Do horses actually eat Ragwort?
We have assumed for years that horses will not eat green growing ragwort plants! This is based on the casual observation that when horses are grazing in a field in mid summer the ragwort appears to be untouched. This is certainly NOT true they dont like it and they would prefer not to eat it but they do occasionally eat some and a few cases eat more than a bit. The biggest difficulty lies in the palatability of the plant. In its green growing state it is probably fairly unpalatable but the wilted or cut and dried plant is not detected at all. Thus hay that has been cut from a field with ragwort will be potentially lethal. The repeated ingestion of a small amount is probably the worst possible scenario! As the plant is most palatable in dried or preserved forage the greatest risk appears to come from the winter feeding! How many of us know if the hay or haylage we use is certainly ragwort free? It is unlikely that any meadow hay is totally free of ragwort in the UK. This means that dama
