COW POISONING.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 974, 31 August 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

COW POISONING.

The JV. Z. Herald says : — Cow poisoning to dairymen and graziers in New Zealand is a problem difficult of solution. Noxious weeds exist, and people grazing their cows on a run have to take the risk, but it comes hard when persons grazing cows on enclosed paddocks, which have been grazed over for years, find themselves subjected to serious loss in this respect. Yet a case of this kind occurred yesterday morning in Parnell. Dr. Horne keeps milch cows in a paddock near the beach, at St. George’s Bay, and has done so for years. Yesterday morning he was astonished by the information that one of his best cows w r as dead, and that a calf was very sick. Of course the first opinion formed in the mind of the loser was that “ some enemy had done this in point of fact, that his cow had been poisoned, and he, accordingly, informed the police. Apost mortem examination of the beast was made yesterday afternoon, when her stomach was found to be loaded with tops of a species of yew tree. It appears that trimmings from these trees had been cropped from adjoining premises and thrown over the fence. The calf also ate of them, and was very sick, and the inference is that the yew branches are the cause of the death of the cow, and the illness of the calf. The yew tree has been long known as dangerous for cattle eating of the same.