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Sepp Holzer says "plant lots of poisonous plants"

 
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Sounds crazy at first, but after he explains it, it makes good sense.

It sounds as if he has his own little laboratory.  At least he has a microscope and a centrifuge.  He tests his animals for parasites.  And it sounds as if he has done some very careful observations on this path.

The important thing is:  he uses no wormers on his animals.  While there are many factors for this, one of them is that he keep a rich diversity of plants including poisonous plants.  When animals need something, they are driven by instinct to get a particular flavor of plant that will make them feel better. 

Of course, if you pen an animal up and feed it nothing but "purina animal chow" then you take on the responsibility for the animal's health.



 
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ive never been afraid of having poisonous plants on my property..hopefully no one dies from them.

i have always had deadly nighshade growing along the fence on the property line, it's purty..i have rhubarb, digitalis, and tons of poisonous plants all over the place..but i also dont' have little kids putting things in their mouths either
 
              
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He's been at this for decades, so the less resistant animals probably died ages ago.  We do no favors to the future of animal breeds when giving them all high doses of wormer.  I would just let the weak ones die, and the strongest most resistant animals live.  But not how it works with my mom's goats, she even wants weakest to survive.
 
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"I would just let the weak ones die, and the strongest most resistant animals live."

Well, yes and no.  That generally works in unadulterated nature, but doesn't have much to do with reality these days.

First, most people have to consider their investment in the animals (and that isn't just the purchase price). 

The other issue is that domestic animals don't really lead normal lives, as they're confined by the borders of our properties and the limits of what is available for them to eat.  There could be one plant that eliminates all intestinal parasites, all the animals instinctively know what it is, and Man eliminated it from the face of the earth forty years ago.

Sue

 
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How much land does Sepp have?  We only have one acre, live in a rural subdivision with close neighbors, and can't allow our animals to run loose, so we have no choice but to take their food to them, for the most part.  I do move the chickens around in their chicken tractors, and take the goats out for walks to browse when I have time, but most of their food has to be supplied.  Also, while I do some 'survival of the fittest' culling with the chickens and rabbits, I only have four goats (will probably be adding two more soon), and can't afford to lose even one of them.  I would, of course, replace any goat that didn't do well for me, but I can't allow them to just die.  If a person had a single cow, they would be even more restricted that way.  Lose your one cow, and you've just lost your entire dairy supply, not to mention having an awfully big hole to dig to dispose of the carcass (or an awfully large compost pile to build!).

Kathleen
 
paul wheaton
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Sepp has about 100 acres.  I suspect that if Sepp had just one acre, he would probably limit the animals he would try to raise there.  You are not Sepp and are, of course, welcome to do your own thing.  If you have lots of animals in a confined space, you are going to have to learn to diagnose and treat all sorts of stuff.

As for "survival of the fittest":  My impression is that Sepp thinks that the animals are fully capable of taking care of themselves if we get out of the way and allow their medicines to be available to them.  So the animals will do much better on their own rather than us taking away their medicines and allowing them only limited feeds.

I think Sepp has done amazing things that I would like to someday accomplish myself.  If the message conveyed here is anything less than that, then the fault is all mine.

 
              
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I guess in permaculture system, one should raise animals that are less prone to disease.  I notice our llama seems to never have health problems, and survives the heat and cold equally well.  She doesn't even get access to a barn in winter, and if there is snow on the ground she doesn't get water

I think that is the key, is to raise domestic animals that are on the borderline to go feral easy.  So that means that they haven't been domesticated to such a degree that they have to have tons of inputs into them. 

And I know its different for people that have small acreage, they can't let their sole milking animal die and etc.  But I'm sure when my mother dies, I'll be experimenting some with goats with the quantity we have. 
 
Kathleen Sanderson
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paul wheaton wrote:
Sepp has about 100 acres.   I suspect that if Sepp had just one acre, he would probably limit the animals he would try to raise there.  You are not Sepp and are, of course, welcome to do your own thing.  If you have lots of animals in a confined space, you are going to have to learn to diagnose and treat all sorts of stuff.



