{"id":727064,"date":"2026-01-28T20:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/727064\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T20:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:29:14","slug":"sheep-saved-from-storm-chandra-flood-ballymena-farmer-explains-how-hero-sheepdog-saved-the-day-in-co-antrim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/727064\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheep saved from Storm Chandra flood: Ballymena farmer explains how hero sheepdog saved the day in Co Antrim"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Co Antrim farmer has recalled how he had to battle the elements to rescue the animals after torrential rain battered Northern Ireland during Storm Chandra.<\/p>\n

Graham Wallace was battling flood waters at his Ballymena-based farm, which houses around 150 cattle, when he got word that his flock was in trouble.<\/p>\n

Around 20 of his sheep were grazing at the bottom of Slemish before they were caught in the downpour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the phone call came we were dealing with a flooding farm here, so it was just one of them days,\u201d Graham explained. \u201cI just dropped everything and ran over there. There was a concrete lane that takes you down in that direction, and halfway down that I got no farther, [so] I started walking down through the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw the sheep at a distance, they were right at the riverbank, probably the only one piece of riverbank that hadn\u2019t submerged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A separate flock of sheep were rescued in Ballymena (Kevin Scott)<\/p>\n

After assessing the situation, Graham and his loyal sheepdog were able to guide the flock out of danger through one of the gates.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to put my life at risk for them, or my dog\u2019s life at risk, but sort of assessed the situation, and worked a route through using bits of the ground that were higher than others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was never in any deeper than knee-high, but I was able to get a route through. We\u2019re sort of on the side of a hill, and all the water comes off the hills and comes down through the yard so it caused a bit of havoc.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wind was very strong at the time too, and I had to get everything closed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time adverse weather has put Graham\u2019s flock in the spotlight. During heavy snow showers in 2013, a number of his sheep were trapped in deep snow for a number of days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in The Sun, we were in The Mirror \u2014 we made the news in Australia, somebody said,\u201d Graham recalled.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a second flock of sheep on another farm near Ballymena also became trapped in deep waters in a flooded field in the Glenwherry area.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were called to the incident at around 10am on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The specialist rescue team from Central Fire Station was sent along with two appliances from Ballymena fire station, and one animal rescue team from Omagh fire station attended.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sheep stuck in flood water outside Ballymena <\/p>\n

Advice was given to the farmer before leaving the scene at around 1.40pm as the water levels were too high to attempt a rescue operation.<\/p>\n

The farmer was subsequently able to lead them to safety after the waters subsided at around 5.30pm.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the NI Fire and Rescue Service said that they received 98 calls relating to Storm Chandra \u201cwith fire crews mobilising to 58 incidents\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Co Antrim farmer has recalled how he had to battle the elements to rescue the animals after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[155107,1211,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-727064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-abdullah-sabri","9":"tag-antrim-news","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115974620233872113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}