MILKWEED!

[Hykue]

If the sow thistle others are referring to is the same as the sow thistle here, my goats LOVE it. It's high on their list of favorites, along with dandelion, raspberry, dogbane (apparently poisonous after frost . . . I'm hoping they'll have eaten it all by then), quaking aspen, and brome grass. They will nibble on most everything else, but one of them positively seeks out sow thistle. I haven't ever read anything claiming that it's poisonous. Just thought I'd mention . . . I don't think this is the culprit. They also eat narrow-leaved hawkweed, which looks quite a bit like sow thistle, but they don't eat nearly so much of it. They might even be avoiding it, it seems to still have a lot of flowers in my pasture when they've eaten all the sow thistle flowers.

 

[Drk_wlf]

I had the same thing happen to me when we put our mixed herd of sheep and goats into a new pen. There where some milkweed plants but within about five minutes there were no more. It seems it was the first thing they ate. I was like "ok, I thought that was poisonus" but they didn't get sick. Oh well I have much to learn.

 

[savingdogs]

I envy your knowledge of weeds. I see the same ones but don't know their names. Where did you learn how to identify all these weeds? I realize they may be different from state to state.

I'm from California and live in Washington now, I was much better with naming the plants and bugs in CA!

You should SEE our slugs.......but I'm not even sure if milkweed grows in Western WA and OR.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

You should SEE our slugs....

You're not kidding. I grew up in Washington and now live in North Georgia. I RARELY see slugs here and the ones I've seen have been itty-bitty by comparison. Slugs in WA are as ubiquitous as they are enormous. There are some neat ones over in the Olympic rainforest. Not so neat when they're discovered with bare feet (a childhood memory all born and raised Washingtonians have)...