Actually, we've been here for five years and have had almost no health problems at all.  I'm careful to feed my animals well, and they aren't over-crowded, just aren't free to run around all over the place (which would annoy the neighbors!).  I'd love to be able to let them have more space, but that isn't possible right now.

Kathleen
 
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Iowa.lk wrote:


I think that is the key, is to raise domestic animals that are on the borderline to go feral easy.  So that means that they haven't been domesticated to such a degree that they have to have tons of inputs into them. 

   



that is how I feel about it. of course my thing is goats. and yes you can go buy some spanish goats that are practically wild and they will live off the land quite well. but you won't be milking a gallon a day out of them and you will have about a 15% meat to live weight so you might as well just hunt deer imo. For some people that is acceptable, I don't want to have to milk 10 goats to get a gallon of milk ,with just a bit of care,
I can have just 1 do that for me. and I don't want to butcher three when one truly domestic and improved goat can provide the same amount of meat if I just make sure that the coyotes don't get it first. so I can have less land and more meat/milk with domestic animals in exchange for my assistance to an extent. a little symbiotic relationship.  I look at it like "what can I get from an acre?" with spanish goats the number is dismal, with domestic improved goats it seems pretty promising. every acre that isn't utilized by livestock is more likely to be maintained in its natural state or for other production purposes. so I think efficient animals win over wild/feral ones, at least for me.
 
paul wheaton
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I guess in permaculture system, one should raise animals that are less prone to disease.



I would think that in a permaculture system, animals would be better able to keep themselves from disease.


to raise domestic animals that are on the borderline to go feral easy.



On the last day, Sepp did mention some stuff along these lines. 

But I'm sure when my mother dies, I'll be experimenting some with goats with the quantity we have.



Would that be instead of going to the funeral? 


 
                              
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I wonder what he'd say about poison oak? it does keep out tresspassers(the ones who know what it is).  I keep it trimmed away from trails and living spaces.
 
Leah Sattler
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Bytesmiths wrote:
Anyone have experience with Sericea Lespedeza?

It's a legume with high tannin content that is touted for controlling parasites.

It is considered noxious in some US states, but ruminants apparently love it, and it is reportedly not a problem if you keep it grazed down or hay it.

I'm looking for some small quantities, and all I can find is a place that ships 50 pound bags for $250.



I have found lespedeza hay for sale around here. it is pricier than prairie hay (I think it was 35$ per round bale) and was a good drive away so I didn't buy it and can't say I have any experience with it. but I have found lots of legitimate studies and information regarding its ability to control parasites in goats.

it has the potential to be a superior permie plant imo. due to its possibly invasive nature I think it needs a plan for control before the first ground is seeded. it would be wonderful fo r intensive rotational grazing.
 
Brenda Groth
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fortunately all the animals except my two cats one of which was..are ferel..I don't raise any domestic animals..although I think the wild deer think that they are..they sure aren't afraid of us.

I believe here the animals do pretty much the same thing that the domestic animals do on a farm..except they do roam a bit more and they don't provide us eggs. At this point we aren't hunting them for meat either..but could if need be.

They do provide us manure..but it is spread on the ground kinda unevenly, but fairly thickly in most areas..

they do eat bugs and weeds..(and my favorite plants if i don't watch my protection)..

one thing about companion planted crops..is that ..i have learned the more chives and mints and onions and smelly things that I put around my favorite plants..the less damage there are to them..even though the deer are right there..and the rabbits..even my lettuce has gone untouched this spring..the rabbits walked right over the top of it..and didn't eat.

i watched them.

as far as poisonous plants..i don't eliminate any plant or species because it might be poison..seems the wild ones already know..and if not, if they are falling dead I'm not seeing it.

maybe if i had domestic grazing animals I might be a bit more careful of what i had avail for them to eat?
 
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I don't have to plant poisonous plants, the birds do it for me!

Here's a lil' poke and a big poke! Poke weed...that is! I know, the young plants can be cooked (twice?) and some folks eat poke! Not me...but it sure likes to grow in my yard! When it gets those dark purple berries, I find the most colorful bird poop on my '79 Tbird! (bird poops on Bird! LOL!) 


