Sheep love to eat Dogbane/Indian Hemp

Each year we've been working on identifying more of the plants on our property and this year we decided to figure out what one was that we thought was possibly a different type of milkweed. We've figured out that it is one of the Apocynums. Not sure yet if it's Apocynum cannabinum or Apocynum androsaemifolium (Spreading Dogbane). Everything I've found online so far mentions toxicity to livestock but without any real detail or explanation. We noticed our sheep love it, and will go for it first when we move them to a new paddock with a variety of plants in it. Can anyone shed some light on the toxicity issue? We generally trust our animals to eat what they should and avoid the rest since we move them at least once a week and have large paddocks and few animals. I'm wondering if it's possible the sheep have it wrong this time? Thanks for any insight!

so, i have no experience with this plant.

However, I have found myself in this position with my goats. They will eat voraciously ,at times, plants which a few months later they will avoid them(or less enthusiastically). So yes i 100% trust the animals ability to self regulate and to eat what it needs. Some plants could help buffer their rumens. I have noticed my goats eat as many shrubs as they can for 30 minutes or so and than afterwards they switch over to grasses.

Are your sheep trying to tell you something? Maybe the plant helps with certain worms/parasites. Who knows maybe that specific plant provides zinc? It is a really interesting world out there!! :)

My sheep eat it and are fine but I don’t have that much of it.

Thank you both for your replies! Our sheep are fine so perhaps there was something they were needing even if the plant is in fact toxic.

Hi there! Our herd of Nigerians absolutely love dogbane! We are forest farmers and forage our herd twice daily. They can’t resist dogbane and honeysuckle. Famacha scores are very good and poops are normal.