I have a mare on my property that has begun to eat all of the stinging nettle in the pasture. They have a good round bale and coastal pasture to eat yet she has eaten all these weeds. I’ve tried to kill the nettle with glyphosate and 2-4d but it’s almost like I’m spraying it with miracle grow instead. Will this harm horses? Why is she eating this?
Our horses tend to avoid it. But if the prickles don’t bother her I am sure it is fine. People boil and eat stinging nettle, its not toxic. Keep your horse away from the glyphosphate for several days after using.
Likes the taste? Stinging nettles aren’t toxic (pick then this time of year, dunk them in boiling water, and they’re a fine vegetable to use the same way you’d use cooked spinach).
If you concentrate on controlling the nettles outside the pasture, your mare will generously take care of those inside.
My mare loves Himalayan blackberry leaves (and berries) with their killer thorns.
Right now she is crazy for new dandelions. Her taste in things changes with the seasons.
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Ok just want to make sure it won’t hurt her. Thanks! And yes it’s been several weeks with several rains since I attempted to treat the weeds. She didn’t mess with them until now.
Ugh we had some in the back of our place and I dug them up when I was a kid so my horses would not itch as I did when I touched them. Years later Callie and Cloudy had a few in their boarding barn and their legs were irritated so I sprayed with Roundup and covered with fresh manure
I don’t care if cooked nettles are good to use on hair or eat,those nettles need to be eradicated.
Weird 2,4-d didn’t work, that’s what I just used around my barn and it worked great. Did you maybe dilute it too much?
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I thought that was the case that maybe it was too dilute. The next time I just poured a huge amount. Maybe like 5 oz to 2 gallons. Still didn’t take care of them. They’ll wilt and then grow 10x faster. I don’t have a chemical license to try other things. I’m not sure what else I can use that’s safe for animals yet effective.
Try Trimec --broad leaf herbicide. You’ll find it at TSC or Farm and Fleet. Follow directions. For human itching after contact --we keep a spray bottle of Listerine in the tack room —stops the Nettle burn.
Stinging nettle has some medicinal properties–perhaps she’s seeking it out on purpose?
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I dig mine up with the pitchfork. It comes back every year regardless. If not the pitchfork, tongs work too. Pluck the nettle, spray the stem/ root that remains.
We cannot use such harmful herbicides here.
Nettles are fine for horses. Many people here let their horses eat them if they will or pick them, dry them, then feed them. They have some medicinal properties for allergies, respiratory issues, cleansing, and a few others.
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It’s my understanding nettle has to be completely dug up to get rid of it - that even if a tiny root is left behind, it will still grow:(
Op, if your mare likes the nettle, Imwould stop spraying it with weed killer let her have at it — YUCK! And I have to ask — what is the personality of a horse that likes stinging nettle :)
Ha-ha, yesterday I went for a grass walk. Our stinging nettles are in full force. Maresy avoided the patch of grass where they were abundant. I was curious whether she would eat them. Nope.
In one old (late 1800’s) medical book by a homeopathic doctor I learned that he used stinging nettle tincture (regular tincture, not homeopathic dilutions) to treat gout. He had success with it back then, so much success that his friends were pushing him to make a “patent medicine” for gout with it and get rich (he did not, he put it in his book as a public service for gout sufferers.)
My husband has gout. The stinging nettle does not work as well as colchicine for the gout, but is definitely better than nothing for a gout attack if my husband runs out of the colchicine.
This doctor also said that the tincture worked well to dissolve kidney stones, or any other accretion “stone” in the body.
Maybe your horse is self-medicating, they have something in their instincts that helps them find healing plants, plants specific for their disease and/or what they need to feel better.
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This is interesting and worth repeating, IMO:).
Both my grandmothers knew a lot about these types of remedies - I wish I had paid a lot more attention to them. We need our modern day scientific advances but we should have never let these old time remedies slip away from us:)
maybe the Op’s mare does know more than she is given credit for:). I take back what I inferred about the mare’s personality:)
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Yes… I am thinking the same thing.
My mare spent the first nine years of her life in large pastures that had not had a whole lot of “upgrading”. (Easy keeper Morgans can do this!) Her breeder said that the horses would seek out certain weeds when they were not feeling well, so the breeders could detect, say, an oncoming colic if they saw a horse eating a particular weed. (I don’t remember which weeds went with which problems but I remember them saying plantain was one.)
There is a low-growing, matting weed that’s very common around here. I don’t know what it’s called, but I noticed that in high anxiety situations, like a show, my mare would graze on that rather than grass.
They are smarter than we think!