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poke weed
poke weed
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poke weed
poke weed
 
Leah Sattler
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that poke weed comes up in the most inconvenient places! I finally started just letting it be unless it is in a really bad spot. the birds like it and the goats only munch on it if it is very small and it doesn't seem to cause them any problems. as far as a 'weed' goes it kinda pretty.
 
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Yep, it sure does, & apparently develops a serious taproot. The plant by the pond comes up year after year, and (like you) I've decided to just "Let it Be". It looked it's best about a month ago, when it's little flowers 1st appeared. Now that the heat has set it, it's starting to get a little ugly, which seems to progress as the berries develop and the summer wears on.

That lil' poke in my flower bed looked so pretty in the early morning sun, I had to take a picture of it...before I yanked it!!! 
 
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Purple poop in the bird bath! Saw the robins eating berries off of that poke weed today. The big plants are starting to get ugly leaves now, they had no supplemental water during the hot/dry spell. I was looking at that poke weed yesterday, thinking about whacking it down. Won't do it now. I love my robins, and I expect the mockingbirds eat those berries too...and the wrens!
 
Leah Sattler
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aaah yes. the purple poop. my white goats get purple stripes all over them from it! if you can get them small yanking them up works. I have had many like your pond one that is so established and deeply rooted is  practically impossible to remove, especially if you have heavy soil.
 
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Leah Sattler wrote:
with spanish goats the number is dismal, with domestic improved goats it seems pretty promising.



For those not happy with those two options, I wonder if any good would come of crossing in Spanish goats for one generation and then back-crossing to bring meat and milk production back up?

I understand that American chestnuts have been put through a similar process to give them resistance against chestnut blight.
 
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I got letters from a charity i support saying that they where sending cows to Africa and at about the same time i was reading about special hardy Spanish cattle in an article in a Spanish edition of Nature n. 224 November 2001 "la granja un mal invento" Eduardo de Miguel , so i wondered if we should be sending our best breeds to people who could not may be feed them, i thought, does the western world who has so much to say on how things should go, understand about breeds of cattle sheep and such that are better equipped for some dry climates.
      My desire to talk of Spanish systems was born of the idea that they might be usefull in desert countries or for the poor and that many of the people who go and advice the people of poor countries come from the west, so those in the west should have the information that would help them be better allrounders as advisers if they are going to help in the world and you never know whose children wont got out to help somewhere or other.
      If you are poor two hardy sheep who eat anything from hedge rows  might do better for you than one animal who needs brought feeds. In Spain there are rich and poor farmers and hardy animals are good for poor farmers. There is an Africa and an western world inside wealthy countries. The Spanish information is usefull, may be for some and not for others and the internet is world wide, anything you write on it maybe usefull to people in any country on the earth. rose macaskie.
 
rose macaskie
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Leah Sattler, you said you did not want goats that were maybe more hardy but produced less and i started talking about an article i had read on the subject, "La Granja Mal Invento", "The Farm a Bad Invention". I afterwards remembered that the writer of the article, in the magazine "Natura", Eduardo de Miguel and J.M. Lope, the Spanish edition of "Nature" magazine, defends the importance of different races well and so that i should go back to his article to present the case for hardier animals better. Though one aspect of the question is the one i mentioned before for poor livestock owners, animals that will eat the bushes on their land when tenderer pastures give up, through drought, don't cost as much as those that need bought feeds.
    He talks of different types of hair that allow different races to endure different climatic conditions. There are lots of mountains here so there are lots of places that are cold in winter and lots of reservoirs in the mountain to meet the poblacions water needs that are also usefull for the planes that put out fires.
    He says the race of sheep "lacha" has lots of straight hairs that means the rain runs of their coats so they have less health problems through their coats getting and remaing wet in a wet places, while the murcian-granadinan goat, one of the biggest milk producers in Europe, has no hair and supports the hot climate of the provinces of Granada and Murcia. He says that  the Guadarrama goat has a dense coat that helps it support the high altitudes of Guadarrama.
    He says that some races are capable of eating poor or at least difficult to break down sources of food, very woody material or straw or materials with a lot of essential oils in them, lavender maybe, that other races could not metabolise. Maybe some races can take more tannins than others. He says that lots of scrubland would not be grazable if it weren't for our own special races of cows, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys or pigs.
    I have read somewhere else, of a sort of grass that is only liked by horses, so that if ¡f you have horses that eat it, it is kept in cheque but if you don't, it starts taking over the pastures.
    He also says that some animals like the "cacerian" cow or the "retinta", and i have heard of races of sheep that do the same, store fat in more plentiful seasons and so can survive off seasons, like summer which other animals could not get through without supplements to their diet and maybe more water. Camels store fat. Other spainish races of cattle like the "avileña" are herded to different pastures, to the mountains in the summer for example.
    Cow boys must have come from Spain. Here the cowboys wear the same clothes as they wore in America, leathers on their legs, cowboy hats, waistcoats and have the same sort of bridles and saddles. In England neither the clothes of the riders or what is put on the horses is similar or ever has been, to what is worn by American cowboys. 
  He talks of how much Spain spends on bought feeds and so how much money is or could be saved by having live stock that survive on natural pastures.
  teh Merino sheep is he says small and agile and can take long marches of sometimes more than a thouaend miles to get from winter to summer pastures and back i suppose. Merinos is a Spanish race that is to be found in many parts of the world i believe and here they are kept in the center west and south of Spain, were the climate is especially  hot and dry in summer, they are probably good at eating woody and aromatic materials.   
        You want less fires in California, get special live stock onto the scrub land but don't let them over graze it.  rose macaskie. 
 
