I want to let my two six month old goats into the garden area to help finish cleaning it off. There have been no poisons in there as we are completely organic. Will it hurt them to eat morning glories, because they are growing all over the fence? Will it hurt them to just be turned in there to graze, or will that be too much new greenery at once???
I do believe that moring glories are poisonous to goats. I found this link http://fiascofarm.com/goats/poisonousplants.htm that has a list of poisonous plants for goats and yes, it does say that to much is not good. YOu could probally let them out there only for short perios of time so that they dont get to much. Belinda
According to what I have read morning glories are poisnious. I recently experienced a problem with my "darlings" getting out of the fence and into my herb garden. That was Tuesday. Good Gosh I was so upset! They got my chives, catnip, (spit out the parsley), stevia, yarrow, some of the basil, my spider plant, think that was all. However, they left the St. John's Wort and Foxglove alone. I, of course panicked, and came running into the house to check my books to make sure they hadn't eaten anything poisnious. Oddly enough the St. John's Wort and Foxglove were posinious, they must have known that. Nobody got sick thank God! Bernice
How do you mean they get sick? My buck eats them all the time. Maybe the flowers we give him aren't really morning glories.
Oh boy, from eating a poisnious plant, they sure get sick. Many yrs ago when we were first new to goats one of our Nubians got out and ate my favorite Rhodoendron bushes. I noticed her foaming from the mouth and vomiting along with runs. I knew this wasn't good because ruminants don't throw up as a rule. Called the vet, sure enough, plant poisioning. She was lucky and survived. They can also bloat from eating poisnious plants. With each poisnious plant they have different reactions. For example, if they eat wild cherries they die. The national goat handbook had a really good article about the different plants and their specific symptoms. Its online. Hope that helps. Bernice
Try this link, I tried national goat handbook but its no longer there. This was a page though on their website. http://netvet.wustl.edu/species/goats/goatpois.txt Bernice
My goats never eat morning glory leaves, but from time to time I see them eating wild cherry leaves that are suppose to be poisnious but they don't seem to get sick. I have been told that the were only poisnious after they turned yellow, but don't know that for a fact. I started cutting down the wild cherry trees which were taller than most of them could reach. This was a big mistake. The next year, they had bunches of sprouts coming off the stumps where I had cut them off. Now all those suppose to be poisnious plants were stareing them in the face.
Cherrys, Cherry, Wild Black Cherry, Chokecherry, contains cyanogenic precursors that release cyanide whenever the leaves are damaged (frost, trampling, drought, wilting, blown down from the tree during storms). Most animals can consume small amounts of healthy leaves, bark and fruit safely; however when hungry animals consume large amounts of fresh leaves or small amounts of damaged leaves (as little as 2 ounces), clinical cases of poisoning will occur, and many animals may die. This is especially true if there is no other forage for the animals to consume, or in the case of pets, when confined and/or bored, the chances for toxic levels of ingestion can occur. TOXICITY RATING: High. cyanide poisoning
I let my goats out into the woods today and I noticed some of them ate some cheery leaves again today. There is so much for them to eat out there that they usually eat only a mouthful and go on to something else. I think that they seem to know when something is bad for them and if they have something else to eat they will move on to something else.
