Gauri, the cow which used to yield up to 18 litres of milk a day, was the pride of her locality in Erragadda. But gradually, 12-year-old Gauri’s yield shrank to around 3 litres, with an unmistakable but strange bulge in her belly getting bigger and bigger.

“I had to rush her to the Government Veterinary Hospital after I noticed that she was in terrible pain. Gauri was operated upon and 20 kg of plastic was removed from her intestines,” said her owner Ramu, who has about half a dozen cattle.

According to a veterinary surgeon, at least a dozen cattle heads undergo surgery at the Government Veterinary Hospital in Vijay Nagar Colony for removal of plastic from their intestines. “We remove nearly 10 to 20 kg of plastic waste from each of them,” he said. “Due to lack of space and fodder, I used to allow my cows to graze on the streets and they ended up eating plastic,” said Ramu.

“Gauri’s milking pattern became normal after the plastic stock was removed, but this is not always the case,” he said, and added that he had lost a 10-year-old cow, Lakshmi, to the same killer just a fortnight before Gauri was operated.

The vet said he had treated cows with even 60 to 70 kg of plastic in the stomach and mentioned that he found blades, nails, and iron pieces as well, apart from plastic. In many cases, the cattle are brought for treatment in the last stages. “Most of them don’t survive post-surgery,” he added.