"It would be an absolute nightmare if this comes to be. I don't know what will happen," said Mr Miceal McCoy, chairman of the Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers Association, outside the suspect farm.
Initially there was little about the farm, only a few miles north of the Border, to indicate its potentially devastating contents.
The short driveway leading to the farm buildings was taped off. Vets from the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture wearing disposable white and blue plastic overalls came and went from cars parked at the gate.
Two small signs informed passers-by that this was an infected area and trespassers would be prosecuted.
The vets worked in two teams, passing tools and chemicals from one side of the tape to the other, never crossing over themselves.
But for one exchange, the men never spoke to the waiting journalists. "We're going to take some samples now, so could you please move up the road?" one asked.
"Samples of what?" he was asked in return.
"Just move," came the reply.
That slaughtering and examining the sheep was serious work was clear from the vets' faces. The Agriculture Minister, Mrs Rodgers, later said the tests they had carried out indicated some of the sheep did indeed have foot-and-mouth.
As the afternoon wore on a flat-bed truck carrying concrete sleepers, a jeep pulling a trailer full of coal and a JCB digger arrived. These were the essential components for the incineration of the sheep, which had been brought from a market in Carlisle on February 19th.
Last night the department said 270 other sheep from the same consignment had probably gone into the Republic.
There was an 8km "surveillance zone" around the farm, extending across the Border. Within this it was forbidden to move livestock. But the road past the farm remained open throughout the day.
It was even possible to cross into the Republic unchallenged and travel as far as the A1 Dublin to Belfast road. Here, however, a large traffic jam had developed as every vehicle was closely scrutinised.
Mr McCoy called for farmers in the North to adopt the "fortress mentality" that was asked for by the authorities.
South Armagh was a particularly bad place for an outbreak of the disease, he said, as there were many smallholdings with farmers' land dispersed over a wide area. A serious outbreak "could be the death knell of the industry", he said.
Local people were also afraid, and unhappy with the amount of information they had been given by officials.
A woman living less than 15 metres from one of the sheds on the affected farm told this reporter: "You're the first person to come up the driveway since this thing started." Asked if she was worried, she said: "Yes, and you would be too if you had children."
She said her family worked on an adjoining farm and that because of the intermingled nature of farms in south Armagh, "if one of them has it, they all have it".
The proximity of different herds and flocks is only one high-risk factor. British army foot patrols and fuel smuggling could increase the risk.
Mr Derek Johnston, owner of Murphy's Lounge in Meigh, was also critical of the authorities' response. Television footage from England had shown police blocking roads and sealing farms but the RUC were nowhere to be seen, he claimed.
"If this thing is here, then why isn't this road blocked?" he asked.