Ragwort safe for horses, says rewilding authority ...

[fburton]

I've had two horses who have clearly eaten ragwort in my field before I've spotted it and pulled it out.

I have literally gone into a horse's mouth to pull out sprigs of young ragwort that had been happily chomped.

 

[MissTyc]

Ragwort is an odd thing to love and defend to this degree ...

I lost an ISH last year. I'd noticed a few times over the years that he'd pick at fresh ragwort out hacking/on showgrounds. Of course we didn't let him! We have no ragwort at home. I had him ten years. He died of liver failure and PM said his liver was lesioned in the manner characteristic to ragwort poisoning. Can't ever know for sure, but he had a taste for it and the vet said he might have lived with a seriously damaged liver for a long, long time from before I got him even. Was such a sad loss.

 

[ycbm]

Isabella said she had a lot of hate mail after writing this!

Her animals have, as others have said, a great deal of ground the roam over, so they are not in danger of eating ragwort, plus there are other animals there. She is right about mostly being consumed in hay, she is wrong about the amount a horse/pony eats before it becomes toxic.

How are her neighbours supposed to keep it out of their hay crops if she is sowing seed downwind of her holding onto theirs?

 

[ycbm]

She also appears to be forgetting the legal obligation to prevent the spread of ragwort. From a law website:

Legislation relating to ragwort is governed by the Ragwort Control Act 2003 and the Weeds Act 1959. Under these two pieces of legislation there are specific rules and powers that the Secretary of State has to control the spread of this problematic weed.
The Weeds Act 1959

In particular, The Weeds Act 1959 provides the Secretary of State the power to serve a written notice to a landowner where ragwort is growing ordering them to take the required action to prevent the species from spreading. The Secretary of State can make this order and instruct the land owner to comply within a certain period of time. If a notice is served on the occupier of the land but they fail to comply this is a criminal offence punishable through a fine.

Once fourteen days has elapsed from being convicted and the land owner still has not complied with the instructions contained within the notice an additional criminal offence is committed and a further fine can be issued.

When the Secretary of State decides to take action on the occupier, they can also seek to recover all reasonable costs required for doing so. If, for some reason this is not possible and the land is not owned by the occupier, the Secretary of State can seek to recover their costs from the owner of the land instead.

Once reasonable enquiries have been made and the Secretary of State cannot confirm the name and address of the land owner, they can make an application to the High Court or County Court for an order to impose a land charge. Commonly referred to as a local land charge, the Secretary of State will aim to secure the payment in relation to the claim.

If the land owner has been asked to pay the fee due to the actions of the occupier, the land owner can seek to recover this amount from the occupier.
Power of Entry

The Secretary of State has the ability to provide authorisation to allow an individual or local authority to access land in order to exercise their powers under the Weeds Act 1959. This notification should detail the date the inspection will be undertaken and should be served on the occupier of the land at that time.

A criminal offence is committed if the occupier or any individual attempts to obstruct entry for the person who has been given suitable authorisation. Committing this criminal offence will result in a fine.
Ragwort Control Act

In 2003, the Ragwort Control Act was introduced and it provided certain powers to the Secretary of State. These powers allowed the Secretary of State to create a code of practice to outline how the growth of ragwort could be prevented, reduced and where possible stopped.

These codes of practice can be used in court as evidence where action is taken by the Secretary of State.

There has been one major code of practice published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) which detailed how to prentice the spread of ragwort. This document provides specific guidance on how ragwort can be identified, key factors to consider when undertaking a risk assessment and identifying ragwort control measures. These include environmental issues, health and safety concerns and methods of control.

The code of practice does not aim to eliminate ragwort but to simply control the weed in locations where it could pose a risk to animal welfare.

Ragwort is a serious problem and it cannot be left in the hope that it will go away. The longer it is left the more it takes hold and the more severe the consequences will be.

 

[suebou]

Ho hum. Environmental science is becoming a seriously important and pivotal part of our societies so it would be really great if qualifications in that field started to become far more science focussed. I struggle to remember the last time I encountered a graduate of that ilk who wasn't a walking accident waiting to happen, while being impervious to learning and development because they consider themselves to be so terribly misunderstood.

Oh dear, I seem to have become a right grumpy cowbag 🙈

It’s just shame that many people ‘qualified’ like this are getting jobs with quangos of huge influence and being allowed to make half witted policy decisions.........sea eagles, Lynx, re wilding, stopping controlled burning......the recent wildfires in moray had so much fuel it was outrageous......controlling predators.......supporting salmon farming.......argh! I too am a grumpy cow bag about the lack of knowledge and the determination to destroy the countryside.......

 

[JillA]

She also appears to be forgetting the legal obligation to prevent the spread of ragwort. From a law website:

Can someone point it out to her - or would she direct her energies to getting the law changed, to the detriment of equines throughout the land?

 

[LittleBlackMule]

This silly woman’s estate is just down the road from me. It’s far from the rewilding paradise she likes to imagine it to be, it just looks a neglected mess.
It’s a sea of ragwort, it has completely taken over and there is very little grass left for the cattle and Exmoor ponies trying to compete with it.

