Author Topic: Thistles in pasture!! (Read 5317 times)

Buttermilk · « **Reply #15 on:** June 06, 2018, 06:53:11 am »

I agree donkeys or their near kin mules are great thistle lovers. Mine have taught the horse that thistles are a delicacy and when strip grazing hay aftermaths in autumn the thistles get eaten before the grass. You can still see the line in the hay field where they grazed up to last year.

Maysie · « **Reply #16 on:** June 06, 2018, 03:08:06 pm »

Our two Welsh Mountain Ponies are certainly ignoring them all!

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #17 on:** June 06, 2018, 04:50:51 pm »

Quote from: Maysie on June 06, 2018, 03:08:06 pm

Our two Welsh Mountain Ponies are certainly ignoring them all!

If they’re like the Fell Ponies, they’ll eat them at a certain point, when the flower is at just the right stage.

Our two Fells pretty much cleared a ten acre very rough grazing area of thistles. The difference was marked after one year, and by the third year there were hardly any thistles left.