Deadly Nightshade Strikes Again

[wildoak]

My neighbor just came to tell me she's lost 2 big horses now and they suspect nightshade. The first died a couple of weeks ago, they thought it was colic. Now she's lost a second, and a third is sick. They walked the pasture with the vet and said it's all over both of her pastures. I know it grows everywhere - last time this came up here I checked and found it along my fencelines but no one was eating it. Our pastures out here are in a little better condition - more grass, more room, so I'm hoping they leave it alone until we can get it sprayed.

Just a heads up to everyone to be aware of this. The one who just succumbed was a Belgian - very big guy. I think it's probably worse because of the drought we've had, and now with a little rain the weeds are popping up, not much else to graze on in an overgrazed situation. Be aware of what's out there - this stuff sure is toxic.

Jan

 

[KanoasDestiny]

What does Nightshade look like? Also where does it grow?

 

[Miniv]

OMG! :new_shocked: Yes, we used to have it at our old place.......would put on rubber gloves and pull it whenever we saw it. Fortunately all of our horses were so well fed they didn't mess with it.

Where the problem lies is when it grows in a hay field and gets harvested into bales of hay! We had that happen one year and we had six colics all at once from that!

Nightshade makes a pretty little white flower, but it is deadly. And it builds up in a horse's system, from what I've read.

MA

 

[wildoak]

Where the problem lies is when it grows in a hay field and gets harvested into bales of hay! We had that happen one year and we had six colics all at once from that!

Now I'm really glad her hay supplier didn't have enough round bales to sell me any! Although it's in her pasture, and probably in mine too.

I don't have any pictures at hand but you can probably do a search for nightshade or deadly nightshade and find photos. There are a number of different varieties of it.

Jan

 

[RJRMINIS]

I have never heard of this before.....Does it usually grow only in certain areas???

 

[SunQuest]

hummm... don't know why this double posted! Sorry.

 

[SunQuest]

It can also have flowers that are not white. It all depends on the variety of Solanum. Here is a link to one of the purple flower varieties that has great pictures called bittersweet nightshade: http://www.all-creatures.org/picb/wfshl-nightshade.html

Most of us have seen tomato or potato plants. Nightshade strongly resembles those plants, and the flowers are shaped much like tomato flowers. They most often produce little fruits that can range in color from green to black. These are the seeds, and like tomatos, they have 100's of them in the fruit. To make it worse, the seeds can live dormant for up to 30 years from what I have heard.

Now I am by far no expert on nightshade, but I have experience with our fields having 2 varieties at one time. We have cutleaf nightshade http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/S/W-SO-STRI-FL.001.html, and hairy nightshade http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/WEEDS/hairy_nightshade.html that we constantly seem to have to battle. Both are able to kill horses without to much problem, just as most of the nightshade family can do.

If you have a field that you "MUST" use that has nightshade in it, then all you can do is make sure that your horse has access to plenty of good food at all times, and make sure to pull the weeds out of the ground BEFORE they produce fruit. Most of the time horses will eat decent food over nightshade, and it is the hungry, or the young that don't know any better, that seem to have the biggest issues with it as they eat anything that is there for the taking.

 

[Range]

How do you get rid of it? We have it...grows in disturbed pasture. And, with the drought, then the small bits of rain, and the no hay...I really have to worry. We have so much pasture that it's hard to find every plant and I want to spray, but I have horses on the fields! I was terrified to find it and pulled what I found, but I know there's more and more coming.....Any suggestions?

 

[wildoak]

I don't think you have to keep horses off long if you spray. I know we've used things in the past that said keep livestock off until it dries. Maybe somewhere you could pen them up for an afternoon?

Jan

 

[Miniv]

We either wear rubber gloves and pull the plants, or just pull them with bare hands and wash them. There is supposed to be an oil on them as well.......not sure about that, but better safe than sorry.

And yes, both the leaves and the flowers look very much like a tomato plant.......they are the same family.

Our variety happens to bloom little white flowers.

MA

 

[Marty]

Please know that if you suspect that your horse has gotten into any lantana/deadly nightshade that the use of activated charcoal is a must to try and save your animals.

 

[Triggy&Blue&Daisy Too]

We had a bad experience with nightshade last fall too. I've always read and been told horses won't eat it but unforunately we found out different. I almost lost Daisy to it, I've never, seen a horse so sick and live through it. She was literally paralyzed from it and froze in place. Thankfully, I had a great vet who not only diagnosed it quickly but managed to do all the right things she needed to survive it.

We found the bittersweet variety like in Nila's link so perhaps that is why she and one other horse ate the darn stuff. All I know is that we were just lucky, very lucky.

 

[Michael]

this website has a pretty good list of problem plants. also has pics of nightshade listed under solanum, I believe. http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/horselist.html

Michael

 

[Miniv]

Michael, Thank you for the link. Yes, that's the stuff.

:

MA

 

[whitney]

I have it. I spray ROUNDUP and kill it every spring BEFORE I turn horses out to pasture.

 

[Joyce]

I have never heard of it before. Maybe we don't have it here in Connecticut. Sounds like bad stuff and sorry for the folks with horses getting sick from it etc.

Joyce

 

[Marion]

I am so sorry for the loss of the horses.

 

[Mercysmom]

I have never heard of it before. Maybe we don't have it here in Connecticut. Sounds like bad stuff and sorry for the folks with horses getting sick from it etc.

Joyce

We had purple nightshade near Wilton, CT on my grandparents' farm. It had pretty purple flowers. We have it up in our area of upstate NY where it grows as a perennial - the flowers are very distinctive and dainty looking. My great grandmother grew currants and other berries and she called the nightshade berries "poison berries".

Tomatoes and eggplants are in the same family - a coworker of mine found out she was allergic to all nightshade vegetables - she was upset as she was of Italian heritage and did not want to give up tomato sauce and eggplant parmigiana (I can't blame her)!

Thanks to the poster of the Cornell link - I still have not found a solution for killing field horsetail and I have consulted with someone from Ortho (relative of a neighbor) who laughed...I pulled it out of my horse pastures in the spring but we want to expand the pastures and I really am not looking forward to weeding again...not a good thing when I clicked on the question of someone else who wants to rid their fields of it and there is no answer posted!

Denise

Silversong Farm

 

[CZP1]

I am glad that I read this post. I bought some orchard grass hay, and though it seems pretty good, some of the bales had the nightshade in it. I didn't know what it was when I saw it but after reading this post thank goodness horses just pushed it aside. I found lots of thorny type stuff in the hay too. My usual supplier of hay ran out so I had to buy from another source.

Thanks for the information!

 

[nana]

I,m glad I seen this post, hadn,t heard of nightshade. Was wondering if anyone knows about horsetail. I seen it in Michael website and it is in my pasture My horse have been exposed to it.