Talk:Cattle mutilation

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The most common explanation I've heard is...[edit]

Insurance fraud. Diseased cow drops dead, farmer needs to change the cause of death because of the fine print of the insurance policy. Parts of the cow that would help diagnose the real problem go bye-bye. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 20:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

This sounds plausible at first but I can't think why an insurance provider would cover death by supernatural entity but not disease. Christopher (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
They don't necessarily present it as supernatural interference, just some sort of accident / misadventure / vandalism. Death by disease = negligence. Death by satanic cult = Not my fault. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
I see, that could explain some of them and probably deserves a place in the article. Christopher (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Insurance fraud is a trite explanation. Over here (and I think in the States), many of the victims are horses which are well loved by their owners, or at least their owners' daughters. I haven't heard of race horses going this way, but that's probably because they are well guarded. A race horse would be more likely to be offed for insurance than a family pet.
A lot of the dead horses show tampering which suggests human interference - e.g. having their tails removed (a horse's tail is one of the last part a scavenger would touch).
There is a lot of debate as to who would do horse ripping and why, and the simple answer is sadism. Occultism may apply in some cases too, but I would put that in the mental illness bracket.-Albannach (talk) 07:38, 20 July 2021 (UTC)