Poisonous plants

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K&H Miniatures

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Atoka Oklahoma
I turned my horses out to graze at my mom's for the night in her lot. Mom was saying there was johnson grass over there. I thought I remembered reading that it was poisonous to horses. I know it is at certain times of the year to cattle.

Anyway, they only had a couple of small bites before mom and I put them in the upper part of the lot where we did not see any johnson grass. I was wondering if they already had too much??? Also, there are some weeds in the lot. What weeds are poisonous? In the upper part of the lot there is plenty of good grass. Will they tend to leave the weeds alone then? I don't want anything to happen to them?

Please let me know as soon as possble so we can spray if we need to. I plan on moving them back home first thing in the morning anyway. They have been grazing so they are fine as far as too much goes, but I was just wondering about what to be concerned about. Kristy
 
Why don't you try a Google search??? I am quite sure there are endless sites with photos...

Andrea
 
I had a colt colic after eating nightshade a couple years ago. It took him 3-4 days to pass it. He was really sick. I cut all nightshade before it gets very tall to avoid this happening again.
 
Johnson Grass isn't poisonous..........Night Shade is VERY poisonous.
 
JOhnson grass CAN be poisonous to both cattle and horses; as I recall if it is wilted from either hot dry weather or frost it can contain prussic acid in amounts great enough to kill horses or cattle if they eat much of it... I think it can also be high in nitrates, which of course are poison to cattle and dangerous for pregnant mares.

I think it's a member of the sorghum family, and I was told long ago that horses must NOT eat sorghum.
 
Thanks for the replies. I am a little worried about them, but I know with cattle it is mostly in fall when everything is drier and early winter after the first frost that they are most dangerous. Is it the same with horses???

What weeds should I be worried about. Does anyone know any good links/websites?

What should I look for in them if they have ate too much johnson grass?

Thanks, Kristy
 
Got this list from one of my horse mags. Try some of these!

www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/caes/418-103/418-103.html

www.ces.ncsu.edu/copubs/ag/livestock/horse/002/

www.naturalhorsetraining.com/PoisonousPlants.html

www.equisearch.com/horses_care/feeding/feed/poisonousplants

www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/horselist.html
 
I have a lot of johnson grass around here. My horses love the seed heads. They will strain themselves to get a seed head. They've been eating those for the 6 years I've lived here.

Your county agent could tell you about toxic plants. That is who I called when I first moved here.
 
I have a lot of johnson grass around here. My horses love the seed heads. They will strain themselves to get a seed head. They've been eating those for the 6 years I've lived here.

Your county agent could tell you about toxic plants. That is who I called when I first moved here.
Thanks. There is not a lot of johnson here. There is also lots of really nice prairie grass, so I think if there are any poisonous weeds hopefully they will leave them alone. Kristy
 
A good book to have in your horse library is Horse Owner's Field Guide to Toxic Plants. It has pictures and maps to show where the plants are found, a good description, what the signs are of posioning, and what to do.
 
Night shade, we had a big horse eat night shade and we didn't know what it was, vet came out, tubed her and put charcol down him and did some other things, Vet and hubby walked the pasture and they found some.
 
I just wanted to say thankyou to Donnalee for posting about that book. I'll be ordering that for my own reference. Thankyou again
 
I just wanted to say thankyou to Donnalee for posting about that book. I'll be ordering that for my own reference. Thankyou again
You're welcome. This topic has come up on some other boards. I guess this is the time of year for weeds to pop up. Keeping the pasture mowed is about the best defense I know of, but weeds still will appear. Under fences is one place those cherry trees will spring up because birds poop out the seeds while they sit on the fence.
 

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