Mortality Among Sheep.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 786, 31 March 1905, Page 3

Mortality Among Sheep.

CAUSED BY EATING DEAD BABBITS.

ALHUHY, March 17. Mr Wilks, district stock inspector, has been called upon to make a departmental report ou a very remarkable case. Latterly Ou*n Daly, ojf Mulleugandra, has lost a number of sheep, and has ascertained that the cause of death was the eating of carcases of rabbits which had been poisone! by phosphorus. In this case there is nothing to account for the sheep's taste for dead rabbits, Ulricas it is-, as suggested by Mr Wilk's, a possibility that at a period when the whole country is as dry as dust, the animals may be attracted by the moisture in the carcases. The sheep are certainly not actuated by hunger or thirst, or need of salt. There is plenty of very dry grass which is made from the Stock lleon the run, als 0 water, and the paddocks are supplied with salt and the lick which is made from (he Stock Department rcciptf There is no doubt that the sheep eat the rabbp'ts daily. Several have been seen in the act. In some instances the carcases of the sheep which succumbed" were opened, and their stomacSis found to contain undigested lumps of rajjfeit flesh, together with pieces of skin, fur, and all IVom 2in to 4in in length. In most cases the sheep die lingering deaths. The illness extends from ten to twenty daysi, anil Hie animals suffer great agony from (he outset. Mr Wilks, in an experience extending over many years, has only once before hoard o; sheep eating dead ralibits, but in that case the circumstances were entirely different. It was on the Darling, during the height of the severe drought. There was not a Wade of grass on the run, and the sheep, like th? rabbits, were dying of starvation.