ABNORMAL APPETITES.

Waipa Post, Volume III, Issue 112, 21 May 1912, Page 4

ABNORMAL APPETITES.

SHEEP EATING RABBITS. Several flock owners on the Upper Murrunibidgee have, says an Australian writer, lost numbers of sheep owing to the animals having lately developed a taste for the carcases of poisoned, rabbits and other carrion. During the past five months about 300 sheep belonging to Mr Boy ton, of Nangus, have perished this way, and others in the same neighbourhood have also lost stock through the same cause. Just now, according to Mr Boyton, sheep will eat almost anything, arid he himself has seen a sheep eating a five-days dead body of another sheep. Stock Inspector MacPherson states that the mortality in the Gundagai district has been heavy “ Years ago,” he said, ‘‘ I can. remember cattle and sheep eating bones and dead sheep it was looked upon as a disease, and was dealt with as such in the text books. But the present epidemic is extraordinary, inasmuch as sheep will eat rabbits just dead. The other day I saw a ewe greedily devour a, rabbit which was not dead enough to be cold.” To some extent the abnormal appetites of the anjmals may. be due to the effects of the long-co n ued dry weather on the h erb e of every kind. There has be en o green feed in many parts of Riverina for months, and the w ole country is almost as dry as powder.