Mr Bogie said: "The number of dead sheep is totalling thousands. We have had individual calls to pick up 10, 50, 100 even as many as 200. It is not only Scotland that's been affected – the situation just over the Border in Cumbria is just as bad. "The problem has been that with the animals sheltering in the gullies and behind dykes, the winds which came with the snow caused such huge drifts that the animals were quite quickly smothered." Jim Walker, managing director of the Argent plant at Motherwell which buys all the tallow from Mr Bogie's Dumfries operation, said: "We have seen a massive increase in the amount of tallow over the last few weeks. It is quite unbelievable. "The snow has thrown up some real horror stories from one end of the country to the other. The death rate on the hills is enormous. I've seen nothing like it for 20 years. Feed bills will be horrendous and not all farmers will be insured for losses of this scale." A Peebleshire hill farmer asking not to be name, confirmed the hit he had taken from the 'Beast from the East': "We have lost 70 ewes and with snow drifts still lying in some places there could be more deaths. We didn't need this as this time." New entrant, Peter Will,who farms Ballhala at Strathblane, has taken a double whammy, not only finding ewes dead in the snow, but also since having his 340-ewe flock attacked by a dog. Mr Will, 36, told The Scottish Farmer: "Both incidents have been quite a hit. The melting snow revealed 27 ewes dead, which for me is a big percentage loss. "My farm also borders Mugdock Country park and at the weekend a dog being walked there ran into one of my fields and attacked the sheep with 10 having to be put down. I had only just fed the ewes. I managed to chase the dog back to its owner. I'm not sure what breed it was. It didn't look like something you would have as a pet. Its owner didn't say much. The Police are dealing with it. I only started up four years ago and losses like this are the last thing I need, especially at lambing time." NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick said: "The conditions which many farmers faced over the last month have clearly been extreme and it is unfortunately to be expected that the number of livestock lost is going to be higher than in normal weather circumstances. "If members believe that political pressure is needed to overcome problems presented by the exceptional weather, then we would encourage them to feed in to regional representatives and managers." Source - http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk