The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Weeblehg on May 16, 2016, 05:41:21 pm
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We've just moved some of our castlemilk moorits onto a new bit of pasture. One side is a yew hedge. I have to confess I'm a bit of a believer that unless pushed livestock won't eat stuff that's bad for them. So I'm not feeling too worried. Should I be?
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I believe the reason yew was confined to churchyards in days of yore (needed for making bows) was to prevent livestock eating it, and dying from it. They wouldn't have done that if animals wouldn't touch it, surely ???
I would be $@@@@ing myself and fence it off.
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Having lost a pony a few years back that started eating a leylandii just because it fell into the field and therefore a novelty, not through any shortage of grass/hay at the time, I would say hunger isn't the only reason for animals to try a tempting new mouthful or two. And one mouthful of yew can kill a horse/cow let alone a sheep..
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Hmm, problem is lots of historical anecdotal stuff is generally not informed by evidence. Nothing on the internet I can find to suggest a major problem. Maybe it's like ragwort, fine until you either push the animaLes hard or unless it's cut and drying on the ground.
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Yes it is highly toxic and no I wouldn't let any of my animals near it. Read this! You have to read it all!http://poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu/yew.html (http://poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu/yew.html)
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I'm not disputing it's toxic. Just that the sheep are unlikely to eat it. Repliy appreciated from anyone with direct experience of problems ( or not) when grazing animals next to a yew hedge.
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The risk is yours but ( and I apologise because I have said this somewhere else on here) I know that some mushrooms are fine and some are not to eat. I don't know which are which and I am meant to be more intelligent than a sheep. If animals knew what wasn't good for them they would get poisoned but they do! :innocent: And not always when there is nothing else good to eat!
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How would you feel if you went over and found half your sheep dead? is it worth the risk?
not getting at you but if you care about your sheep please don't risk it, can't you run some electric fence in front of it?
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How many horses do you see in fields of ragwort? How many sheep graze hillsides covered in bracken? How many cattle graze in fields with oak trees overhanging them? I manage a nature reserve with hemlock water drop wort and cattle grazing for the last 20 years....None have keeled over yet! It's not a matter of caring or not, but a matter of evidence over Anecdote and old wives tales.
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You asked and people have answered. I am in the better safe than sorry camp. People have been feeding and mollycoddling livestock for many generations so the instinct to only eat what mum eats has been lost from a lot of them.
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I think I'll gauge a few more views and look for a bit more evidence before making up my mind thanks [member=75709]Buttermilk[/member]
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Interesting view from Hampshire who seem to be implying they will use sheep but not cattle
http://www.hants.gov.uk/rh/dogs/stock-grazing.pdf (http://www.hants.gov.uk/rh/dogs/stock-grazing.pdf)
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There are yew trees bordering - and overhanging - one of the fields we rent.
Judging by the level of the foliage, I'd say the sheep probably do nibble it, although I've never seen them do it.
As far as I know, we've never had a sheep poisoned. But if it was my Castlemilks, in a field that was new to them - I don't think I'd risk it.
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We have many yew trees on the tracks up to the fields and over the years I have trimmed any lower branches as every time the sheep walk past to the pens or sheds they have to have a nibble , not had a problem with poisoning but I try to keep them moving
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Have you considered the welfare aspect of your experiment with the lives of your sheep? I can't see how what you are doing can be ethical. If your experiment was duly licensed and carried out according to scientific principles and peer review, then perhaps your actions would be justified. In a controlled experiment animals would not be left to die in agony, as it would be carried out under the supervision of a vet. There are strict rules on animal experiments, which is what this amounts to.
I can't understand your 'suck it and see' approach.
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I doubt you'll find many who have real, direct experience as no one would risk it!
Ragwort and their ilk kill slowly over years: yew kills with the consumption of around a kg of the stuff, and so rapidly that the animal is found with yew still in their mouths.
I certainly wouldn't risk it, In my experience, sheep nibble everything before deciding if it's edible or not. A nibble may not kill, but if one or two got a taste for it, you'd lose them.
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Thanks for sharing your personal values [member=4333]Fleecewife[/member] and for your 'constructive' comments based on and backed up by facts (?). As a former vegetarian who now breeds livestock for meat I am quite comfortable with my moral compass thank you, which has involved considerable soul searching and evaluation of personal ethics and values. I have checked on my livestock 3 times today, consulted with a local commercial farmer and spent quite a lot of time searching the Internet, as well as seeking input from others with experience in this area. i am a firm believer in trying to get as many facts as possible before making what I hope to be the best possible decision.
