Milkweed

I'm doing some fields for a neighbor. They probably have less than 2% Milkweed scattered about. Should I worry about problems with them in the cured hay? I have scoured the www and all I get is boo birds (professional papers mostly) attacking the plant but nothing about it being in cured hay and any consequences. Recepients would be multi-breed animals, large and small on a small farm, without horses.
Thanks,
Mark

It's still toxic in cured hay. However, my experience has been livestock (including horses) that aren't on starvation rations avoid it in hay. If you have a situation with underfed animals, they may eat it and will suffer ill effects. Sheep are especially vulnerable.

I've baled hay for decades and it has never cuase any problems in my hay

Many years ago we fenced in a field that had milkweed in one spot.
The cows cleaned the milkweed first before eating the planted grass.

I have also read the same thing in Ky extension office papers. Mark.

While still toxic in cured hay I would not have a problem feeding it to MY well fed cows. They usually pick around the milkweed.

No way would I sell hay that had any chance of having milkweed in it.

What is the ways to rid your hay fields of this milkweed? It is spreading in some of the fields I mow for hay.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice.

WE used to walk the hay field and pull milkweed by hand. Milkweed grows in patches often and you could easily pick them out. Dad , my brother and I could cover a 20 acre filed in a day. When roundup came out we filled squirt bottles and walked the field spraying each plant. That went fairly well. The other method is spraying the whole hay field with a broad leaf herbicide, but , that costs. Milkweed always come up close to where the seeds were dropped and so you can contain it. We did the same in soy bean fields , walked the field and hand sprayed patches

It gets into our hay too but nothing eats it out of the hay given a choice.

Cut it down before it goes to seed and slowly you will have less and less of it

In the countless thousands of bales rolled and fed around here the last 40 years, and almost all with at least a little milk weed, Ive yet to hear of the first problem. Honestly its the least of our worries as far as the occasional weed goes. If you search the internet enough you can find toxicity warnings on all sorts of plants that we all feed and never even think about.

This post was edited by MJMJ on 06/21/2022 at 11:39 am.

I walk my fields and pull it but the fact is, it's so dang hot and dry right now, I seldom get the roots with the weed. The stalks break off right at ground level. I still pull it, but I'm not too sure how much good it does.

Many years ago when I first moved onto this farm, the hayfield had a lot of milkweed. I walked the field and pulled the weeds. I unloaded the trailer that I had used to transport them into a corner of my pasture intending to burn them as soon as they dried down. I went out the next morning and found one of my calves dead next to the pile of milkweed. I assumed that the calf ate a bunch of the weeds and poisoned itself over night. I've been really leery of having milkweed in my hay since then.

Clip your field margins and roadsides before it goes to seed religiously too. Roadsides are a weed factory.

Dad raised certified seed oats. Every year we walked a 40 acre field to make sure all milkweed was gone by combine time.

I have eliminated it from a number of my fields by spot spraying with round-up after first cutting. If you get after it before there is much you can wipe it out in two years.

Well I surely appreciate the answers and thanks for taking the time to answer.

I know cows eat around it while grazing....mine did, the little bit that snuck into my fields. I know that animals are picky about what they like and dislike. It's nice to know they will pick around it in hay too.....I never found any remnants of it if it existed in the first place. Over the years I know I had it in my fields and my grown hay but never worried about it till recently when the subject came up on here and I learned of it's sap's toxicity. I also know that there are numerous other plants that get into fields that are considered toxic.

In my 43 years owning this farm, I have known of probably half a dozen animal deaths (not deliberate like slaughtering) at most, in all the farms around here and none of them were attributed to food poisoning of any sort to which anybody could/would attest. Blackleg got most of them and that came from a spore in the soil, not a plant...from a previous animal that was infected elsewhere, bringing it in with it and infected the pasture. Case in point, Johnsongrass is prevelant here and cows and horses eat it side by side, year-round grazing or in hay. Never heard of any (Colic/Prussic Acid) problems. My daughter's horse was raised on it. 2 nearby neighbors have horses and love it.....course I don't have any neighbors that shop hay for their personal dining, not that of their horses..........

On getting rid of weeds, I totally agree that if you keep the existing plants from dropping seeds on the ground you will overcome the problem and 2-4 D is an available (for the non licensed farmer) remedy for many of pasture's nuisances while not harming your grasses. I always wondered why lots of folks wait till August-September to do their annual mowing (those that do mow) when the seeds have not only formed but matured ready to become a new plant.

On getting rid of Milkweed, the main problem is that you can work yourself silly getting rid of your plants only to have the summertime prevailing Southerly wind deposit careless neighbor's little parachutes in your field........the reason why their mowing habits are my business/annoyance!

Never had a problem with cows and milkweed,I encourage it because of the Monarch Butterflies.Too bad most farmers today could care less about nature and wildlife.

I was waiting for some one to mention monarch butterflies. They actually sell seed to grow milk weed to help out the dwindling amount of them.

There is another butterfly very similar to and often mistaken for a monarch. It is slightly smaller and if in great enough numbers can be harmful to soy beans. Takes a lot of them though from what I read.

Now that I threw in my two cents, watch for poof.

Well they used to come through here on their migration route as did water foul going to the coast. After the several year drought about 15 years ago both found a different route. Taking care of migrating butterflies does not pay the bills. Besides that there used to be a tomato green winged, with a large spot, butterfly that would lay their eggs in my Cedar trees protecting my house from the North wind and provide me with trees full of bag worms that, if unchecked, kill the trees! No trees mean high heating bills in the winter.

(quoted from post at 06:30:06 06/22/22) Now that I threw in my two cents, watch for poof.

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