Desi cattle do not eat chicken or mutton willingly: President of Gomantak Gosevak Mahasangh said (File)

After the Garbage Management Minister Michael Lobo's statement that stray cattle in the state are turning non-vegetarian, the cow shelter where such cattle are being treated here has confirmed it.

Kamlakant Tari, President of Gomantak Gosevak Mahasangh, where such stray cattle from Goa's coastal villages were relocated and are being treated, blamed the hotels in the state for this unusual behaviour in the cows.

"Desi cattle do not eat chicken or mutton willingly. Hotels and restaurants in the Calangute area mix their left-over vegetables, cooked rice along with chicken and mutton bones, which is then fed to strays," Tari told news agency ANI.

He said that chicken and mutton bones were found in these stray cattle's digestive system after they were brought to the shelter from the Calangute beach village and inspected by the shelter's veterinarians.

"Such things enter their digestive system by mistake, when they eat meals served to them by coastal restaurants and beach shacks in the Calangute-Candolim beach belt. When we operated on the cattle, we found bones in the stomachs of the cattle," he said.

Earlier, Lobo had claimed that stray cattle in the state's tourism savvy coastal belt, which includes popular beach villages like Calangute and Candolim, have "turned non-vegetarian" and only eat scraps of chicken and fried fish.