The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Land Management => Topic started by: shygirl on June 08, 2014, 10:57:25 pm
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we have a small paddock that for some reason is really covered in daisies this year. iv just read that daisies are poisonous to ponies as its in the same family as ragwort? and on another website it says they are completely edible...hmm...
so is it poisionous to cattle and goats aswell? and pigs? i know my pony wont eat them.
its a really handy paddock so wondering if it should spray and reseed it as im wanting to use it for the goats.
the daisies are a new thing, it was a pig field a few years back.
we used to have the wild daisies that grew quite tall but no sign of them this year.
i remember last year we had unusually high volume of buttercups but hardly any this year.
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Both daisies and ragwort belong to the same botanical group - the Asteraceae. So do lettuce, chicory, chamomile and pot marigolds - note all of these are edible. Just because plants are in the same group doesn't mean they're all poisonous, or all edible & safe.
There are lists here which show plants poisonous to livestock:
http://www.smallholderseries.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:poisonous-plants&catid=89&Itemid=193#d (http://www.smallholderseries.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:poisonous-plants&catid=89&Itemid=193#d)
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants)
Sue
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I'm not sure about other livestock but I know my chooks love daisies, they eat loads of them! I would have thought there would be more conscientious effort to eradicate them if they had a similar effect to ragwort?