Cow found 52 kgs of plasic in its Stomach

Cow found 52 kgs of plasic in its Stomach

 

Surgeons from Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University worked over five hours to clear the waste, which included pins and needles. A stomach full of plastics led to a cow from Thirumullaivoyal, on the outskirts of the city, being brought to the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) in Vepery.

 In a chilling example of the harm caused by the indiscriminate use and disposal of plastics, the animal was found to have ingested vast quantities of waste resulting in a life threatening condition, quite impossible to detect. The plastics caused severe pain to the animal, and it was observed to frequently kick its stomach with its legs. Subsequently, the yield of milk also dropped. It took veterinarians at the university five and half hours to surgically remove a whopping 52 kg of plastic waste from the stomach of the cow.

“The incident exemplifies the threat to animals posed by plastics discarded indiscriminately by the public. Even though we have removed plastics from cows in the past, the quantity this time — 52 kg — is unprecedented,” said S. Balasubramanian, Director, Clinics at TANUVAS.

. “We could feel the presence of plastics even during a manual rectal examination. Plastics could have accumulated in the rumen over a period of two years,” explained P. Selvaraj, Professor of Veterinary Clinical Medicine. “We conducted an x-ray and followed it up with an ultrasound scan and found that plastics occupied 75% of the rumen, one of the four chambers of the cow's stomach.” Once the diagnosis was clear, the veterinarians decided to perform a procedure to remove the accumulated plastics waste.