At the risk of incurring some unwanted attention....

Ah yes, the ragwort lady. Haven't heard from her this year yet have we. Busy counting caterpillars I expect. Trying to remember where she's from, its not Britain is it.

I am constantly nagging landowners to deal with it, but I have to say the worst offenders are the council. I'm phoning them daily at the moment. I think they refer to me as 'that damn ragwort woman'. Not quite as nice as the ragwort lady :)
 
Oh, the Ragwort Woman! Isn't she in Holland?

BHS have a ragwort survey on their site at the moment, please fill it in and share.
 
Agree the councils are the worst offenders, Newcastle and Gateshead don't seem to bother at all, there's a field at Throckley, Newcastle that you can hardly see the ponies in the field for ragwort and there was a mare and foal in there, horrible stuff, lazy owners
 
I swear, on another forum where one poster is massively anti hunting, all for wildlife etc, she posted a link saying 'Not many horse are killed by ragwort, really'. I could have screamed! I don't think she realised that vets might sign off liver damage as due to something else as opposed to lazy, neglectful owners who think it's ok to leave ragwort in fields or councils who won't push landowners to remove the horrible stuff.

Apparently, the associated moths are important. They don't need to be in my horse's fields!
 
Re the BHS survey , they didn't have a section for which area of the country you were in did they ? That would have been quite helpful in a survey I would have thought.
 
cinnamontoast said:
I swear, on another forum where one poster is massively anti hunting, all for wildlife etc, she posted a link saying 'Not many horse are killed by ragwort, really'. I could have screamed! I don't think she realised that vets might sign off liver damage as due to something else as opposed to lazy, neglectful owners who think it's ok to leave ragwort in fields or councils who won't push landowners to remove the horrible stuff.

Apparently, the associated moths are important. They don't need to be in my horse's fields!
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According to a couple of vets of my acquaintance actually the reverse is true and other liver issues are being signed off as ragwort poisoning.

Have figures on how many horses are apparently killed by ragwort poisoning been released?
 
There are dozens of other causes of liver failure not least the conifer poisoning that goes on due to the proliferation of leylandii trees around fields and arenas. It amazes me that people know so much about ragwort and so little about the other poisons in and around their fields. Having said that Ragwort is a nightmare and it costs me a fortune year on year to deal with as neighbours just leave it to seed I spend hours on at least weekly basis pulling, weed killing and digging out seedlings. I do see the point in the moths but if extinction is on the cards it is only evolution at the end of the day and I am sure there will still be enough ragwort left around to accommodate them and to prevent that happening
 
Its not only Horses that die from Ragwort poisoning I have goats
Anyway the other day I was shutting the driveway gate and saw a cinnabar moth caterpillar trying to make its way across the drive in front of my car. I picked it up and placed it on a groundsel plant with its siblings and it settled down munching happily, if there was less ragwort and more groundsel there wouldn't be a problem. The conservation for moths thingy is just an excuse to not get rid of the sodding obnoxious weed!!!!
 
At the risk of more unwanted attention . . . . I've been doing a kind of compromise! I've been pulling ragwort as normal (the landowners either side of me aren't bothered so I will never be rid of it), but where I've found caterpillars I've put those plants in a feed bag, tops sticking out and let the caterpillars do their job. When they've finished and gone off to pupate in the ground, the dead plants will be disposed of as normal! Win, win eh?
 
i posted a few days ago about the bhs survey, and could not agree more about the councils being the worst offenders. i do not think I have ever seen a cinnabar caterpillar/moth. long may they live!
 
jemima*askin said:
According to a couple of vets of my acquaintance actually the reverse is true and other liver issues are being signed off as ragwort poisoning.

Have figures on how many horses are apparently killed by ragwort poisoning been released?
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http://www.ragwortfacts.com/ragwort-horse-deaths.html The person who posted this on another forum is very anti hunting/shooting, I do not know the origin of the link, but the title of it makes me scream! As I said to her, one dead horse is too many!

MotherOfChickens said:
just don't say her name three times :D
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I know, terrifying thought! It's like ruddy Beetlejuice!
 
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