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personally I've never had a problem with animals eating toxic plants. When I started with sheep I'd've struggled to identify half the poisonous plants in my fields, let alone removed them all.
I found a yew tree in my field only after the sheep had eaten the green ivy that had covered it. In my current fields I have leylandi, laburnum, bracken, foxglove, deadly nightshade & ragwort (though that's only a worry in hay); there's probably more that I haven't yet identified - certainly there're things they don't eat. Before I moved here my farmer neighbour grazed his cattle into the same fields without issue.
I also let the sheep, lambs, pony & chickens into the garden to eat the grass & weeds from around the rhubarb - which they do without eating it - although the pony tends to trample the rhubarb a bit.
I did once have a ewe get ill after (possibly) eating green acorns from a fallen tree, but that's not certain - but she'd always had a bit of a taste for acorns.
Having said all that there have undeniably been cases of animals eating yew, so I suppose there's a small risk if you happen to have an animal whos' instinct/sense of taste are a bit off.
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Fleecewife makes a good point well and I'm sorry our answers are mostly based on what we would do if we had a yew hedge near our sheep. I'm with Hevxxx99. Sheep can generally find something to die of at some point so if yours eat yew and die then please let us know, then we will know whether we are worrying for nothing or not.
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personally I've never had a problem with animals eating toxic plants. When I started with sheep I'd've struggled to identify half the poisonous plants in my fields, let alone removed them all.
I found a yew tree in my field only after the sheep had eaten the green ivy that had covered it. In my current fields I have leylandi, laburnum, bracken, foxglove, deadly nightshade & ragwort (though that's only a worry in hay); there's probably more that I haven't yet identified - certainly there're things they don't eat. Before I moved here my farmer neighbour grazed his cattle into the same fields without issue.
I also let the sheep, lambs, pony & chickens into the garden to eat the grass & weeds from around the rhubarb - which they do without eating it - although the pony tends to trample the rhubarb a bit.
I did once have a ewe get ill after (possibly) eating green acorns from a fallen tree, but that's not certain - but she'd always had a bit of a taste for acorns.
Having said all that there have undeniably been cases of animals eating yew, so I suppose there's a small risk if you happen to have an animal whos' instinct/sense of taste are a bit off.
At the end of the day you probably can't be sure there is not something harmful in your field but if it is a large patch of something or a hedge full of it then it makes it harder to ignore. Some plants are actually notifiable such as ragwort and you should clear from your land.
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How many horses do you see in fields of ragwort? How many sheep graze hillsides covered in bracken? How many cattle graze in fields with oak trees overhanging them? I manage a nature reserve with hemlock water drop wort and cattle grazing for the last 20 years....None have keeled over yet! It's not a matter of caring or not, but a matter of evidence over Anecdote and old wives tales.
How do we know these things are poisonous in the first place?
Because they can and do kill many animals.
Possibly, they don't eat them until there's nothing else left, but sometimes, they get a preverse taste for these things, or are just curious...
Why risk it?
(Do you really know cattle that are over 20 years old?)
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You have asked people for their opinion about the risks of yew poisoning and then seem irritated by the fact that that most do not support your approach of seeing what happens. You then insist that you want evidence to the risk. That is no possible in a poll of peoples opinions. Even if there are number of people who have experience of livestock and yew it is still just anecdote which is close to the lowest level of scientific evidence.
If you want evidence then do a literature search however a quick google would reveal little. I suspect that given the toxicity of yew has been known for a couple of millennium there has been little interest in seeing just how much kills. It is not a reported species and it is not a reportable death so you are never going to know how many animals die from exposure to it.
This link gives a little information:
http://www.provet.co.uk/lorgue/5a92fa3.htm (http://www.provet.co.uk/lorgue/5a92fa3.htm)
As to the wisdom that animals don't eat stuff that is bad for them, one of my goat broke out of their pature, went past my full veg garden and ate the 3 remaining leaves on the dying piris japonica that the previous neighbours had left in a pot and very nearly died. I wouldn't take the risk. - (COI - Entirely non-evidenced based._
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personally I've never had a problem with animals eating toxic plants. When I started with sheep I'd've struggled to identify half the poisonous plants in my fields, let alone removed them all.
