In recent years, cattle farmers in France’s Brittany region have lost hundreds of cows to deaths that veterinarians simply cannot explain. After running various tests on their land, some now claim that the solar panels and wind turbines in the area are releasing too much electricity into the ground, which is slowly killing their animals. Although mysterious cattle deaths have been reported in various parts of Brittany, the situation is particularly dire in Cote-d’Amour, where several farmers have sustained hundreds of losses in mysterious conditions. According to local farmer Patrick Le Nechet, his cattle just started losing weight a few years back and many of them ultimately died. The strange thing was that the animals didn’t seem to be suffering from any diseases and the veterinarians couldn’t explain the cause of death. After conducting his own investigation, Le Nechet concluded that the mysterious deaths started occurring around the time that a photovoltaic installation appeared in the area. Read More »

Most chicken farms nowadays consists of hangar-like facilities where chickens are cooped up by the thousands with hardly enough space to move around and, in some cases, no sunlight. It’s sad, but it’s also the only way food corporations can keep up with the increasing demand for cheap meat and eggs. However, one farmer in northern Italy runs a very different type of poultry farm – he is raising over 2,000 chickens in a patch of pristine Alpine forest. 48-year-old Massimo Rapella claims he became a chicken farmer by accident. He and his wife used to run an education NGO in the town of Sandrio, in northern Italy’s Valtellina valley, but when the 2008 financial crisis hit and the Italian government cut funding for social enterprises, they decided to move to the nearby mountains. They got a few chickens to provide eggs for their own consumption and soon noticed something interesting. The domesticated birds loved venturing into the nearby chestnut forest, but instead of building a fence to prevent them from doing so, the Rapellas actually encouraged this behavior. Today, they own around 2,100 chickens who spend their days rummaging and laying eggs in a 2-hectare patch of Alpine chestnut forest. Read More »

Authorities in the German town of Ahlen have come under fire for seizing a family’s dog over unpaid taxes and then selling it on eBay to recover the money owed. This bizarre story started back in November, 2018, when a court bailiff and two city officials showed up at an Ahlen family’s home to seize valuables as compensation for financial debts owed to the municipality. The family, who preferred to remain anonymous, told local newspaper Ahlener Tageblatt that the officials first tried to seize her disabled husband’s wheelchair, but couldn’t because it wasn’t their property. Instead, they settled on the family’s pet dog, a pedigree pug named Edda. Read More »

There are lots of popular animals on Instagram, but while most of them rely solely on their looks to gain followers, a few actually use their talents to do it. Take Ghost the Samoyed, a fluffy canine who just loves to sing. It isn’t like Ghost isn’t cute enough to get attention on Instagram just by posing for photos, she just has other special talents. You see, Ghost has a lovely singing voice and she likes to show it off whenever she hears a sound that inspires her. Whether it’s Beyonce singing on TV, her master’s voice on Facetime, or a simple squeaky toy, Ghost just lets loose. Her singing is more like howling, but in many of the performances that her owners upload on Instagram it’s obvious that her howls are not random at all. Especially when listening to a song, Ghost tries to follow along as best she can. Read More »

Poppy farmers in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh are forced to guard their fields day and night in a desperate attempt to fend off large groups of opium-addicted parrots who get high off the narcotic effects of poppy seeds. Scattered rains have already affected poppy production in Neemuch district, but farmers here say that the increasing number of opium-addicted parrots that pillage their crops on a daily basis are making things even worse. Using loudspeakers and firecrackers to keep the birds at bay has failed and the farmers’ appeals to local authorities have fallen of deaf ears, so people have no choice but to guard the poppy fields day and night. But even so, the birds still come to get their fix dozens of time a day. Read More »

As a male calf born on a small cattle farm in France, Aston was originally destined to be slaughtered for meat, but after forming a bond with a horse trainer he became a showjumping bull instead. Five years ago, Sabine Rouas, a horse trainer from Strasbourg, France, had just lost a horse that she had spent 20 years of her life with and felt that she couldn’t get attached to a horse anymore. Instead, she became interested in a family of cows living on a nearby organic milk farm. One of the cows she spent time with was pregnant at the time, and Sabine believes that the calf may have gotten used to her voice while still in its mother’s womb, because soon after it was born, it started following her around whenever she came by. Unfortunately, the farmer wasn’t interested in keeping a bull on a milk farm, so he planned to have the calf, named M309 at the time, slaughtered at only three months. But Sabine wasn’t going to let that happen. Read More »

Bobby Humphreys, a competitive bodybuilder from Boonsboro, Maryland, has always loved dogs, but until two years ago, he never really cared for small breeds. He always felt that his pets should fit his own image, and even made fun of his male friends who owned small dogs. But one day everything changed and today Bobby shares his home with no less than 37 adorable chihuahuas. Humphreys used to be a “Big Dog Guy” and he and his wife of 17 years had owned three Rottweilers. He loved their tough, imposing look and never even considered the idea of ever owning a small dog. In fact, he went as far as to poke fun at his male friends if they ever allowed themselves to be seen walking their girlfriends’ small canines. It was an ego thing, but one that Bobby quickly put behind him when he fell in love with Lady, a tiny Chihuahua that he now credits for getting him through the darkest period of his life. She opened his eyes to the love and support that small dogs are capable of offering unconditionally, and the big, strong bodybuilder is now what many would call a Small Dog Guy who looks after dozens of chihuahuas. Read More »

