Castor bean sheep poison warning
Be wary of this highly prolific, extremely toxic weed. It killed my pet sheep last weekend. She had ingested possibly 20+ seeds from 3 plants. I had seen her chewing on these weeds before. I had suspected they were toxic. I don't know how I could be so stupid by not removing them. This time the plant had seeded and she had eaton alot of seeds.
So keep an eye out for the castor bean. Sheep will eat anything and usually they eat in unison with the entire pack. I can't emphasise what a nightmare sheep poisoning will be. There is very little documentation on poisoning and for my beloved pet sheep, her symptoms were - still posture staring at the ground but not eating, then lying down in a sawhorse/bulldog posture, trembling of the face, swollen under jaw, unable to get up, occasional seizures, not eating/drinking, teeth grinding, not pooing or possibly ruminal stasis. She started to feel unwell after about 60 hours following ingestion.
After she died, I confirmed the castor bean poisoning by identifying the missing seed pods on the castor bean plants. I had gone to that area several days prior just to turn a pump off and she had followed me there.
My advice is if you have a sick sheep, consider all poisoning scenarious (mushroom or weed) as much or more than sheep diseases. My sheep was healthy but a highly motivated eater, more reason to suspect poisoning over the gradual disease progression. Don't let google convince you because you've typed bottle jaw it means barber pole, for me the bottle jaw is the anemia which ricin causes too.
But what becomes more confusing about other identical symptoms like grass tetanus or ryegrass poisoning is that perhaps they differed by one symptom in that she hadn't pooed the whole time she was sick. Plus the incidence of and ryegrass and tetanus were low in Australia. But whats extra confusing is the ricin causing possible rumin stasis symptoms that are identical to sheep bloat.
So just get rid of anything remotely hazardous on your property. My beloved sheep died and when she was sick, it wasn't immediately obvious that castor beans had poisoned her. Castor beans can kill humans too (from silly toddlers putting things in their mouth). Reading about sheep conditions requires ALOT of reading on google and without scientific equipment, poisoning scenarious are difficult to impossible to diagnose. What's striking about her is when she fell ill, how different her condition compared to all the youtube content on sick sheep. So watch those weeds, sheep won't hesitate to chew on anything. Castor bean poisoning is probably more common in sheep than people think.
Be wary of this highly prolific, extremely toxic weed. It killed my pet sheep last weekend. She had ingested possibly 20+ seeds from 3 plants. I had seen her chewing on these weeds before. I had suspected they were toxic. I don't know how I could be so stupid by not removing them. This time the plant had seeded and she had eaton alot of seeds.
So keep an eye out for the castor bean. Sheep will eat anything and usually they eat in unison with the entire pack. I can't emphasise what a nightmare sheep poisoning will be. There is very little documentation on poisoning and for my beloved pet sheep, her symptoms were - still posture staring at the ground but not eating, then lying down in a sawhorse/bulldog posture, trembling of the face, swollen under jaw, unable to get up, occasional seizures, not eating/drinking, teeth grinding, not pooing or possibly ruminal stasis. She started to feel unwell after about 60 hours following ingestion.
After she died, I confirmed the castor bean poisoning by identifying the missing seed pods on the castor bean plants. I had gone to that area several days prior just to turn a pump off and she had followed me there.
My advice is if you have a sick sheep, consider all poisoning scenarious (mushroom or weed) as much or more than sheep diseases. My sheep was healthy but a highly motivated eater, more reason to suspect poisoning over the gradual disease progression. Don't let google convince you because you've typed bottle jaw it means barber pole, for me the bottle jaw is the anemia which ricin causes too.
But what becomes more confusing about other identical symptoms like grass tetanus or ryegrass poisoning is that perhaps they differed by one symptom in that she hadn't pooed the whole time she was sick. Plus the incidence of and ryegrass and tetanus were low in Australia. But whats extra confusing is the ricin causing possible rumin stasis symptoms that are identical to sheep bloat.
So just get rid of anything remotely hazardous on your property. My beloved sheep died and when she was sick, it wasn't immediately obvious that castor beans had poisoned her. Castor beans can kill humans too (from silly toddlers putting things in their mouth). Reading about sheep conditions requires ALOT of reading on google and without scientific equipment, poisoning scenarious are difficult to impossible to diagnose. What's striking about her is when she fell ill, how different her condition compared to all the youtube content on sick sheep. So watch those weeds, sheep won't hesitate to chew on anything. Castor bean poisoning is probably more common in sheep than people think.