I found a yew tree in my field only after the sheep had eaten the green ivy that had covered it. In my current fields I have leylandi, laburnum, bracken, foxglove, deadly nightshade & ragwort (though that's only a worry in hay); there's probably more that I haven't yet identified - certainly there're things they don't eat. Before I moved here my farmer neighbour grazed his cattle into the same fields without issue.
I also let the sheep, lambs, pony & chickens into the garden to eat the grass & weeds from around the rhubarb - which they do without eating it - although the pony tends to trample the rhubarb a bit.
I did once have a ewe get ill after (possibly) eating green acorns from a fallen tree, but that's not certain - but she'd always had a bit of a taste for acorns.
Having said all that there have undeniably been cases of animals eating yew, so I suppose there's a small risk if you happen to have an animal whos' instinct/sense of taste are a bit off.
At the end of the day you probably can't be sure there is not something harmful in your field but if it is a large patch of something or a hedge full of it then it makes it harder to ignore. Some plants are actually notifiable such as ragwort and you should clear from your land.
As it happens I do remove the ragwort when I find it, and I don't have much - but I remove it principally to stop it spreading (I don't make hay from these fields) not because it's poisonous. And things that don't get eaten tend to be removed for the same reason (like bracken). But if it isn't going to take over if left I don't see a reason for tearing up established hedges just because I happen to know it's inedible.
As for ignoring a hedge full of something - most of the hedges around here are full of laburnum - indeed many are principally laburnum and I don't see any of my farmer neighbours doing anything about it so it can't be much of a risk. possibly yew is different - I don't think I've seen any here, but the one tree I did have in my old place didn't get eaten when the sheep cleared the ivy off it so i didn't see any point in tearing it up.
And I'm not about to chop down several mature oak trees on the off chance another sheep develops a taste for acorns (and my farmer neighbours seem to let them grow in their hedges too).
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Actually Fleecewife's comments were constructive. As someone who has spent a career in pharmaceutical R&D human and veterinary I appreciate your desire to gather facts but the Google approach to learning the truth is little better than a random survey of people who keep sheep. Neither is scientific and both give you room to make your own mind up which is not scientific either. This may or may not lead you to the 'truth'. There is plenty of scientific literature to prove yew toxin is poisonous to sheep. They may or may not eat it in your case so you are conducting a random experiment. Fleecewife considers this unethical and you seemed to find it offensive. I don't, it is more akin to not vaccinating knowing that your sheep are more likely to die from a preventable disease. Some people would also regard that as unethical. I think both are unwise so my sheep don't have access to plants I know are dangerous as far as I can avoid it and do get vaccinated. I applaud you for taking the effort to think it through, even if you don't like the responses it is an interesting discussion
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As I understand it one of the drawbacks with livestock nibbling at poisonous plants is that the toxins build up in the liver and cannot be excreted, so the effect may be cumulative. I personally wouldn't let my livestock anywhere near yew, for the same reason I'll be vaccinating for Blue Tongue should the vaccine become available this year. Much, much better safe than sorry.
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personally I've never had a problem with animals eating toxic plants. When I started with sheep I'd've struggled to identify half the poisonous plants in my fields, let alone removed them all.
I found a yew tree in my field only after the sheep had eaten the green ivy that had covered it. In my current fields I have leylandi, laburnum, bracken, foxglove, deadly nightshade & ragwort (though that's only a worry in hay); there's probably more that I haven't yet identified - certainly there're things they don't eat. Before I moved here my farmer neighbour grazed his cattle into the same fields without issue.
I also let the sheep, lambs, pony & chickens into the garden to eat the grass & weeds from around the rhubarb - which they do without eating it - although the pony tends to trample the rhubarb a bit.
I did once have a ewe get ill after (possibly) eating green acorns from a fallen tree, but that's not certain - but she'd always had a bit of a taste for acorns.
Having said all that there have undeniably been cases of animals eating yew, so I suppose there's a small risk if you happen to have an animal whos' instinct/sense of taste are a bit off.
At the end of the day you probably can't be sure there is not something harmful in your field but if it is a large patch of something or a hedge full of it then it makes it harder to ignore. Some plants are actually notifiable such as ragwort and you should clear from your land.
As it happens I do remove the ragwort when I find it, and I don't have much - but I remove it principally to stop it spreading (I don't make hay from these fields) not because it's poisonous. And things that don't get eaten tend to be removed for the same reason (like bracken). But if it isn't going to take over if left I don't see a reason for tearing up established hedges just because I happen to know it's inedible.
