Toxic fodder kills 32 heads of cattle in Kheda district

Ahmedabad: Thirty two heads of cattle - 25 bullocks and seven calves - died of poisoning at the gaushala (cowshed) of the Lord Ranchhodrai temple in the famous pilgrim town of Dakor in Kheda district.
The animals had consumed fodder donated by a devotee.
According to temple authorities, the incident occurred late on Tuesday night, when around 70 heads of cattle fainted in the temple cowshed.A veterinary doctor was called but 30 animals had died by then.
Bharat Joshi, chairman of the Dakor temple trust, said that the cattle had been given millet fodder donated by one Mayur Chandu Patel from Gata village of Anand taluka. Patel donated more than 600 bales of millet to the temple gaushala, said Joshi.
Joshi said police have lodged a complaint in the case and postmortems were conducted to find the cause of their death.
According to complaint lodged with Dakor police, Patel, who has been donating fodder to the gaushala every year, did so this year as well. The fodder was given to cattle at around 9 pm on Tuesday and soon after consuming it, their conditions started deteriorating after which the temple authorities called a veterinarian.
However, 32 animals died, apparently due to poisoning, by then. Police also took samples of the fodder for forensic testing.
Police said that the exact cause of the deaths will be known after getting the forensic report on the fodder.