Cherokee Rose
Well-Known Member
I was justing wondering what is the safest weed killer to use in the horse pastures......Thanks Carrie
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Vinegar is always my first choice, as it is non-toxic to horses and won't touch the grass (it's really great on thistles)
It IS true that horses will not eat the green, growing tansy.... it has a terrible taste and you may see where horses have eaten under the tansy leaves to get the grass and not touched the tansy plant itself. Horses get poisoned from tansy usually when it is dry - baled in hay or dead plants/leaves... then it is far more palatable and some horses actually like it...I know of a horse, a Mini, who came from a very well known breeder who always maintained her ragwort covered fields were no threat as the horses never ate it!!!
The only way that a horse could die within a day from eating it would be if they consumed a great quantity of it - not just a tiny amount. That is not usually how tansy poisoning works - it is accumulative over time. Symptoms may take six months to show up - thus a few years ago when a gelding went off his feed and was "wrong" our vet ran tests and determined that it was tansy poisoning... he must have picked up dry stuff along the fenceline starting the previous spring when the field next door was sprayed - and some dry bits escaped. Others could possibly have done the same thing - but after everyone else was tested that was not the case. Only Jimmy thought he had found a tasty delicacy. Only he sampled it - and eventually succumbed.This horse lived for three years in a good, ragwort free field and then got access to a tiny amount- probably from hay- and died within a day- her daughter died the next week,- so much for them not eating it- they only need to ingest a tiny amount- when grazing round the plants they will pick up the odd fallen leaf- over a number of years.
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