WHAT DO you do with a drunken 800kg bull which has decided to celebrate Christmas early by making his own poitín?
You suffer, according to Ashbourne, Co Meath-based veterinarian Peadar O’Scanaill, who has had to deal with not one but two drunken bulls recently.
The problem has arisen because the price of potatoes has dropped in the Meath/Louth area and some farmers are feeding them pulped to livestock.
“The rumen of a bull is a large fermentation vat where the starch of the potatoes mixed with its sugars, turns into alcohol,” he said.
Such conditions were perfect for making poitín and that is what happened in this case.
“In the first case I dealt with I was called out when the bull had fallen on his side and was badly bloated. The rumen could not handle the change of diet and normal gas release did not happen,” he said.
“He was drunk or very badly hungover or both and I had to put a tube down the nose to release the gas pressure on the rumen.”
But his problems did not end there because it was necessary to get plenty of fluids into the animal which weighed 800kg.
That meant, he said, finding 80 litres of water or fluid to have any prospect of saving the animal, a difficult job when water pipes were all frozen.
The second bull had broken into a potato shed before stuffing himself to the point where one of the spuds got stuck in his throat, stopping the release of gas. The vet removed the potato and the gas was released.
Mr O’Scanaill says farmers should mix pulped potatoes with grains and other feed when feeding to cattle.
“It’s perfectly safe to feed potatoes or other surplus vegetables to cattle but with potatoes you have to be very careful, as I know,” he said.