20 heads of cattle suspected to be poisoned to death

[rooster59]

20 heads of cattle suspected to be poisoned to death

SUPHAN BURI: About 20 heads of cattle were found dead, suspected to be poisoned, near a pond in the middle of a dry rice farmland in Suphan Buri’s Sam Chook district, Thursday night.

A combined team of police and army personnel and livestock officials was rushed to the scene to investigate. The dead cattle were found scattering around the pond which is the main source of water for cattle in the area.

Mr Sanan Chitjaitrong and Mrs Sommai Kliangprasert, the co-owerss of the the cattle herd, told police that they bring the cattle to the pond every day where they usually draw water from the pond and put it in a shallow cement pond for the cattle.

They said that they did the same ritual on Thursday and their cattle collapsed and died about 15 minutes after they drank the water from the pond. They suspected that the water was poisoned.

The couple told the police that they used to have conflict with a buffalo owner over the water.

Police said they had to wait for test result from the livestock officials who took some specimens of intestines from some of the dead cattle for laboratorial tests to determine the actual cause of the deaths.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/content/160712

-- Thai PBS 2016-04-23

[Thechook]

20 heads?

[DoctorG]

20 heads?

Yeh, the bodies were not poisoned, just their heads

[tracker1]

Think I will give beef a miss of the menu for a few weeks !

[Pomthai]

No mention of the water being tested, just the cattle?

[SOTIRIOS]

....wow...nothing is sacred.....

[mercman24]

so obviously the whole pond was poisoned, i bet the buffalo guy doesn't let his herd drink there, not far to go to catch the culprit i would think

[Mudcrab]

No mention of the water being tested, just the cattle?

why would you test the water? the cattle are dead . The water can be changed.Small cement pool according to the article.Probably no water left.

[bassman]

No mention of the water being tested, just the cattle?

why would you test the water? the cattle are dead . The water can be changed.Small cement pool according to the article.Probably no water left.

Why wouldn't you test the water if doing a complete investigation? Could be a case of water going bad due to bacteria build up, such as the case with red tides, caused by nutrient build up and dead algae. Both the cement pool and pond should be tested, but this being Thailand good chance we have heard the last of this.

Another possibility is poisoning from vegetation such as pig weed. Though the farmers claim that death occurred within 15 minutes of drinking the water, who knows at this point if that is true? Remember the herd owners have already convicted the buffalo owner, could be more to the story than that reported.

And it could be the buffalo owner, this requires a comprehensive investigation not bits and pieces to solve and fix the problem whether a natural occurrence happened or intentional poisoning took place.