Toxic or not to goats??

[Silky ma]

ok I have been thru all my holistic care books- read every toxic/ non toxic list i could fine and still i do not know if
These and nany other medicinal plants are toxic to goats or not????

Tree peoney-chamomile-violets- lavenders- borages- nasturtiums-calendula-saffron- marigolds-pansy-chrysanthemums impatiens- the list could go on!!

There are so many plants -plus herbs that i am looking to grow medicinally to use on all my animals and flowers -for a bee garden but no info on toxicity with goats!
Can anyone help???

 

[Latestarter]

There are all sorts of lists of what is known toxic, and even plants off those lists are routinely eaten with no apparent negative (or positive?) effects... The way I see it... if it isn't listed, then I assume it's OK. In my very limited experience, my goats eat whatever they decide to eat and most animals somehow know, from taste or whatever, what they can and can NOT eat. They also somehow know how much of the "bad stuff" they can handle with no serious bad effects.

If you think about it, in the wild, the animals don't have books to tell them what they can and can't eat and do just fine, all by themselves. I think many of us humans kinda overthink things... Just MHO.

 

[greybeard]

There are all sorts of lists of what is known toxic, and even plants off those lists are routinely eaten with no apparent negative (or positive?) effects... The way I see it... if it isn't listed, then I assume it's OK. In my very limited experience, my goats eat whatever they decide to eat and most animals somehow know, from taste or whatever, what they can and can NOT eat. They also somehow know how much of the "bad stuff" they can handle with no serious bad effects.

If you think about it, in the wild, the animals don't have books to tell them what they can and can't eat and do just fine, all by themselves. I think many of us humans kinda overthink things... Just MHO.

And, there are so many other factors to consider as well. Stage of growth, time of year, the individual animal's capacity to withstand toxicity... What is harmful to one individual of the same species may not affect another individual of the same breed or species at all, and some things are considered great forage most of the growth cycle, but extremely dangerous during other stages. (Fescue comes to mind, with it's endophyte fungus during late stages of growth but is a great forage the rest of the time).
Even among humans, there are lots of things some of us can eat that cause serious/adverse affects and even death with others.
We tend to err on the cautious side.

Lots of the toxicity lists have notes such as "reported", vs "confirmed" etc.

 

[Donna R. Raybon]

Hungry animals make poor decisions.

Animals with nutritional imbalances make poor decisions.

Animals exposed to first grren flush of spring make poor decision.

Keeping animals well fed, loose mineral mix, and fed hay before turn out on lush spring pasture goes a long way to preventing poisoning. I would heavily fence goats out of your herb gardens as a goat will eat what they like until it is no more. If you are going to try to deworm with herbs, please do before/after fecals to ensure what you are doing is effective. Parasite overload kills quick. There are several well written books about herbal medicine on farmstead.

 

[goatboy1973]

Goats as a whole are very smart and over millennia of survival of the fittest and natural selection, so only the smartest and strongest survived to pass on their genetics. Momma goats will teach their offspring what to eat while grazing. Some plants like the big tall hollow-stemmed poke berry plants with the purple berries must be poisonous most of the year but there is a very small window of opportunity where our goats will devour the plant in nearly the hottest part of the summer. So some plants can be toxic at times yet perfectly harmless at other times.