Poison ivy?

[retiredbop]

Do goats eat poison ivy? Are they allergic to it?

[ozark_jewels]

Goats *love* poison ivy.....the only side effects I know of is that you may get a rash after petting your goat who has been browsing poison ivy. Goats keep all our pastures poison ivy free for the most part, though when we moved here it was *full* of poison ivy.

[BethW]

Yep, goats love poison ivy.

And I'm sitting here right now scratching the poison ivy rash I got from hugging on my goats.

[ailsaek]

*grin* The fact that goats eat poison ivy was one of the things I used to convince DH that they were a good idea.

[Ed Norman]

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe

[rranch]

I sure wish they liked nettles.

[deetu]

A woman in my church wants to borrow a couple of my goats to get rid of hers. I said I would pull it out for her but she wants the goats for a little while. Needless to say, I'm hesitant to lend out my goats.

[crazygoatgirl]

I have also heard that goats eating poison ivy will help build a persons resistance to it...from drinking the milk....anyone else ever heard this?

[BlueHeronFarm]

Originally Posted by Ed Norman

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe

That is so funny. When we first got our goats, my husband would start with "does eat oats" every time I had a feed question. ...shoud have been does eat ivy.

I second the thought about goats eating nettles. ...stupid nettles....

[homebirtha]

Originally Posted by crazygoatgirl

I have also heard that goats eating poison ivy will help build a persons resistance to it...from drinking the milk....anyone else ever heard this?

I have heard that too. It's nothing scientific, but my experience seems to support the idea. My poison ivy has definitely seemed to lessen in the last three years. This spring, I've got it again, where I always get it: on my forearms. But it's just a few itchy spots, whereas the first year, it spread and was one big patch of ooze. Ick. Gross. So it seems like something has helped. Of course, it could be just getting poison ivy more often in general.