As for ignoring a hedge full of something - most of the hedges around here are full of laburnum - indeed many are principally laburnum and I don't see any of my farmer neighbours doing anything about it so it can't be much of a risk. possibly yew is different - I don't think I've seen any here, but the one tree I did have in my old place didn't get eaten when the sheep cleared the ivy off it so i didn't see any point in tearing it up.
And I'm not about to chop down several mature oak trees on the off chance another sheep develops a taste for acorns (and my farmer neighbours seem to let them grow in their hedges too).
You don't have to tear things up like hedges and trees you can fence them off if you want to.
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I have decided the OP is either a wind up or does not care sufficiently for his animals to be worth bothering with.
Therefore I suggest this post is ignored and leave him/her to decide for themselves, if in anyway they think this site suggests it's OK to let sheep eat poisonous plants then they will blame this site when they die.
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It seems to me from reading all of the responses so far that you are only interested in receiving replies that justify the position that you have already taken. A genuine spirit of inquiry would not have ellicited the responses that you have given to some of the previous posters.
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Guys shall we just leave the topic now eh? We have given advice and it is entirely up to them as to whether they want to take it or not, I believe that further comment will be useless, so shall we just leave it at this then eh? We have all voiced our own concerns and given evidence as to our cases, sorry that it sounds like I am preaching in a courtroom :roflanim: it is entierly up to whether they wish to listen or not, we can merely give advice, they don't have to take it if they do not wish to and I myself cannot judge them for that. I will be leaving this topic alone now. Over and out ;D
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personally I've never had a problem with animals eating toxic plants. When I started with sheep I'd've struggled to identify half the poisonous plants in my fields, let alone removed them all.
I found a yew tree in my field only after the sheep had eaten the green ivy that had covered it. In my current fields I have leylandi, laburnum, bracken, foxglove, deadly nightshade & ragwort (though that's only a worry in hay); there's probably more that I haven't yet identified - certainly there're things they don't eat. Before I moved here my farmer neighbour grazed his cattle into the same fields without issue.
I also let the sheep, lambs, pony & chickens into the garden to eat the grass & weeds from around the rhubarb - which they do without eating it - although the pony tends to trample the rhubarb a bit.
I did once have a ewe get ill after (possibly) eating green acorns from a fallen tree, but that's not certain - but she'd always had a bit of a taste for acorns.
Having said all that there have undeniably been cases of animals eating yew, so I suppose there's a small risk if you happen to have an animal whos' instinct/sense of taste are a bit off.
At the end of the day you probably can't be sure there is not something harmful in your field but if it is a large patch of something or a hedge full of it then it makes it harder to ignore. Some plants are actually notifiable such as ragwort and you should clear from your land.
As it happens I do remove the ragwort when I find it, and I don't have much - but I remove it principally to stop it spreading (I don't make hay from these fields) not because it's poisonous. And things that don't get eaten tend to be removed for the same reason (like bracken). But if it isn't going to take over if left I don't see a reason for tearing up established hedges just because I happen to know it's inedible.
As for ignoring a hedge full of something - most of the hedges around here are full of laburnum - indeed many are principally laburnum and I don't see any of my farmer neighbours doing anything about it so it can't be much of a risk. possibly yew is different - I don't think I've seen any here, but the one tree I did have in my old place didn't get eaten when the sheep cleared the ivy off it so i didn't see any point in tearing it up.
And I'm not about to chop down several mature oak trees on the off chance another sheep develops a taste for acorns (and my farmer neighbours seem to let them grow in their hedges too).
You don't have to tear things up like hedges and trees you can fence them off if you want to.
Hmm.. I'm not sure of the practicality of fencing off a mature oak such that the acorns/branches blown off in the wind can't fall inside the fence. Even if it were just the trees in the hedge line I wouldn't have much field left.
And as for the leylandi -The sheep would probably riot if I stopped them going in there; As they don't eat it it grows right down to the ground and they always go underneath in inclement weather - an excellent natural sheep shelter - the whole flock's under there right now.
I do seem to have gone a bit off topic though (Yew), though I get the feeling that the OP's got as much of an answer as they're likely to get :) . I guess my point is that in general, it's overkil to try and remove every single toxic plant from a field, and whilst there may be particular things to be caution with (possibly yew? - though my sheep never touched it when I had a small yet tree) most things will be left alone by the sheep.