AYUTTHAYA -- Mass chicken deaths at villages in Nakhon Luang district were caused by dog bites, not frightful ghosts, phi krasue or phi pop, as residents feared, intrepid investigators have confirmed.
Boonsueb Tulathong, chief of Nakhon Luang district livestock office, said on Thursday that a team of local livestock officials, soldiers, police and local officials had investigated the mysterious poultry deaths at Village Moo 1 and Village Moo 3 in tambon Tha Chang.
It was totally untrue they were killed by either phi krasue or phi pop, said Mr Boonsueb, and another investigation may be launched to find out where the rumours of ghosts eating chickens came from. (continued below)
A poster of 'Krasue Maha Nakorn' - a Thai soap opera about phi krasue aired on Channel 3.
According to superstition, a phi krasue is a female ghost with a floating head and internal organs hanging down from the neck, and a phi pop is a ghost that eats the intestines of the living creatures it possesses.
Over recent months, people in the area had been gripped by fear after rumours spread that these terrible ghosts had killed the chickens found dead in the area so they could eat the insides.
Rumours of the chicken-eating ghosts also grabbed headlines, prompting livestock authorities to launch an investigation.
An official letter sent by the Nakhon Luang livestock chief to the district chief to report the result of a probe into the mass chicken deaths. The letter, dated on Oct 7, confirmed the deaths were caused by dog bites, not ghosts as feared. (Photo by Sunthon Pongpao)
The livestock chief said the probe team had inspected homes where poultry deaths were reported in their bid to ferret out the truth.
Theerayut Pinrat, whose 82 chicken had been killed between Aug 18 and Sept 25, confirmed that they were bitten to death by dogs, not by any ghosts, said Mr Boonsueb.
Inquiries at the homes of Boonsueb Phurat and his neigbhour Jamnong Nakmanop also confirmed that their birds were killed by dogs. Some chickens that survived the attacks clearly showed evidence of the bites, said the livestock chief.
Six chickens in Mr Boonsueb’s coop were killed on Oct 2, while nine of Mrs Jamnong's chickens were killed and some injured the same night.
Video cameras installed to observe the coops where the poultry were killed found nothing at all unusual, said the livestock chief.
He sent an official letter to the Nakhon Luang district chief to report on the findings of his inquiry.
Dogs killed the poultry, not troublesome ghosts, according to the report.