Dragon question

[Vyon]

Anne always depicts dragons as eating fresh kill, except for hatchlings which are fed bucketsful of dollops of fresh meat cut to an appropriate size.

My question is: if a sweeprider or a hunting dragon came across a flood-plain littered with freshly drowned herdbeasts would the dragon eat them?

[Mausey]

I'd say yes. As long as it's not the hottest part of the year, it might take a day or 2 for meat to go off. If the carcass is partly submerged in cool water might stay good for a bit longer.

Thinking about it, they never really say if fire lizards will pick at something that's been dead for a bit do they.

[Simon]

They never really seemed that fussy. I'd say yes.

[granath]

I'd say yes as well.

Well-hung meat that is tender is actually half rotten. Recently killed beef is tough. The difference is that humans usually don't eat raw meat, it's either cooked or cured in some other way, often with smoke or salt.

Dragons have a completely different metabolism, but I imagine what works for firelizards would also work for dragons.

[Vyon]

Actually, drowned cattle swell up real quick - I've seen them floating down the river when it flooded. Ours had a bank they could get up and we usually had enough warning to get them off the river flat before the water banked up at high tide. I'm giving these guys 24 hours to salvage what they can, corning what they've got enough salt and saltpetre for and drying the rest. I was just wondering whether I could introduce a dragonrider as well.

[Mausey]

I don't know how long a person would have to salvage good meat. From what I remember unless the beastie is hung and bled the blood pools and the meat isn't that good. Dragons probably aren't terribly picky as was mentioned so they'd have longer.

[Vyon]

I think the stomachs are the major problem. The stuff in them ferments and the beast swells up. The flash flood happens in the late afternoon north of Tillek and I think my characters are going to run out of salt or barrels before they run out of carcasses. The dragon, if he turns up at all that far from Benden, will be a very minor brown or bronze, just out of the weyrling barracks.
Somebody just said: "They need a guttingman far more than they need a weyr full of dragonmen."

[dragon fan]

I don't want to think of the Dragons of Pern as Scavengers, or even as feeders of opportunity, They hunt for their food, so unless it is in a situation where they are injured and can not hunt, I choose to believe they would not eat carrion, like Vultures. Just my outlook.

[granath]

A fair point. But even a lion will eat carrion if the alternative is starving to death.

[Brenda]

The dragonriders could take the carcasses between and store them in a snowbank up in the High Reaches! Maybe make a deal with the Holders to preserve them and return them as needed, in exchange for a good portion of the meat.