RAGWORT LOTS - dont seem to care?

ShowJumperBeckii

ShowJumperBeckii

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so my mates horses are being turned out in a field FULL of ragwort threre so much
they said there moving in a new one , one day next week but surely this is so dangerous?
its a big field but i cant belive they are turning there horses out in it!!
iv told them and they said they wont eat it because there grass is this true?

what would you do?
 
Have just posted this on another thread about ragwort...........

Ragwort poisoning through grazing is extremely rare. The plant has such a bitter taste that horses (and other livestock) very rarely eat it unless they are absolutely desperately hungry. The danger from ragwort poisoning comes from fields that are harvested for the hay. Once dried, ragwort becomes palatable and that is when ragwort poisoning occurs.
The field that I keep my horses in has quite a lot of ragwort growing in it and I have watched them grazing and they don't go anywhere near it. Saying that, I do pull it up because it makes me feel better knowing that it's not in there!


They really don't eat it unless they are desperately hungry. Horses know what they are doing. Buttercups are also toxic, have watched mine grazing in a field plastered in buttercups and my boys just graze around them. On the odd occasion that they do pull buttercups up, they spit them out. :)
 
Don't be complacent about this stuff.

Ragwort growing is not palatable BUT horses grazing around it will nibble accidentally at the edges of the plants in the process. Because the effect is cumulative, this can be fatal over time - especially if the horse has already eaten ragwort in hay, and it is often impossible to know whether or not this has happened, as many people don't own their horses for the whole of the horse's life. It is NEVER safe to have horses around ragwort, and it must be removed.
 
As others have said, never ever be complacent about ragwort. It is a cumulative poison and symptoms don't show until over 70% of the liver has been damaged. At 76% loss of liver function ALL horses will die and death from ragwort poisoning is terrible. Straight from Professor Knottenbelt, a world expert on ragwort poisoning in horses. Livers damaged by ragwort CANNOT recover. And remember, some horses that have been forced by hunger to eat ragwort at some point, can get a taste for it and will actively seek it out. I'd never put a horse on a field heavily infested with ragwort, hoping that they wouldn't touch it. Madness.
 
I get a little ragwort in my fields and cannot always clear it.
One the basis that most horses will not eat it if they have sufficient grass, due to its unpalatablity, I tested out my youngster on a newly pulled plant and then a bunch of grass with ragwort concealed in it. The first he rejected instantly, the concealed ragwort he delicately filtered out with his lips and discarded before eating the remaining grass. Hence I am fairly confident that he will not choose to eat ragwort should he find it in his field.
 
Welshmisfit I think you're very stupid to want to put people's minds at ease over ragwort. Ragwort should never be present in a field where horses graze, not even in the smallest amount.
 
The more ragwort there is in a field, the more there will be the following year and the less actual grazing there is. If you are paying to graze your horse on a 5 acre field, are you happy to only actually have 2.5 acres of grazing? With less next year and the year after that etc.

In addition to the above, the Ragwort control act 2003 reinforces the Weed act of 1959 in placing a legal obligation on any land owner where animals are grazing to remove and correctly dispose of ragwort, both to prevent harm coming to the grazing animals and also to actively prevent the spread of ragwort.

People will spend hours grooming their horses, training them and riding them, but ask them to spend several hours a week, for a couple of weeks, systematically digging and pulling ragwort, and they will come up with more excuses why they can't than I've had hot dinners. They must be MAD.
 
It annoys me how much of this stuff is growing EVERYWHERE, hedgrows and at the side side of dual carrigeways ect, and yet nothing seems to be actively done by the powers that be, another example of how they only enforce laws they can be arsed too.
 
It seems to be a regional thing. I drive all over the South West and Wales and I am constantly on the lookout for the dreaded weed.

Last year I noticed a lot of pulling being carried out on the M4 and M5 and this year there is almost no ragwort. On Thursday last week I drove over to Carmarthen and the verges and centre reservation on the M4 between Cardiff and Port Talbot are absolutely covered in the stuff. I have reported this to the BHS and I am in the process of doing the same with the Welsh Assembly.

So it looks like the Highway Agency down here have taken ragwort seriously, but the Welsh Assembly either don't realise or don't give a to$$.
 
Anyone complacent about ragwort should read Heathers story --the link is from BHS Scotland Welfare on Ragwort page

As mentioned above horses rarely eat mature plants, the danger comes at rosette stage during winter and early spring when grass may be sparse and when bits of plants are broken off and dry out when horses are ''playing'' in the field and of course in bought in hay/haylage

Even cattle have been killed by bagged forage containing ragwort and they are tolerant to much higher levels than horses

http://www.bhsscotland.org.uk/Pages/HeathersStory
 
I don't know about everyone else but we seem to have more Ragwort coming up this year than we ever used to. I walk whichever field they are turned out into everyday they are in it.
 
