>Cows do eat meat.
>Don't you recall that they are fed "meat flour"? This was the cause of
>"mad cow disease" in Europe (possibly deer in the US too, as came to
>my mind by the "mad deer" posting on this list last month).
>

I read extracts from 2 differents french books that report cases of
herbivorous animals eating flesh.
Cuenot < l'evolution biologique" Masson 1951 page 339
reporting of lapplanders sheep eating  the flesh of whale on the beach, and
icelander' s sheep and poney eating dried cod heads.
Roulin < histoire naturelle et souvenirs de voyage" Hetzel page 81
In 1825 in the andes ,the author  a naturalist relate his observation of a
valley that was bare of its green because of a grasshoper invasion, the cows
did a feast of few days on the unable to fly  young larvaes and not flying
very well  youngs to the point that the milk and meat got a bad taste.

 in page 83 he is on the reporting Cows fishing fish in tide pools  on the
island of Garvellachs not far from Glasgow

A kind of indication that the distinction between herbivorous and
carnivorous is not written on stone.
Carnivorous animals eat vegetations too.

the mad cow disease might not comes from the fact that animal proteins are
fed to herbivorous animals but might comes from the kinf of meats they get.
I am not sure yet if it is a parasite or what ,but in the throat of the last
2 deers that i skined,  there was a bunch of big larvaes ( white , flatish
,1 inch long with a big mouth,  kind of larvaes you  will expect to find in
rotting wood) if it is not a parasite it might means that the deer love to
eat thoses at this eason.
jean-claude
jean-claude