What is this? Plant in hay

[holeymoley]

I’m ever so slightly suspicious about this that I’ve found in the hay tonight. It was entangled with a dock stick and seems to be quite well crushed so not much to go on. It definitely had orange/yellow flower heads when in bloom….
What do you think?

 

[meleeka]

It does look like ragwort to me. I had something similar and sent it off to Liverpool University and they confirmed it was indeed ragwort.

 

[PurBee]

Some plants are so distinctive you dont need much to go on. The stripey underneath of the flowers you have and the rough textured ribbed stalk point highly likely to ragwort. The few leaves i can see dried, look lobed-edge/crinkle-edged…pointing to ragwort.
You have multiple flower bunches growing up the stalk, aswell as the final head of flowers, as ragwort grows when mature.

Also the size of it is very much like mature ragwort. Most of the other multi yellow small flower weeds similar to ragwort usually arent so tall, and have a less robust stem, that easily crushes during baling.
Fibrous stems like dock and ragwort are strong enough to remain intact and survive baling, when the plants are mature.

If you were to crush the leaves in your (gloved) hand you’d still likely smell the characteristic acrid/bitter smell ragwort is known for.

Keep an eagle eye for more to show-up in your hay - if you have many bales left from that same bale batch, where's there 1 ragwort in a field, there’s usually more unfortunately, and because thats so mature, it’s indicative that field management is lax.
Sorry to bear bad news i’ve had to throw out literally tonnes due to toxic weeds, its so disheartening. But it’s not such a loss, compared to losing a horse to poisoning, so kudos for being so vigilant and checking your hay…youve just saved your horses health.

 

[PurBee]

P.s. id immediately bag and burn that (and any other ragwort weeds you find) in a metal bucket, as i can see it was cut late and already in the middle fluffy with seed-shedding. It’ll easily spread thousands of seeds and cause it to grow in your yard if you put it on your muck/compost heap.
I made the mistake of composting down whole tied-up bales of toxic weed hay at the side of my yard, and spent the next 10yrs pulling the germinated plant from my field many metres away! Seeds shed and travel sooo easily.

 

[Barton Bounty]

Have you smelled it? Smell it first before burning! Rag has a very distinctive smell dead or alive

 

[holeymoley]

Thanks guys, confirmed what I thought. Is it still safe to use the bale? We use a local farmer and he bales various fields so the chances of getting another one from that field are likely or slim as he stores them all differently depending on when he takes them in and what he gives to cattle.

I smelt it but couldn’t get anything obvious from it. Smell not what it used to be though!

 

[Barton Bounty]

I would still use it, it’s hopefully just one rogue piece

 

[Poppy+MrDarcy]

I'd say it's ragwort, DONT feed this can cause colic

 

[PurBee]

Thanks guys, confirmed what I thought. Is it still safe to use the bale? We use a local farmer and he bales various fields so the chances of getting another one from that field are likely or slim as he stores them all differently depending on when he takes them in and what he gives to cattle.

I smelt it but couldn’t get anything obvious from it. Smell not what it used to be though!

Whenever ive read of ragwort in hay, the general advice is to discard the whole bale it’s found in, because the poisonous alkaloids are still very active in the dry plant as much as the fresh plant, and during the tedding/baling process the leaves generally get smashed off and will disperse throughout the hay bale.
So i’d personally throw that bale out.

Horses wont leave ragwort in hay because the bitter taste disappears when dried in hay. Whereas fresh growing in the field, the bitter taste puts off most horses from eating it. Hence why its so dangerous in hay as horses wont reject ragwort hay, like they do the fresh plant.

Because the poisonous alkaloids literally kill-off liver cells, the damage done to the liver eating bits of dried ragwort leaf in hay would be small, but accumulative.
If you had 100 bales, and found a fair few of the stalks like your picture, you can be sure there are bits of dried ragwort leaf dispersed in the hay stack, and the poisoning effects would be accumulating, slowly.

If this was the first and only bale youve found with ragwort in from your hay stack, it may be a one-off rogue plant - so you can throw that one bale out, and check another bale.
If other bales are free of ragwort bits (the flowers are easy to spot broken off) youll likely be ok to feed other bales.
If other bales have small or large ragwort whole plants or bits of ragwort flowers dispersed in some of the flakes of hay, im afraid id be looking at throwing away the entire supply, (or getting a refund if theres a significant amount left) and finding a new hay supplier.

If it was damp haylage or silage bales, ragwort would still be wet, could transfer/leach the alkaloids more easily throughout the bale because its wet, but, the animals feeding on it are more likely not to eat the ragwort parts because it’ll still taste bitter.
Its still a case of throwing out the bale due to the whole bale likely being more contaminated due to it being wet and all pressed together with the hay, than the dried plant.

Us forage feeders cant find a win with ragwort in our hay/lage supply. No matter the animal eating it. The accumulative poisons affect most cattle, with horses being extra sensitive, compared to other forage livestock/cattle.

Unlike other poisonous plants that (mostly) damage liver cells temporarily, then the liver regenerates and recovers (if original dose was low enough not to kill the animal) - the toxic alkaloids in ragwort KILL liver cells off completely so they CANT regenerate.
This is why ragwort is a ☠ skull and crossbones toxic plant to animals, while the majority of other poisonous plants are less-worrisome, because the liver can regenerate after other plants temporarily poison it.

Dose is a factor to consider with all poisonings. Eating small bits of ragwort dispersed in hay throughout weeks/months will have an accumulative poisoning effect. The liver is a strong organ and even in humans can be 50% dead and just present mild symptoms like lethary, appetite changes. Horses are similar, and on low dose poisons we may not notice much change in them, except maybe slight poop changes and energy levels change.

All you can do is go through your hay flakes with a fine tooth comb and check for bits of ragwort flowers/leaves - its easier to do if you shake out a whole flake in a pile - then lift the main bundle of long strings of hay off the floor, and check the bits that have fallen to the floor for ragwort flowers and broken leaves.
These are the bits that fall out of the hay net as the horse eats, and hoovers them up when the net is finished.
If you are finding ragwort bits, you know the ragwort was tumbled well throughout that flake and isnt safe to feed. If you find more flakes in that bale with bits, then throw-out the whole bale.

Whenever i’ve had really toxic plants in my hay my heart just sinks. I know i have to check it all closely, and maybe have to consider losing the entire hay batch. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, but with ragwort, take no chances of ‘they’ll be alright’. Dock leaf and the odd oak leaf, or even odd sycamore seed wont kill the liver, but ragwort definitely kills off liver cells for good.

 

[nagblagger]

PurBee i love reading your knowledgeable, articulate replies, using terms that i understand at my 'simple' level. Thank you.

 

[PurBee]

Your welcome nagblagger, that’s so kind of you to say. I never really got the hang of remembering all the ‘proper’ terms for all the minute details of plant parts, so give them nicknames that more easily describe to me and others what they look like. The latin names for many plants can be a mouthful and hard to remember, so i prefer the image in my mind coupled with the common nickname. Helps to save memory space in the old grey-matter hard-drive!