There is a new hazard this winter on the roads of rural Ireland, dozens of wandering, hungry cattle, turned loose by farmers who cannot feed them, cannot sell them and reckon they will be picked up by the gardai or the ISPCA.
The cattle pounds in most of the western counties are overfull as more animals are being put out on the roads, the eartags which identify their owners removed.
The animal welfare societies are overrun with requests for help and the companies which collect dead animals from farms and the health authorities are working flat out to deal with the problem.
There is a record number of cattle on Irish farms this winter. It is almost eight million - the same number of people who were living in Ireland when the potato blight struck over 150 years ago.
This time it is the cattle that are at risk as relentless bad weather, which prevented a proper harvest of hay and silage last summer, continues. For many animals, the arrival of new grass on land dry enough to allow animals graze it, will be too late.
Some estimate that over 1,000 cattle have already died from starvation or starvation-related disease.
The meat factories are turning animals away.
They have enough to meet a falling demand for Irish beef from abroad, where some markets have collapsed and others have turned to their native produce because of BSE.
Last weekend, Ms Ann Green, who runs a collection service for dead farm animals, received 75 calls from farmers, even though the farming community in the west and midlands know the collection service closes at the weekend.
"The number of calls was extraordinary in itself, but what was really shocking was the number of animals involved," said Ms Green.
"One of the farmers wanted us to six dead animals from his farm, two others had four dead animals for us, quite a few had three and an awful lot of the rest had one or more," she said.
"I have never seen anything like it, especially when I know that most of the farmers involved are good, careful people who are trying their best," she said.
"Last week we were called to collect five cows from a local pound. They had been found straying on the roads without eartags and there are more and more of these calls coming in." "There is just not enough fodder to go around and credit has run out for the smaller man who is not able to buy meal or concentrates," she added.
Mr Bill Cashman, a Cork-based vet, who is the spokesman for the Irish Veterinary Association, said his organisation was alarmed at the number of reports of cattle without food.
Mr Ciaran O'Donovan, chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the crisis had reached the stage where there was no point in prosecuting farmers for cruelty to animals.
"We are getting far too many reports of animals in distressed conditions," he said.
"We will pursue those who are involved in wilful cruelty but there are just too many other complaints coming to us at this time," he said.
The problem could only be resolved by money, he said. The Government must act to get money to farmers who cannot afford to buy fodder or substitute feeding. A Teagsc spokesman said last night that if farmers came to them early enough, hardship and deaths could be avoided.