagh. In one fell swoop, his clients have seen their stock numbers annihilated. The entire sheep flock in the peninsula has been destroyed. This week, a voluntary cull was under way in the northwest of the county.
Emotionally, the cull has hit some farmers very hard. "I've seen grown men bawling and you would feel like bawling yourself."
What are sheep farmers doing with their time, now that their fields are empty? "Many of them are sitting there, stunned. I try to tell them to use the time to tidy up around the farm, do some fencing and other little jobs. But the way they look at it, they won't have stock for another nine months or a year." He says farmers should go away for a holiday. "It might be the only decent break they'll take in their lives."
When the crisis started, Mr Wynne offered the benefit of his local knowledge to the Department of Agriculture's disease centre in Dundalk.
But it was only when Piedmont farmer Tony Keenan contacted him one morning that he had personal involvement with the disease threat. The farmer had spotted unusual symptoms in his sheep and feared the worst. When Bernard Wynne visited the farm, he too feared that the disease had entered this State. Samples from Mr Keenan's flock subsequently proved negative but his vet still does not know what caused the symptoms.
With the 30-day period since the Republic's only outbreak ending on Thursday, is he optimistic that this State will continue to contain that outbreak? "Am I hopeful? Yes, because of our scorched earth policy. But as long as England has a problem, we have a problem. We cannot afford to take chances. And I would still be worried that there are a small number of sheep from that load from Carlisle that have not been accounted for."
He believes the Government should offer immunity from prosecution to people who have that critical information. Mr John Walsh, the dealer who brought the sheep from Carlisle, has sought immunity before giving more information to the authorities. "What's more important? Getting this information or making a prosecution?"
Mr Wynne urges all farmers to check their stock twice daily and immediately report any strange symptoms such as foam on an animal's lips or a staggering gait. "An animal could be sick and recover three or four hours later so if you don't check twice a day, you miss that. That animal could then pass it on to half the herd."
For this reason, any suggestion that farmers could be covering up the disease is firmly ruled out. "You couldn't hide it. It spreads so quickly." In addition, vets in the Cooley area are continually revisiting herds in the area to ensure that symptoms are not missed.
The message of vigilance should continually be given to farmers. "Disinfect, disinfect, disinfect, that's the first thing you see on the foot-and-mouth advertisements. But checking stock should be in banner headlines. This is the single most important thing."
Advice on disinfecting is fine, but it's about as useful as a "monkey trying to catch the virus with a butterfly net," he says. Yet it plays an important psychological role. "Checkpoints and disinfectant mats keep it in people's minds. If you can't go one quarter of a mile without having your wheels sprayed, then it keeps you alert."