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Sepp Holzer says "plant lots of poisonous plants"

And I would add Herbs.... for animal self medication. 

I love the book - Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable.  Juliette recommends kelp or seaweed meal for prevention of worms and fluke in goats and sheep, and to stay away from 'other' salts.  She believes, as Sepp does, that animals will find and administer most of what they need if it is available.  I do not remember off hand what she recommends to get rid of a bad worm infestation.

~Jami
 
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Personally I've been toying to the idea of poisonous plants as a deterrent for browsing animals.  In more rural properties deer are a common problem and younger trees and other tasty plants can get ravaged by them.  As usual I am lead to wonder about what protects vulnerable plants in the wild.  With succession comes wildlife right?  So there must be a way of stopping deer and other animals from destroying new growth when an area is regrowing from a fire or some such thing.

I am thinking the answer may be in poisonous and caustic plants.  Euphorbia characias for example seeds freely around here in Washington and has a caustic milky white sap.  Digitalis purpurea of course has a well known poison throughout the plant. I've noticed both are hearty and grow well in difficult conditions: the very environment that would exist in a developing ecosystem.  My theory, completely untested, is that plants like these, or those having similar anti-browsing properties, may make developing areas undesirable for browsing animals in the early stages.  These plants would be shaded out in time by canopy or other more competitive species, allowing the deer to browse freely once the area is more established and able to support it.

I know it's theoretical, but the implications are fascinating if there is any validity to the observation.  Does anyone have any input or experience with this sort of thing?
 
                    
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the Holzers never used wormers.  Sepp just said in his book that he observed the animals seeking out poisonous plants when they were not up to snuff. It was not a case of letting the weak and wormy ones die.  I literally was astonished to find out how wormy farm animals are.  Has it always been like this here? My grandmother did not worm anything.  We had goats and cows, they just were not wormy.  Sepp speaks of aconitum, which grows wild in his locale. I tried planting it here and it kind of mopes along. It is not going to save any goats on this place.  I figure there ought to be other poison plants that are good worm medicine growing here, I just do not know what they are.  the goats love to eat off the leaves of nut trees, I am thinking of planting more black walnut.  Carrot is another "worm plant", the root, I don't  know about the rest of the plant.  Meadows used to have a broad variety of wild plants/herbs growing in them,  the animals ate them as hay.  I remember hay smelling different and that the sweepings were used  for medicinal purposes, called heublumen.  they would be put in an old pillowcase and steamed but I do not remember offhand what happened next. I also remember heublumen tea, very aromatic.  I better ask my mother. 
 
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rose macaskie wrote:
     I have read somewhere else, of a sort of grass that is only liked by horses, so that if ¡f you have horses that eat it, it is kept in cheque but if you don't, it starts taking over the pastures.
  You want less fires in California, get special live stock onto the scrub land but don't let them over graze it.  rose macaskie.        



