A freind tried to tell me that sheep carcasses have to be moved when they die because they will explode. This makes no sense to me. I think in some countries they may rid themselves of old carcasses by using explosives, but I see no reason for a dead sheep to spontaneously explode unless the died they eat just produces so much gas that it ruptures.
It isn’t that they really explode as much as they rupture. This is from the buildup of gasses produced by decomposition.
I don’t know anything about sheep, but I have seen it happen with human bodies.
Now, from that, there depends a story. Care to relate?
This is similar to what I’ve seen - (I worked in a mortuary for a while).
Bodies (be they human or otherwise) swell with gasses, which start building up very shortly after death.
I have however seen a couple of animal corpses that have burst from getting too swollen… but they don’t “explode”.
Intersting side note - did you know that decomposition gasses are produced by literally “Bacteria Farting”! - NICE!
Hmmm, it would be just as accurate to call it ‘bacteria exhaling’
One might claim a certain amount of expertise in this area.
Exploding, no. Rupturing, sometimes (read very rare). Gawd only knows how many sheep have died on the stations and farms owned by various branches of the woolly family over the past century, and exactly none have exploded.
This condition, most prevalent amongst ruminant animals (though not restricted to them) is called bloat
It’s a case of too much of a good thing and is most often seen with young stock, or newly introduced stock.
In Australia the livestock most likely to suffer from bloat are dairy cattle. In the US, where sheep farming is a cottage industry on those verdant green hills and is protected against against predation by high tariff barrers, they may be more susceptible to bloat.
Oh man, you definitely need to check out this .mov file of a 1970s (?) news broadcast of Oregon locals ridding themselves of a deceased beached whale by way of TNT…and, of course, hilarity ensues. It might take a little while to load up if you’re on a dial-up, but it’s worth it! (almost instant loading on my high-speed connection)