ABNORMAL APPETITES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1441, 16 May 1912, Page 8

ABNORMAL APPETITES.

SHEEP EATING KABBITS.

Several Donk owners on the lipper Murrumbidgee have, soys an Australian wntei;, lost numbers of sheep owing to the animals haviuK lately develojied a taste tor the carcassfs of jjoiionecl.rabbits nniL bther'oarrioii. Uiiririff the past few months about 300 bliccp belonging to Jlr. hoyton, of Nangm, have perislieil in this way, and others in the same iH%'lil)cmrliood havo also lost stock through the same cans?. Just now, awarding to Mr. lioyton, slu-eji will eat almost .anythini;, and he himself- has seen a sheep eating a uve-days-dead body of another sheep, btock Inspector Jlael'herson states that the mortality in tho Guudagni district has been heavy.- "Yeurs ago , ," ho said,-' I can remember cattlo and sheep eating bones and dead aheep—it was looked upon as a disease; and was dealt with as such 111 the text bonks. But the present epidemic is extraordinary, inasmuch as sheep will cat ■ rabbits just (lead, ■ The other rinj- I saw a"ewo greedily devour a rabbit which wsis not dead enough to be cold." To some extent the abnormal appetites ot the animals .mav bo due to the effect? of the long-continued dry weather on the herbage of every kind. There has been no "reen feed i'u many parts of liiveijna for months, and the whole .country is almost as dry as ( powder.