I think you are talking of Cogan Grass here.  Also known as jap grass as it was used as packing material on ships.  A problem in Alabama... but something I would like to have.  Hard to kill, I mean tuff.  Can survive drought, flood, fire, fast growing, and horses eat it.

The bit about the fires is right on.  As a child the sheep herders would graze the hills (we called them mountains then) but then drought came and they did not stop grazing...then floods, mud slides, fires now...that was CA...the storey of my youth.
 
rose macaskie
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loony k if you want to experiment with goats you have to do it before your mother dies you might die first. My mother died before her father did.  Just look at prince charles he looks old and his grandmother lived for ages so he is going to look a lot older before his mother dies. Is not it a prime rule of psychiatry if you want to do it do it now, find a way don't wait or you will find you have died before you have done it. If you can't over come her influence in life she may influence you after death.
        If you breed goats who doctor themselves you could probably find a market for them with other permies, who want self worming live stock. I always think of that old hair style, a permanent, when i talk of permies. If you get parent goats who can show child ones you will have reestablished their old abilities.

        I tried finding swine herding in the alps, probably putting in swine herding in the Alps or in Switzerland or Germany or Austria. and i  found a thing about a special sort of dog that herds animals there,  that explained how there are herders who take other peoples animals up to the summer alpine pastures in spring and down again in autumn and these herders wintered with farmers It also mentioned or another site did, the farmers they wintered with who had mixed farms and pigs was part of the mix. I can't remember if the pigs  went up the mountains with the herders, still it might be that in Austria there is a continuous tradition for pigs kept loose with other animals and so they have not lost their ability to search out a particular herb when they need it. Get a young pig of Sepps and you will get one that knows how to medicate itself and can teach it to others. Find a goat from a country full of poisonous herbs get an Afghani goat and they will teach the others.  In england pigs  have been kept in sties all my life . lots of live stock is bought and sold between nations so it is normal but still it seems expensive to buy a pig from another country, especial to cross the Atlantic with it. agri rose macaskie.
 
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I meant to write about a documentary on animals medicating themselves and it seems i have not. A day after reading this forum for the first time I saw an incredible documentary on animals medicating themselves.
    It started with a native American explaining that they followed animals to see what herbs they ate when they were ill and copied their medicines, the animal medicines. I don't think i can remember it all but they also had monkey chimpanzees  or some such, medicationg themselves for worms they had to eat fifty, i think it was,  leaves with a Velcro type surface , whole, the worms stick to the velcro and get carried out when the leaves get evacuated, they showed leaves evacuated with their worms in them.  They said they turned them over in their mouths once or twice and then swallowed them, i was in the country just afterwards and i was idly eating some leaf that was a velcro-ish surfaced leaf, probably a grass one and thought it would be tough eating it without chewing it and getting rid of that uncomfortable Velcro surface. The chimps or whatever made nests for themselves in the trees settled down in them with a sorry for themselves, ill, expression on their faces and swallowed these leaves, imagine trying to get a teenage boy to do the same. So animals eating plants that cure them is certain and being studied.  agri rose macaskie.
 
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By the way animals really eat straw here not hay but straw. My grandmother said there was no point in giving straw to the live stock it would not aliment them it was only used as bedding but here all the animals eat stubble in summer, it sometimes seems as if live stock only exists to eat the left overs from  crop production here. I have only seen sheep in th stubble and I post a picture of this with their shepherd.
      I remember being told, as a child, that there was more goodness in the cereal packet than in the cereals if we could only digest it, well maybe straw has a lot of nourishment in it if the animal can digest it. 
        I don't know if stubble i just more or less maintains the live stock from deaths in the long unproductive Spanish summer or if it really feeds them, if they are adapted to digesting it well the sort of question zoologists study or not but that is what they get in summer. I have only seen sheep and goats, mostly sheep on the stubble. The granadinian goat has truly enormouse udders and a reputation for being a very good milker by the way, one of the best in Europe, and Granada is the south where the terrain is dry and semi deserted.
 
