This speaks of horses, but fowl and other critters could also be affected.

Toxic Plants in Your Pasture

by Sandra M. Burger

Golden chain. Ingesting seeds in the amount of .05% (per horse's body weight) causes convulsions, coma, and death.

Oleander. One ounce of leaves or ingesting .0005% (per body weight) causes death. Do not burn—the smoke is toxic, too.

Apple, Cherry, Peach. Believe it or not, one cup of seeds from these plants can kill a pony. (Remarkably, birds are not affected by the seeds). Keep animals away from trees so they do not stuff themselves on fallen fruit. The fleshy part of the fruit is fine for them to eat, but the seeds contain cyanide and the leaves contain cyanogenetic glycosides, which cause depression, colic, convulsions, and death. Wilted leaves are especially toxic.

Boxwood. Ingestion of one pound will cause respiratory failure and eventual death.

Castor bean. This weed is sometimes found in grain that is not well cleaned at the feed mill, and is also sometimes mixed in with hay. One mouthful for a horse equals stomach hemorrhages and a slow, painful death. Fortunately horses usually dislike the taste. Check all your feed for any questionable material it might contain.

Ground hemlock and water hemlock. Ingestion of 1% of the horse's body weight will cause death. This is a quick acting plant—the horse is usually found lying next to it.

Black walnut. This plant does not need to be ingested. Horses standing in a 5% mixture of black walnut shavings will founder and have respiratory illness. The recovery rate is good if the horse is immediately removed, but the recovery period is lengthy.

The severity of any plant poisoning depends on a horse's age, height, weight, amount consumed, soil and water growth conditions of the plant, and time of year. Green sprouts are the most toxic part of many plants, and poisonings occur more frequently in the springtime.

Symptoms of poisoning may occur immediately, as with oleander or golden chain, or over time, as with salt brush, sudan hay, johnson grass, rye, fescue, or klein. Yes, you could be slowly poisoning your horse with your hay!

Chances are good that you have some of the more than 100 toxic plants in your horses' field.

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There's been some talk on the Lists of cocoa shell mulch poisoning. Folks put it on their plants and the dogs munch it down:

http://ceinfo.unh.edu/Common/Documents/protpois.htm

http://www.parkvets.com/petsandvets-chocolatefurtherinfo.html

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), May 29, 2001

Answers

Red maple are deadly toxic to horses as well.

-- teri (mrs_smurf2000@yahoo.ca), May 29, 2001.

At least here in the South, pokeweed (also known as poke salad or poke sallat) is extremely toxic if consumed. Fortunately, most browsers/grazers won't eat it.

={(Oak)-

-- LiveOak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), May 29, 2001.

Here in central florida we have a weed known as lantana; it gets up to 10 feet high and left unchecked it will take over any area that the birds spread seeds over; that is it will crowd out everything: grass, bushes, seedlings, trees, palmetois, (spelling) all because a michigan woman , in the 1940, just could not live without her little flowers. Cattle that eat this stuff lose palm sized patches of fur, go to wet cool muddy places to lie down and hopefully die quickly; I just wish we had some cold weather rattle snakes to return the favor.

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), May 29, 2001.

Hey yeah- I remember pulling up lantana in the pasture and fighting it tooth nail as a kid-It grew along the roadsides but most people with cows kept it mowed or pulled up- but now they sell it in the nurseries as an excellent xeriscape plant. Course nobody has cows around here either- looks like the lantana won after all Huh? Sorry for the sarcasm, just couldn't help it Joy

-- Joy (JNews1223@hotmail.com), May 29, 2001.

The milky sap of Oleander can cause eye damage .Lantana is boiled in milk and drank by some people in central America for it's medicinal affects.It is also use in a bathtub with hot water to relieve symtoms of a cold and fever.Rye makes a tasty bread found at Jewish bakeries.

-- SM Steve (a12goat@cs.com), May 30, 2001.

Burning oleander wood indoors in an open fireplace has killed a family here in Australia - it's THAT poisonous.

Sycamore fruit (berries, big seeds) is deadly to grazing stock - particularly horses.

Castor oil plant - ricinis communis - has seeds that are the same size and shape as an Australian sweet called "jelly beans" - a bean- shaped sweet with various coloured sugar coatings. Nerve poison. Has killed many children - one seed will do it for youngest kids, two for older, and if they don't die then the nerve damage is permanent. Extract of this was used by official Bulgarian government assasins - small metal balls coated with the extract were injected into people (one in London) from a fake umbrella. They hardly noticed a bump from an umbrella end, but two days later they were dead.

St John's wort is a long-term liver poison for stock. It's becoming popular as a natural sedative, but it DEFINITELY doesn't do to overdo it.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), May 31, 2001.