When ragwort starts dying off in late summer the leaves and flowers start to go brown and crumbly. Bits then fall off onto the grass and, in a field where there is lots of it, it is impossible for horses not to injest these little brown bits mixed in with the grass.

If you see ragwort, pull it up and dispose of it safely.
 
The RSPB have deliberatly planted ragwort at a major historic scotland monument for the yellow bumble bee. Cattle are grazed in the ragwort covered fields next to the site and the wardens comment was 'the farmer knows the risks'.
 
Weirdly, it's started appearing in my back garden. I gather it's unsafe to handle it without gloves as it can get into your bloodstream and cause issues for humans, too.
 
After my recent trip down the yellow corridor they call the M4 from Cardiff to Port Talbot. I filled out the relevant form issued by the Welsh Assembly to report the landowner where the ragwort is growing, the Welsh Assembly, to the authority empowered to force the removal of ragwort, the Welsh Assembly, using the guidelines issued to all farmers and owners of agricultural land by.........the Welsh Assembly.

I hope the irony is not lost on them.
 
How on earth can ANYONE be happy to have a field full of ragwort?

Would you be happy to put little piles of rat poison all round your field and hope your horse didnt eat it?

Sheer ignorance
 
NeilM said:
It seems to be a regional thing. I drive all over the South West and Wales and I am constantly on the lookout for the dreaded weed.

Last year I noticed a lot of pulling being carried out on the M4 and M5 and this year there is almost no ragwort. On Thursday last week I drove over to Carmarthen and the verges and centre reservation on the M4 between Cardiff and Port Talbot are absolutely covered in the stuff. I have reported this to the BHS and I am in the process of doing the same with the Welsh Assembly.

So it looks like the Highway Agency down here have taken ragwort seriously, but the Welsh Assembly either don't realise or don't give a to$$.
Click to expand...

they were pulling it up after verge cutting (so must have gone round it when mowing :confused: on the A38 the other day. :)
 
guido16 said:
How on earth can ANYONE be happy to have a field full of ragwort?

Would you be happy to put little piles of rat poison all round your field and hope your horse didnt eat it?

Sheer ignorance
Click to expand...

I agree, should never own horses if they don't care about their health.
 
My advice would be to always pull it as it seeds and spreads. You can never guarantee that they wont eat it.

Makes me cross to see so much of it on grass verges and in unused fields.
 
PLEASE PLEASE pull it up and burn. When doing this wear gloves and wear a face mask. The plant is very posionous to us as well as animals. Its a known carsagenic (spelt this wrong I know). It can be inhaled and well as absorbed through the skin. PLEASE TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. Thanks for reading dont wish to scare anyone but people need to be aware of the dangers of this plant.:eek::eek:
 
A friend of mine got complacent about ragwort - she watched my parents and I slowly eradicate the weed from our rented field, spending night after night over a couple or more years, pulling every plant up and burning it - she couldn't be arsed to clear hers properly, despite us nagging her about it.

Guess what - not immediately, but a couple of years later, she watched her horse die of ragwort poisoning. She also quoted the 'but they don't eat it, it tastes bitter, so I can't believe it', but there was so much in there he didn't have much of a chance of not eating it at some point.

It's not going to happen over night if you turn them out into such a field, but if I remember correctly, the toxin fixes in the liver so the effects are cumulative over time.
 
mgould said:
I don't know about everyone else but we seem to have more Ragwort coming up this year than we ever used to. I walk whichever field they are turned out into everyday they are in it.
Click to expand...

Yes same here I have more ragwort than last year despite me digging it up all the time :mad: I get paranoid don't like to leave it in their field incase as others have said they accidentally nibble it :( Some of the stuff is only a couple of inches big so fairly hard to see :(
 
I think the point is if there is one stalk in a field full of lush grass, they wont actively go and seek it out.

HOWEVER. If there is lots, they cant help but chew on some of it! Do it every day, whip it out when the yellow flowers appear but BEFORE it seeds.
 
the fact its an illegal species that is prosecutable seems to have not been mentioned.

it has to be removed and destroyed according to legislation.

as mentioned it is toxic in touch, let alone ingestion, thus it seeps off into everything and so over time the small traces build up and kill.

may be fine now but when liver failure occurs when older you will know the cause.

its ridiculous how anyone can allow any in proximity of a horse freely and then moan about horse welfare.

its so laughable.
 
Someone I know got prosecuted after months of warnings about his ragwort, he also had to pay for the contractors to remove it from the field, and that was after he was evicted as it was council land.
I have been on my land for nearly 3 years and pull every strand I see, the first year I was shocked at how much I had it looked like a crop of rape seed, I move the horses to a section that has no rag then pull like mad before it seeds.
It does not help that my land runs along the side of a motorway, the rag was bad along the verges but the council have really been on the ball and pull it every year so there is less and less every year.
I have seen a friends pony die a horrible death and had started to self mutilate the day it was put to sleep, that would be reason enough for any horse owner to pull rag surely ?
 
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