        The book of Cesar Fuentes Sanchez, "La Encina en el Centro y Sur Oeste de España", describing traditional farming says,
In July they all went onto the stubble in the following way, in that of barley, first the  pigs and cattle went in together, eight or fifteen days later the sheep and goats went in. In the late (what ever that is) late barley, i suppose, entered the cows and goats and later the sheep.
  In the wheat stubble, the same, first the cows cattle and pigs entered and fifteen days later the  goats and sheep.

      Lots of people are asking the difference between hay and straw.  Hay is grass cut and dried to feed the live stock with and after reading about the Spanish cutting and drying branches pollarded of ash trees and pruned off elms as feed for the live stock and that they do it in september when the leaves are green, i suppose that one aspect of hay is that the spring grass is cut green, i know it is, but did not think it important and dried rather than drying in the summer drought and then being cut, so being more nourishing, I suppose. agri rose macaskie.
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rose macaskie
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I once stopped the car to look at the sheep eating the stubble and you can't imagine the noise of them eating it something like rain and lovely. I have taken photos of a friend shepherd in the stubble with his dogs and sheep, the shepherds were coming in, it was evening and they were queuing up to go one after another through the same stubble fields so i could not spend too much time photographing him. I did not ask why, I am sometimes too sick of their lack of communicativeness on their trade to go on askingthem why.I understand why they don't alk  hundreds of years being pushed around by big knobs is enough to shut any ones mouth. Also i am not to be truste di write here for example. If i find those photos it would be another photo of sheep in the stubble. agri rose macaskie.
 
                    
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Last week I noticed that the tobacco plants I have in my garden have been eaten half way up by my little cows.  I decided that they probably know what they are doing. None show any sign of ill effect. then a neighbor told me that her dad used to give animals a cigarette for worms. How about that. Not that I would do that, and back then I am sure cigarettes were not what they are now. Tobacco is the most sprayed crop around.
I am wondering about ragweed. It is so abundant and so good for nothing. I read that animals do not like it and that it can cause diarrhea in goats and cows if they eat it. Well, the other day I caught my momma goat eating off the seed heads of ragweed. I had never seen her do that before. She was quite determined. 

as far as I know, farmers did not herd pigs up on the mountain meadows. 
 
rose macaskie
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Shaman monkey i have read about producing midly poisonouse plants that keep the livestock from doing for them but feed them, sound odd but that was the story .

  First, here, overly overpasturised slopes who have lost all their soil get left to things like cistus bushes, in england a much prized shrub, but here something that covers hillsides, its leaves can recuperate from sever wilting i have read, this is its special trick.  heather is another plant that grows in worn out land but then my house is at a thousand meters.  The goats and sheep eat the leaves of cystus a bit and the flower buds information i have torn from those living in the village i have a house in, but they arent a very good feed and i have heard of the villagers salting their leaves to make sheep eat them in winter. Where these plants grow the mountain slopes recover slowly from overpasturing them, they begin to have earth and grow grasses.
    Another set of strong bushes for poor soils where the summers are long hot and dry are the woody herb bushes, time rosemary and lavender. 
    Bushes that can bare the heat certain types of them are gorse and brooms gnettaceas. i know hillsides covered in a hardy for hot dry weather and poor soils sort of broom. animals eat gorse i have seen them left thinnish and left cropped to form flat cushions, Junipers there atr five types in spain types  and variouse types of mediterenean oaks and olives, vines.
  In california the ceanothes is a scrubland bush that maybe the live stock does not like much. Are their others?

  I have a book on spainsh woods, "Los  Bosques Ibericos una interpretacion geo botanica.  It is a drawing together of different writers round spains writtings of spanish woods, edited by the editorial planeta. that talks of a system of bushes the live stock does not like enough to destroy and who help the grass to grow at their feet the pistacias. which sounds as if it is close to what you were asking about. i should look them up cystus in this book and see what jewles they can tell me on it, come to think of it.
      I was looking up the bit that talks about slopes covered principally in pistacias in the  natural park of the Sierra de Magina in the county of Jaen in the province of Andalucia where the light walks, in southern Spain 
    I shall hate writting this, I hate writting things i have to turn to the book all the time to check up on.

