Poisonous plants

[wilagro]

Does anyone out there know what the effects are of cattle eating chokecherry leaves?

[chalmers]

According to an old book I have chokecherries contain cyanogenetic glycosides which are poisonous. It goes on to say that all parts of the plant are poisonous except the fruit, if the pits are removed. I talk to a fellow beef specialist that had a producer who cleared some brush along a fence line and some chokecherries grew back. His cattle ate them, and he had a couple of cows die, a vet did a post mortem and found the plants in the rumen. If you need more details we have a toxicologist who is also a veterinarian at joe.kendall@gov.ab.ca. I don't know the what the lethal dose level is or if there is an antidote, Joe would have a better idea.

[wilagro]

Thanks Chalmers...I had one cow that I suspected of having ingested chokecherry and/or pincherry leaves while grazing next to an electric fence which was very close to the bush. She did not eat for four days and was very sick. She finally rallied and is okay now.

[cowman]

I'm no expert on this but I do have a pasture that has chokecherries growing very densely along one fence. Occasionally I've seen cows take a bite of leaves and it never seems to hurt them. They don't sit there and pig out on them though! I also have some low land with some water hemlock on it and they will graze it right off in the fall with no problems. And yet I know water hemlock is a really poisonous plant. Once I walked through a large patch,while building a fence on an oil lease. It was pollinating. I got very sick with chills, dizziness, nausea and a dinger of a head ache. Bad stuff for sure!

[15444]

Read the Western Producer from a couple weeks ago. Has a huge article on poisonous plants, including chokecherry. The article says a cow only needs to eat about 3 lbs of chokecherry leaves to die.

[wilagro]

Thanks...I will read the article.