Mr Strachan, who has lived and worked Allimbie farm for the past 25 years, said this was the first time an incident of this nature had occurred.

“They just disappeared,” he said.

Nearly a fortnight ago, he couldn’t locate the merino during shearing.

“We went to get the other sheep and we couldn’t find them,” he said.

Since the incident, he has chosen not to report the disappearance to the police.

However, police have since been notified and it is believed officers would canvas the property on Wednesday afternoon, November 14.

Mr Strachan has enquired with neighbouring properties and has completed perimeter checks at the property’s fence line. He and son Michael have searched around the local area.

“I’ve been running sheep for years and never had any trouble before,” Mr Strachan said. “Buggered if I know … I don’t know where the sheep could get to, unless they were pinched.”

The pure-bred merinos have two distinctive sheep among the mob: a stag ram with large horns, and a rogue ewe that had a lamb at foot. She would be 18 months’ full wool on her now, Mr Strachan said.

Police Inspector Alison Brennan of Hume Police District  said she was not aware of any other instances in the local area.

“Timeliness is one of the things we need to investigate it properly and every day that goes by is a detriment to solving the situation,” Inspector Brennan said.

“It’s like trying to predict the weather unless the report is made; innumerable factors affecting the likely outcome.”

The crime would be referred to a dedicated rural crime investigator who specialised in instances such as stock theft, she said.

“We encourage people to report things to us and be vigilant about boundary fences and tagging animals, and monitoring the animals on a regular basis.

“If we are unable to identify patterns, and patterns lead us to hot spots, and hot spots lead us to culprits. 

“We rely on the community to let us know about community issues,” she added.