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Discussion on Ragwort and haymaking
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Member:
Paardex
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Posted on Tuesday, Jun 6, 2006 - 4:12 pm:
Hello all, My grass will be cut for haymaking in about a week or to.
In Holland [from where I moved last december to Normandy France] everyone is very vigilant in destroying ragwort in hay for horses. Over here in France nobody seems to understand what I am talking about if I ask if the hay is free from Ragwort they say they never had problems with feeding there horses hay. Still I have noticed ragwort in paddocks so I decided to make my own hay from a pasture which I wanted to clean first from ragwort. I started in april looking for it and there wasn't a lot of it[about 25 little plants on about 8 acres which I destroyed] At this moment I destroyed about another 50 plants but they are smaller and not yet flowering then the ones I saw in Holland. I get nervous about looking over some of them so they will still get in the hay.
How dangerous is this plant? Am I overreacting or should every single plant be destroyed and if so does anyone have a suggestion on how to do this?
In advance thanks for advice
Jos
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun 7, 2006 - 7:13 am:
Hello Jos,
Ragwort's (Senecio) is a large family of weeds and the amount of toxin (pyrrolizidine alkaloids) probably varies from specie to specie and probably within a specie as well. We cover the toxicity of this plant at Equine Diseases » Colic and GI Diseases » Mouth, Esophagus, and Liver » Plant Poisoning and the Liver: Hepatotoxicty.
DrO
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Member:
Paardex
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun 7, 2006 - 8:38 am:
Thanks Dr. O As usual the information is detailed and adequate. Sorry I had only looked at the poisonous plants part.
My life [and my horses lives] would be sooo difficult without this site
Jos
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun 7, 2006 - 12:40 pm:
We should have had a link in the article on plant poisoning jos and we have corrected that.
DrO
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