        The pistacia  is a pretty tree or bush,  in another book i have it says it does not grow into a tree because of being browsed and because of the bounty of its fire wood. I thought is only grew in cliff faces because the livestock liked it so much it didnot survive anwhere else i have a photo of it with twigs eaten. but in this peice on the Sierra de Magina the author says they don't like it enough to do for it.
    lt forms woods in Marocco. Jesus Charco. Not all trees form woods naturally. .
    In the Sierra de Magina according to Salvador Mesa Jimenez in the book iberican woods , the land is commun land so the pasturing is uncontrolled and the only control is the relative unpaletableness of the pistacias which,  because of this, keep a hold on the land and under which grass flourishes, the fodder in spring winter and autumn. The advantage of the bushes seems to be that gass grows well under them. The grass he mentions as being very good pasture that grow well protected by the pistacias, is, brachypodium retusum and festuca scariosa.
      He says there the faginaceas, different types of oaks have been eaten so determindely that they hardly appear, maybe your encina evergreen oak filled dehesa is only possible where a landowner insists it is not overcropped,  and so destroying the oaks  leaves pistacias to rein.
      Their berries are a good feed, though in an old book i have it says they make the meat of pigs pink and make it taste bad, however they were used as a feed, and the book that talks of the Sierra de Magina, mentions them as being a valuable feed, as being full of lipidos.
  All these bushes mean quite a lot of fruits of the woods to feed live stock and birds and wild animals, juniper berries, galbulos, may berries, sloes, dog rose hips and haws, wild olives, a very calorific food and in some parts acorns probably the berries of celtis australis. 
  He mentions lots of other bushes combined with the pistacias. Of those whose names i know, in the end i think i have got nearly everything he mentions, he mentions sloes, wild olives , the acer of monspessulanum, may, crataegus monogyna, time and mejoram,  jerusalem sage and phlomis lychnitis, another sage like looking plant.  The grass used for rope soled shoes, stipa tenacissima, jasmin fruticans, and junipers oxycedruses. He gives different list for the shady side of the slopes and for the the sunny ones for the tops and the bottoms, in the tops encinas and quercus faginea and i can't be bothered to go through it all but i should think you get the picture.
  He does say it would not be possible to exploit this vegetation with out the montesino sheep and the white andaluza goat. 
Pistaceas have beautifull berries and these cornetales full of this bush, they are called cornetales because the bush has a horn shaped gall, must be lovely in autumn they also have red leaves in cold springs.  i post a picture of them with their berries here. agri rose macaskie.
 
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rose macaskie
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I have another answer for shanan monkey on poisonous plants that protect others while they grow from live stock, though my answer is about prickly ones.
  Yes i  have heard of jubjub trees, the azufaifa that are thorny being important in Africa because other plants can get a start or rather get ahead protected by their thorns. I think i have heard of this variouse times one would be in jesus charcos book, "Los Bosques Mediteraneos en el Norte de Africa, Biodivesidad y la lucha contra desertificacion".
    I have seen that the only place a new maple was growing in Guadalajara, bigger than tiny was in a gorse bush.

  Also the holly, according to Juan Ora de la Rueda y Salguero, "guia de Arboles y Arbustos en Castilla Leon.  Which gets eaten by wild ponies and cattle and is indeed or was planted as fodder,  grows in width, as upward growing sprouts get eaten, until it is wide enough to oblige the live stock to walk through its prickly leaves if they wish to eat central stems and though they don't mind eating its prickly leaves, they don't walk through them, so that in the end the holly manages to send up a trunk in the center of its growth. I have heard the same of pines, my uncle told me the same of a pine eaten by deer thsat behaved in the same way.
    I should think your poisoned plants would work in the same way. Establish a lot of poisoned plants and your trees will be protected by them from the live stock.
      I send a better picture of the beautiful berries of the pistacia terebinthus or atlanticus i have seen both types here and can't indentify the different plants unless they are in flower.  agri rose macaskie.
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Leah Sattler
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Elfriede B wrote:

Last week I noticed that the tobacco plants I have in my garden have been eaten half way up by my little cows.  I decided that they probably know what they are doing. None show any sign of ill effect. then a neighbor told me that her dad used to give animals a cigarette for worms. How about that. Not that I would do that, and back then I am sure cigarettes were not what they are now. Tobacco is the most sprayed crop around.
I am wondering about ragweed. It is so abundant and so good for nothing. I read that animals do not like it and that it can cause diarrhea in goats and cows if they eat it. Well, the other day I caught my momma goat eating off the seed heads of ragweed. I had never seen her do that before. She was quite determined. 

as far as I know, farmers did not herd pigs up on the mountain meadows.   



oy! i have been told several times to just feed my goats tobbaco for parasites. I'm sure it works but........eweww.  goats seem to have a bit more tolerance (or maybe smarts) about toxic things. as with most things toxicity is very much a dose related thing rather  than a black and white issue. like any herb or medicine. I wonder if goats have retained a bit more of their instincts regarding plant selection due to the fact that they have been traditionally grazed on sparse land even in recent history.
 
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great thread.

friends had a cat with worms a few weeks back. friend bought de-wormer and came home to find cat gnawing on a head of garlic it had pulled out of the counter garlic bowl. I suggested we get online and find out about garlic and cats and worms. found various opinions, decided to let experience lead us. let her go, no de-wormer. two days later cat had no worms.
 
Joel Hollingsworth
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Bytesmiths wrote:
For some strange reason, I'm thinking chaw is probably safer than cigarettes.



That's a complicated topic.

It is easier to overdose on nicotine with chew, but the cancer it gives you tends to be in parts you can live without (cheek, jaw, throat) and not the lungs.

Both are available with or without additives like ammonia.  I think cigarettes with a higher dose in the first puff are more difficult to use in moderation than hand-rolled ones.

It is certainly safer for a gas station attendant...
 
Joel Hollingsworth
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Oh.

ops:

I just now read Elfriede B's comment on giving an animal a cigarette.  Oddly enough, there's less nicotine in them now, because they're "freebased" with ammonia, so overdosing on nicotine is slightly less of a concern.  I'd be nervous about Polonium in my food supply, but a pack a year or so wouldn't worry me.

AFAIK a can of Skoal or similar will have similar processing to a brand-name cigarette.  I would plant some of my own, for many different reasons.

The cat "stealing" garlic to self-medicate is a good story.  Like Leah, I imagine goats are probably even better at that sort of skill.  When kittens are playing with injured mice, kids are nibbling at something new and seeing how it goes...
 
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LoonyK wrote:
He's been at this for decades, so the less resistant animals probably died ages ago.   We do no favors to the future of animal breeds when giving them all high doses of wormer.   I would just let the weak ones die, and the strongest most resistant animals live.  But not how it works with my mom's goats, she even wants weakest to survive.



I'm on your side in this case. Getting the total out of the crops and livestock we care for is arrogant. If we have too much livestock on limited space, we abolish nature and we instead have to be nature. Same thing with greenhouses. Yes, we get an advantage with greenhouses and by feeding livestock by hand but we also have more work controlling things. I think it is a personal choice. If you like lots of work: Have livestock on limited space and a greenhouse. If you don't like it. Use permaculture.
 
Author
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Sepp's trying to accelerate succession and evolution so this kind of adaptive-stress could be key.  We should all take note - he forces us think very differently than we're trained.  Thanks for posting Paul...
 
steward
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There is a natural product sold for worming pets/livestock, called Verm-X.  They make different formulations for horse, poultry, swine, goats, etc. etc. (since Nov. 2010 they have been certified organic).
http://www.verm-xusa.com/index.php
They are not cheap, but here is a list of what's in it:

Seven listed ingredients in Verm-X:
Garlic, (Allium Sativum)
Quassia (Simaroubaceae),
Cayenne, (Capsium Minimum)
Slippery Elm (Ulmus Fulva),
Cinnamon (Cinnamomum Zeylanicum),
Thyme (Thymus Vulgaris),
Peppermint (Mentha Piperita).

That should be a good starting point.
 
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This isn't a plant dewormer, and can't be grown onsite, but how about food grade diatomacous earth for deworming.... all the animals - maybe even us?
 
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