Vitiligo, a condition that causes the loss of skin color in blotches, affects around 1% of humans and is even rarer in animals. Elli, one of the few known cats suffering from Vitiligo, was born with a mostly black coat, but just one year after being diagnosed with this mysterious condition, her fur is almost completely white. Nicole, the cat’s owner, found Elli and her sister on a farm in Germany, when they were only four-month kittens. They were both in poor shape and in desperate need of medical attention, so Nicole adopted them and nursed them back to health. Both cats were black with white spots on their chests, which made them look like they were wearing fur tuxedos, but one day, Elli’s tux started losing its color. It was just a tiny white spot at first, but as months went by, her black coat turned into a black and white mosaic. Read More »

Toad, a five-year-old grey pitbull mix, suffers from a very rare deformity – she has a second mouth, complete with teeth and salivating glands, growing on the side of her head where her right year should be. Toad arrived at the Oklahoma City Animal Welfare shelter two years ago, as a stray. The staff there realized almost immediately that there was something different about her, but it wasn’t until they sedated her and performed a thorough checkup of her right ear that they realized that wasn’t actually a normal ear, but a second mouth, with fully developed teeth and saliva coming out of it. It doesn’t function as a normal ear, because it doesn’t have a jaw to allow it to open and close, but Toad can’t hear with it either. Read More »

The small town of Belushya Guba, in northern Russia, is in a state of emergency, with locals afraid to leave their houses because of dozens of polar bears roaming the streets in search of food. Located on one of the two islands that make up the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Belushya Guba is home to roughly 3,000 people, many of whom are terrified to leave their homes and send their kids to school, because of the dozens of bears running around in the streets and even entering buildings in search of food. While polar bear sighting aren’t exactly uncommon in the remote town, the scale of this invasion is reportedly unprecedented. Over 52 sightings have been reported in only three days, with up to 10 bears seen in the settlement at any given time. Read More »

A dog owner in China ended up in the hospital after his excited husky jumped all the way from the 2nd floor of his house to greet him, landing on his head and breaking his neck. The 67-year-old man, surnamed Liu, was returning to his house in Yongzhou City, China’s Hunan province, on Monday, after visiting some relatives, when something heavy fell from above and landed on the back of his head. Liu was knocked down and rendered unconscious by the impact, and his family immediately called an ambulance. Speaking with Sina News about the incident, Liu recalled that his first thought after waking up in the hospital was that the wall of his house had collapsed on top of him, but he later learned that he had been hit by his pet husky.  Apparently, the 60-pound pooch was so excited to see Liu come home that he jumped from the second floor of he house, landing on top of him. Read More »

A dog owner in Thailand has come under fire for dyeing her pooch’s ears bright red, after a severe allergic reaction to the dye allegedly caused one of the animal’s ears to fall off. The unnamed woman reportedly took her adorable Pomeranian, Diffy, to a grooming salon in Hua Hin, last week, to have its ears and tail dyed. The staff carried out a ‘foil wrap’ dyeing procedure, covering the dog’s ears and tail with red dye and leaving them covered in aluminum foil for 40 minutes. The owner was very happy with Diffy’s new look, but quickly noticed that her ears had drooped, even though they had always pointed up before they dyeing procedure. She asked the grooming salon staff about it, but was told that the drooping was normal and that Diffy’s ears would be back to normal in two or three days. Sadly, that turned out to be a lie. Read More »

Authorities in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, have enforced a ban on dog walking in public places like streets and parks. The bizarre measure is part of a long-standing effort to discourage dog ownership in the Islamic country. Tehran’s police chief, Hossein Rahimi, recently announced that he has received permission from the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office to take measures against people walking dogs in public spaces, such as parks. These measures include fines and confiscation. Apparently, dogs create “fear and anxiety” among members of the public, but many consider this recent ban to be yet another effort by Iranian authorities to discourage dog ownership. Canines are considered unclean or impure by the country’s religious leaders, and a symbol of the pro-Western policy adopted by the old Monarchy dethroned during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Read More »

A Malaysian woman ended up with a pet duck after buying a fertilized egg from a restaurant and using a makeshift incubator to hatch it instead of eating it. 39-year-old Erica Lim, a creative professional from Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, recently sat down with online magazine Star2 to talk about life with a pet duck in a high-rise apartment building. She spoke about Daisy’s love of water, her friendly and adventurous nature, and how she adapted to life in the big city, but Erica’s most interesting revelation was the story of how the duck came into this world. Apparently, she was meant to be eaten as “balut”, a controversial Asian snack that consists of a cooked partially-developed duck embryo. Read More »

A Thai marathon runner recently made international news headlines after it was reported that she ran 30km carrying a small puppy she found on the side of the road during the 42km race. Khemjira Klongsanun was 12km into the Chombueng marathon in western Thailand, on Jan 20, when she saw a puppy dog by the side of the road. Some of the other runners ignored the adorable ball of fur, while others actually avoided it, but Khemjira stopped to check on it, thinking it had been abandoned. With no houses around that the pup might have escaped from, the marathon runner decided that this was an unsafe area for such a young, helpless animal, so she decided to pick it up and carry it all the way to the finish line. Running 30km with a puppy in your arms is harder than it sounds, the animal lover said, but it was definitely worth the effort! Read More »