Blind grass - poison for goats?

[JeniB@springdale]

Hi - I live on a bush block in the SW of Western Australia we have a native called "blind grass" wich we have been told is poisonous to horses and goats. Does any one have any information on this as we are going to try and keep a goat or two to clean up the blackberries. it is a spindly looking grass, grows in kind of spindly clumps is a blue/green colour about 18" high and when flowering has little blue star type flowers at the top, the bottom of the stalk tends to die back and go brown while the leaves at the top stay green.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Is this it?

 

[Pearce Pastures]

The reason for the common name BLIND GRASS is because it can cause blindness.


From the US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3415616
"Twenty-seven of 427 Angora goats of mixed age became blind within a week of consuming large amounts of Stypandra glauca ("nodding blue lily"). A further 200 goats were depressed for several weeks, but most subsequently recovered. Blindness was associated with optic nerve neuropathy which is postulated to have followed compression of the optic nerves within the bony optic canals as a result of severe myelin oedema. Histologically, the intracanalicular portion of the optic nerve was sclerotic, while the intracranial portion of the optic nerve and the optic tracts were degenerating. The retrobulbar portion of the optic nerve was relatively unaffected. In addition, multifocal retinal photoreceptor degeneration was found ophthalmoscopically and histologically. The syndrome was not reproduced during a trial in which 2 goats were fed 4 and 20 kg of S. glauca harvested after it had finished flowering, more than 3 weeks after the first natural cases of blindness. Based on epidemiological and pathological data we propose that S. glauca is toxic to stock, but only for a short period while flowering in spring."

 

[JeniB@springdale]

Thanks for the reply, Yes this is the plant we have. The article says its toxic when flowering in spring, so hopefully the small amount that she has eaten will be okay. She really want to have a go at at it when we are walking her, but we try really hard not to let her near it.