This Sheep Is Addicted To Cigarettes And Prefers Them To Real Food

These days, even smokers know that cigarettes are bad for their health. It might not stop them smoking, but they're at least aware of what they're doing to their bodies - especially now fag packets come with those disgusting photos on them.

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It seems that nobody has told this sheep from Mandya, India. As the video below shows, it has a huge love for tobacco.

In fact, the sheep's addiction to nicotine is so large that it turns its nose up at vegetables and greens - you know, the things it probably should be eating - in favour of tobacco.

While that sounds horrific and unhealthy - and likely is, to be honest - there is actually a reason why it started eating tobacco in the first place.

That's because farmers near Mandya sometimes use tobacco to rid animals of parasites and worms, and will even give them large quantities of it if one becomes seriously ill.

In the video, the sheep can be seen hungrily scoffing down loose tobacco and cigarettes with filters, which sure can't be good for it.

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Not that it knows that or seems to care. By all accounts, the sheep can regularly be found near tea shops bugging customers who smoke for cigarettes. Which they do, because the sheep has apparently become something of a local celebrity.

The sheep's owner, Yahwant, has said that the animal could be seen 'licking discarded sachets of chewing tobacco'.

"The addiction grew and now it prefers cigarettes to its regular fodder," he said.

But is tobacco really healthy for a sheep to eat? Probably not. Especially whole cigarettes. In 2011, researchers investigated impact of discarded cigarette butt consumption on both humans and animals.

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The study, which was published in the BMJ reported that nicotine ingestion caused excessive salivation, excitement, tremors, vomiting, lack of coordination, weakness, convulsions, respiratory failure and even death in animals.

So no, the sheep's tobacco consumption has probably done nothing to make it healthier and is probably only slowly damaging its insides. But hey - at least it isn't actually smoking the damn things, right?

Topics: Weird, Animals, India

Mischa Pearlmen

Mischa is a freelance journalist usually based in either New York or London. He has written for Kerrang!, Record Collector, NME, the New York Observer and FLOOD magazine, among others. Contact him at [email protected]