It is OK for horses to eat all parts of the thistles. EQUUS thanks Anthony Knight, BVSc, MRCVS, and Jill Richardson, DVM, for their assistance in the preparation of this article. Poison Hemlock contains an array or peperidene alkaloids - chemicals similar to nicotine. Severely affected animals may die of acute respiratory failure! The stems are hollow and branching, thicker at the base. Some species may be covered with silvery hairs. For more information, visit Knight's website, Guide to Poisonous Plants. Also known as: poison hemlock, spotted hemlockID: A multistemmed perennial weed with toothed, fernlike leaves and clusters of small white flowers. Dandelions have a thicker single flower on a single thicker stem whilst the Cat's Ear has a branched stem with multiple little flowers. Hence it’s predominance in over-grazed ‘horse-sick’ paddocks. Eventually they may go blind, have to fight for breath, start to wander or stagger or stand pushing their head against the wall. Cultivated hybrids of Sudan grass typically contain less cyanide, if any. Plants that are toxic to horses aren't particularly rare. Another factor that protects horses is their size—a 1,000-pound animal has to consume significantly higher quantities of most toxins than a smaller animal does to feel any effects. The stems have purple spots, which are most evident near the base of the plant.Range: Grows wild along roadsides and other open uncultivated areas throughout North America.The danger: Hemlock leaves, stems and seeds contain several potent neurotoxins that affect both the central and peripheral nervous systems. Leaves of the plant contain tiny, insoluble sharp spicules of the mineral calcium oxalate which can damage the horses kidneys. A close relative, Sudan grass, and its hybrids are cultivated throughout the United States as a forage crop.The danger: The leaves and stems of johnsongrass and Sudan grass contain a cyanide compound, which when metabolized inhibits the body's ability to absorb oxygen, in effect suffocating the animal; young shoots of johnsongrass contain the highest concentration of the toxin. LOW endophyte rye grass are Rye-grasses that have been artificially modified to either eliminate the endophytes altogether (Zero-endophyte) or just the most toxic endophytes while retaining the less toxic ones (Low-endophyte) for protection against insect damage to the grass. They consume them because they like the taste. Expensive lesson! This means that your horse will get just as ill from eating small amounts of ragwort over a long period of time as it would do from eating a large quantity in one go. Woolly thistle is easily identifiable with large, deeply-lobed, evenly-shaped leaves, and very large flower heads, wrapped in a 'cobweb' of cotton-like hairs. They appear as weeds along roadsides, in cultivated fields and pastures.The danger: Both plants contain a toxic agent that has a neurological effect on the brain that inhibits the nerves and control chewing. The toxin levels in the leaves and stems diminish as the plant ages during the growing season, and additional amounts of toxin are lost when the plant is dried, but water hemlock is never considered safe for consumption. Low estrogen strains have since been developed for this purpose. For the most part, members of the thistle family—those with blue, pink, or purple flowers—are harmless and safe for horses to nibble. The whole plant is toxic, whether in its fresh form or when dried. www.equinestudies.org. All material on this website © Jenny Paterson B.Sc and cannot be used without prior consent. Paspalum in New Zealand and Australia can become a dominant grass in warmer regions, particularly during summer and autumn when most other grasses will have browned off. The pulse may be either slowed or accelerated.What to do: Horses can survive if treated early with supportive care, such as the administration of activated charcoal to inhibit further toxin absorption and the use of anti-arrhythmic drugs to stabilize the heart. It is a small leaf clover and has little white flowers in the spring. Bracken fern (Pteridum aquilinum) Also known as: brake fern, eagle fern. It is another reason to do the annual broad-leaf spray off as the same spray that gets rid of clover will also eliminate this potential nasty. As little as a pound or two of leaves can be fatal.Signs: Depending on how many leaves were eaten, signs can appear within a few hours or as long as four or five days after consumption. Hundreds of poisonous plants grow in North America, and many are extremely common. Dock concentrates oxalates, which as mentioned before, prevents the proper uptake of calcium into the bloodstream resulting in muscle trmors, heart arhythmias, and devlopmental problems involving bones and joints. Of course they do prefer the younger stems. The flowers, often white or purple, are borne on leafless stalks.Range: Different species of locoweed—spotted or blue, wooly, purple, Lambert's, two-grooved milk vetch, white-point—grow in varied terrains throughout the West and Southwest, often in dry, sandy soil.The danger: All toxic species of locoweed contain swainsonine, an alkaloid that inhibits the production of the enzyme necessary for saccharaide metabolism, and the resulting sugar buildup disrupts the function of brain cells.Signs: Strange behavior is usually the first evidence noticed; horses may bob their heads, adopt exaggerated, high-stepping gaits or stagger and fall.What to do: There is no treatment for advanced locoism, and its effects are irreversible. Products links are selected by EQUUS editors.]. Small vines, broad-leafed weeds, some wildflowers you recognize—some you don't. In a drought ‘flat-weeds’ like Cape Weed and Cat’s Ear proliferate. Best eliminated and certainly not to be sown. Horses with less severe poisoning may recover when access to the weed is removed. All are worth getting to know by sight—not only so you can eliminate them from your horse keeping areas, but also so that you can avoid encounters with them in the woods, on the roadsides and along the waterways where you ride. The plants' name comes from its unique underground seed development, different to other clovers. For one thing, most of them are unpalatable, and horses who are filling up on quality forage aren't likely to spend a lot of time grazing on the few bitter leaves populating their pasture. You too have probably seen them devour them prickles and all! Take a stroll through any pasture, and there among the grasses you'll find any number of different plants. If you mow or slash Paspalum, it just produces smaller seed-heads on shorter stems!

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