A flock of hungry sheep gobbled up banknotes totalling 100 000 yuan ($12 500) that were the public funds of a northern Chinese village, state media reported on Tuesday.
A farmer who was also the treasurer of Linjiawan village in Shaanxi province was devastated when he found out the cash he had hidden underneath his sheep pasture was mostly chewed up by the beasts, the Beijing News reported.
The farmer, surnamed Zhang, had hidden the banknotes to protect them against thieves.
Zhang and other village officials slaughtered the 10 sheep suspected of feasting on the cash but found mostly scraps of half-digested notes in their stomachs, it said.
They glued together the scraps but only managed to recover a few of the 100 yuan notes.
A bank sympathised with the villagers but only cashed part of the half-digested banknotes, the report said, without specifying the amount. — AFP