Hundreds of people have rushed to a village in eastern India to see a male calf defy its herbivore nature by eating live chicks. Poultry farmer Ajit Ghosh said he discovered the calf's strange behaviour after dozens of his newborn chickens went missing from his combined cow shed and chicken coop.
"I guess the calf was a tiger in his previous birth," he said. "We were shocked to see that our one-month-old calf sneaked up to the coop, caught a little chick like a jungle cat and gobbled it up alive in seconds."
A police superintendent in India's West Bengal state said hundreds of people have been flocking to the farm in Chandpur, with a veterinarian also called in to investigate.
"If I had not seen the calf chewing up a chicken, I could not believe it," Rajesh Kumar Singh said.
Umapati Chatterjee, a doctor at a veterinary hospital in Kolkata, said there may be a scientific reason for the behaviour. "I think the calf is suffering from pika, a rare disease caused by deficency of salt and other minerals," Chatterjee said.
In majority Hindu India, the cow is revered as a sacred animal. Ghosh said his calf has now been named Lal ('Red'), after the colour which symbolises strength. -- AFP |