 

[fburton]

This silly woman’s estate is just down the road from me. It’s far from the rewilding paradise she likes to imagine it to be, it just looks a neglected mess.

To be fair, it surely doesn't matter what it looks like if a significant diversification in animal and plant species was achieved...?

(Quite apart from the issue of putting cattle and ponies at risk of liver damage if they are eating the ragwort - that can be considered a separate matter.)

 

[Marigold4]

Is it inidenous/native? I thought it wasn't

 

[LittleBlackMule]

That’s just it though, there is very little diversification just a mass of ragwort smothering out everything else, with patches of over grazed grass in between.

 

[fburton]

So the claim in her book that "Extremely rare species, including turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, lesser spotted woodpeckers and purple emperor butterflies, are now breeding at Knepp" is actually wrong? Disappointing.

 

[JillA]

This silly woman’s estate is just down the road from me. It’s far from the rewilding paradise she likes to imagine it to be, it just looks a neglected mess.
It’s a sea of ragwort, it has completely taken over and there is very little grass left for the cattle and Exmoor ponies trying to compete with it.

Natural England are the organisation that deal with enforcing the Weeds Act (delegated by DEFRA). I would most definitely report her..................and watch while she has to get rid! There are lots of other plant species which encourage wild life, given enough time I would think the ragwort would outcompete them anyway.

 

[tristar]

Presumably if you have 3500 acres you can allow it to cultivate on non-grazed areas anyway?

and let the seeds blow all over the place and contaminate other peoples grazing

 

[tristar]

This silly woman’s estate is just down the road from me. It’s far from the rewilding paradise she likes to imagine it to be, it just looks a neglected mess.
It’s a sea of ragwort, it has completely taken over and there is very little grass left for the cattle and Exmoor ponies trying to compete with it.

thats exactly what it does it takes over, i`ve seen fields with more ragwort than anything else, i find its worse than docks from the invasive point

 

[cobgoblin]

Perhaps she's just lazy... Took a look at 3,500 acres and thought nah!

 

[Cinnamontoast]

I rode in a NT park yesterday and they had signs everywhere saying they had sprayed the ragwort and to keep childerbeasts and dogs off. Good to see at least somebody upholding the law about controlling the growth.

I think Is a bell a Tree is well meaning but a little (a lot) naive in her statement.

Childerbeasts! I bloody love that!

I think Ms Tree is a clueless idiot. Perhaps she’d like to discuss her theory with the vet who diagnosed a horse at the yard with liver damage, most likely caused by the ragwort at his previous yard. People like her with little knowledge are frankly dangerous and ought to shut up.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

are they her Exmoor ponies or on loan from the MMT?

 

[Orangehorse]

Do you reckon she’s vegan....🙈

Doubt it, she even wrote a piece about eating ponies. She got a lot of hate mail for that too, and it isn't on her website any longer. The estate sells the beef from the free roaming cattle.

 

[ester]

Is it inidenous/native? I thought it wasn't

Absolutely native and it does have some importance ecologically and I'm not totally against it in particular areas.
I do think it is tricky because it is hard to get good numbers on it as the effects are cumulative.
I think it is hard to determine the effect of seed movement (usually quoted as about 40m at the maximum and usually much less) to other areas without having a whole heap more information, and if there is grazing land effected it matters what it is being grazed by.

Until the government opts to deal with it on all the land they own it's hard to see how they can enforce the legislation on others. I wasnt' joking about the amount on MOD land and that's before you even start on central reservations, though round here that is oil seed rape dominated.

 

[tallyho!]

Can't blame one woman for ragwort when swathes of motorway sidings are awash with rag. Whatever, yes I'm sure ragwort is poisonous but not as poisonous as the sugar all these laminitic ponies are eating and the monoculture country society is doing to the wildlife.

In everything there has to be balance. We need to learn from people and take what lessons work for us. Rewilding should happen... should ragwort propagation happen? Not sure. I'd pull out if on my field and I do even though they never eat it. I honestly don't know enough about the molecular biology of ragwort to comment any further but I do believe we all have a stewardship duty to wildlife and to be fair, if eating ponies contributes to rewilding rather than 100% monoculture provision of forage and consumption of one animal, then I would eat a damn pony. I honestly can't see difference between a lovely store cow I love and a pony I love. One I cry while I wave goodbye as it goes off to slaughter to eat, the other I sit on for no real reason. Soz, but honestly, pragmatism wins out. We are all only squeamish about that because we are rich, we don't need to eat our pets. Yet.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

Absolutely native and it does have some importance ecologically and I'm not totally against it in particular areas.
I do think it is tricky because it is hard to get good numbers on it as the effects are cumulative.

agreed-I am lucky now, we've virtually none of it round here -possibly due to the amount of sheep! but there is the odd field rife with it and I hate to see horses in bare fields with lots of ragwort. There are lots of other plants that cause problems, and then some plants that only cause problems some of the time-we can't eradicate them all and shouldn't want to.

I would be surprised if Exmoor ponies, with enough room to move about and varied forage would eat it, even when dead tbh but both the conservation grazing sites with Exmoors in Scotland organise mass ragwort pulls every year-I used to be on them when I lived over that way.

