Best way to get rid of thistles

chickeninabun

chickeninabun

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What is the best way to get rid of thistles in a grass field?
If spraying, what best to use, or is there an animal, sheep or something, that we could borrow to munch their way through our thistle forest??
 
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, the absolute best way to get rid of them is to pull them from the roots.

Not only does it free up the grass so that your horsey can graze that as equally as the rest of the field but it means that fewer come back each year until they are virtually non existant.

If you just do maybe an hour at a time you'll be so please by how smart your field is starting to look its a wicked incentive to keep at it - well thats what I fiind anyway!
 
My boy eats them :/ Wraps his tongue round them like a giraffe so they don't prickle his lips.

I've also heard that human wee is a good thistle killer... don't know how true that is though - can't say I've tried it out!
 
I found the best way to get rid of them is to pull them by hand. If you do it when there has been some rain they just pull up with the whole root, I just chuck them on the ground and the horses eat them after an hour or so once they have wilted slightly!

I did two whole paddocks in this way, and the next year I had no thistles!
 
Wisdom from a Devon farmer: (re. thistles) - "cut em in May, and they'll stay; cut em in June & its too soon; cut em in July, and then they'll die". Apparently if you can time your cutting before a thunderstorm they'll die, because the roots get deluged by water and they rot.

Another thing apparently is to graze the field with sheep during the spring when the damn things are young and tender and allow them to eat up the grass and get hungry enough to munch the young thistle sprouts!

Pulling by hand might be fine when you've only got a few, but would be a mega huge job once they're established.

Do donkeys eat thistles? I thought they did??!!!

Or what about a goat?
 
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