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I can look up your plants for you and do literature searches to find any existing information in the following areas.
- Nutritional value
- Toxins found in the plant
- Effects of the toxins on animal health, meat and milk
- Prevention, Symptoms and Treatment of intoxication
- Supplements useful to animals eating plants with these toxins
- Grazing recommendations
- References for information
Cost for this service is $50.00 per plant. Please allow 10 business days for us to complete the searches and send the information to you.
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Please note that not all information is available for all plants. Researchers are continuously adding to our body of knowledge. |
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I believe that the most limiting factor on what herbivores, and cows in particular, will eat is human perception. That said, not all plants are edible. Before you decide to feed a new plant to your animals BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT TOXINS IT CONTAINS!
There are a variety of books and resources that will give you a good idea if a plant is toxic. But keep in mind that many of the resources we have about toxins in plants were written from a restricted paradigm about what cows can and can't do. Because of this, I usually search through a variety of resources, journal articles, and get input from colleagues doing research on poisonous plants before putting a plant on the "Do Not Eat" List.
Nutritional value is another important aspect of palatabilty. Unfortunately, little information on nutritional value is currently available because we assumed that weeds were not edible. Most of this information is found in journal articles if it is available. My rule of thumb is that if something is green and growing, it is likely nutritious. The older it is, the less nutritious it is. But just because a weed's nutritional value is low at a particular point doesn't mean a cow won't eat it. My summer of 2007 experience with late-season diffuse knapweed is a case in point. Cows ate it in spite of the fact that it was only 8% protein.
Just like nutrients, toxin levels change with the season. Again, we don't have a lot of information on this because of our mindset about weeds and palatability. That's why variety in your pastures is such a critical issue. NEVER MAKE YOUR ANIMALS WORK IN A SOLID STAND OF YOUR TARGET WEED! They need variety to allow them to deal with toxins in their foods.
To date (02/2008), I have trained cows to eat or have seen them graze the following invasive species in pasture:
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Canada thistle
- Leafy Spurge
- Spotted knapweed
- Diffuse knapweed
- Italian thistle
- Distaff thistle
- Bull thistle
- Musk thistle
- Milk thistle
- Black mustard
- Canada golden rod
- Multiflora rose
They have also eaten a wide variety of brush and forbs. In fact, after watching California cows eat Coyote Bush, and comparing it to what the goats in my research project used to do to Gambel Oak, I decided that in some cases, cows would be every bit as good at brush management as goats.
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