Rewilding should probably happen to an extent but they way its handled wrt the people it affects is generally very poor and this can have an impact on that particular species welfare.

 

[daydreamer]

I spent about a year and a half researching ragwort poisoning in horses as part of a PhD project. At the time there was essentially zero research at all on the harmful dosage to horses or indeed to other species. If I remember correctly most papers were very old and looked at poisoning in yaks and/or goats. It looks like there have been papers published more recently on poisoning in cattle although I'm not sure how comparable they would be due to the differences in the digestive system. For someone (presumably with no/very little scientific background??) to be confidently expounding on the lack of danger is ridiculous and irresponsible.

 

[LittleBlackMule]

So the claim in her book that "Extremely rare species, including turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, lesser spotted woodpeckers and purple emperor butterflies, are now breeding at Knepp" is actually wrong? Disappointing.

I’d be very surprised if it were true, with the exception of the woodpeckers as we have a few of them here.
From what I’ve seen walking around the estate there doesn’t seem to be any management at all so the only species prevalent are those that thrive on heavy clay, not really an environment likely to promote rare flora and fauna.

 

[cobgoblin]

She'll have plenty of cinnabar moths though.

 

[ester]

I spent about a year and a half researching ragwort poisoning in horses as part of a PhD project. At the time there was essentially zero research at all on the harmful dosage to horses or indeed to other species. If I remember correctly most papers were very old and looked at poisoning in yaks and/or goats. It looks like there have been papers published more recently on poisoning in cattle although I'm not sure how comparable they would be due to the differences in the digestive system. For someone (presumably with no/very little scientific background??) to be confidently expounding on the lack of danger is ridiculous and irresponsible.

that's interesting daydreamer as that was my impression too.

I have very conflicting thoughts on land management, because yes if you do leave it to nature biodiversity will trend towards decreasing. This tends to be blanketly considered a bad thing, but I do think it problematic that we have lost the natural succession that happened before we got so involved.

 

[babymare]

I guess this moron hasn't experienced a horse die of liver failure. Horrific to see. It's an evil plant that slowly kills. Every tiny bit ingested impacts a horse. And this fact I could not get across to fellow livereries. So it was down to me to try and keep field clear of stuff!

 

[Reacher]

I am told sheep aren't affected by ragwort - but is it just that they are slaughtered before the liver damage becomes noticeable?

That's a really interesting comment Ester about biodiversity decreasing where land is left to nature- it seems counter intuitive- is that due to the (small) size of the parcel of land being left to nature or am I barking up the wrong tree?

With regards to the comments about environmental science not being scientific I have to disagree - environmental science is a huge broad ranging subject with the sub disciplines being studied with the same level of rigour as any other scientific discipline. However that doesn't stop people like this tree lady from spouting their own unsubstantiated views all over the internet and sadly many people can't distinguish between peer reviewed research and someone else's incorrect / unproven / potentially dangerous drivel. Plus the fact people don't trust experts nowadays

 

[babymare]

I am told sheep aren't affected by ragwort - but is it just that they are slaughtered before the liver damage becomes noticeable?

That's a really interesting comment Ester about biodiversity decreasing where land is left to nature- it seems counter intuitive- is that due to the (small) size of the parcel of land being left to nature or am I barking up the wrong tree?

With regards to the comments about environmental science not being scientific I have to take issue - environmental science is a huge broad ranging subject with the sub disciplines being studied with the same level of rigour as any other scientific discipline. However that doesn't stop people like this tree lady from spouting their own unsubstantiated views all over the internet and sadly many people can't distinguish between peer reviewed research and someone else's incorrect / unproven / potentially dangerous drivel. Plus the fact people don't trust experts nowadays

I also was told sheep don't show affects of eating ragwort but that's because their life span is shorter than horses.

 

[Abi90]

Ho hum. Environmental science is becoming a seriously important and pivotal part of our societies so it would be really great if qualifications in that field started to become far more science focussed. I struggle to remember the last time I encountered a graduate of that ilk who wasn't a walking accident waiting to happen, while being impervious to learning and development because they consider themselves to be so terribly misunderstood.

Oh dear, I seem to have become a right grumpy cowbag 🙈

I have an Environmental Geoscience degree and until this comment I wouldn’t have considered myself terribly misunderstood however I think you have terribly misunderstood what an Environmental Science degree contains!

Admittedly it was quite broad as people tend to focus on one topic as part of a Masters but there was lots of Chemistry lots and lots of Chemistry, lots of Geology, Climate Science. I spent a lot of time in a lab, analysing results and producing reports. What more do you wish to see as part of a science degree?

I’ve not used my degree as I now control planes for the RAF but my fellow graduates all have successful careers working for consultancies or oil companies!

Also, back on topic, I think allowing ragwort to grow unchecked is a bad idea.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

I am told sheep aren't affected by ragwort - but is it just that they are slaughtered before the liver damage becomes noticeable?

I think ragwort is toxic to everything to a degree-but as stated, sheep don't live as long and also ruminants are generally much less sensitive to toxins than horses are.