Question about Goats & Shrooms...

[Bleenie]

Okay, so I THINK that our empty field, the one i planned to use for the goats, is full of Libery Cap Mushrooms. These are hallucinagenic Mushrooms, right? I am not sure since ive never done any drugs but someone said they really looked like and they thought thats what they were.

Liberty Caps are shrooms aren't they?
Will these harm the goats if i move them over there?
If i get rid of them will they continue to grow?

They're all over and i dont want any of my critters to get sick. Also, will the ducks eat them? I can't imagine they would really bother the cows & horses since theyre so big.

I think they started growing because the field has been cow & horse-less for so long.

Sorry, i have no pictures of them right now.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

I think the hallucinogenic shrooms grow in active field under the dung heaps....but I dunno...since I never did shrooms...ask a druggy.

Seriously, maybe look it up and try to verify the type? Find a list of plants poisonous to goats.

 

[Bleenie]

Well they're growing on, around and from under the old dung piles. I knew that part. I checked a picture online and they look the same. I jsut don't know if it could kill or make a goat seriously ill.

I know it sounds like a stupid question but if i move my baby over there i'd be totally mad at myself if something happened from him eating them.

ETA: I checked online but couldnt find any mushrooms on the poisonous lists for goats. But I KNOW there are poisonous mushrooms. I jut don't know how these would affect a goat. would it hurt them? make them sick? kill them??

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Oh....I'd see about destroying them before putting my goats out there. Best to err on the side of caution. Maybe do a controlled burn of the field and then reseed. It should only take a few weeks to have some grass back.

 

[cmjust0]

We think of mushrooms as 'plants' because we find them in the produce section of the grocery store.. But they're not plants.. They're fungus. So, the first question you have to answer is: will goats eat fungus?

My first thought is no...no more than they'd eat the poop or dead, punky wood from which the fungus has sprungus.

Goats are actually pretty daggone smart about staying out of things that make them sick, but then again, I've seen goats eat things I wouldn't expect a goat to eat. Like dogfood. You wouldn't expect a goat to eat dogfood -- considering most dogfood contains some type of MEAT -- but goats will occasionally eat dogfood.

Perhaps you offer a mushroom to one of the goats.. Note that I didn't say you FEED a mushroom to one of the goats, but that you OFFER one to a goat. If the goat shows interest, you've got homework to do to figure out whether or not it would be harmful.

If the goat sniffs it, jerks its head back, snorts etc...I dunno...turn your least favorite goat into the field and see what happens.

(FWIW...owning a goat you truly despise comes in handy sometimes. Seriously.)

 

[patandchickens]

IME most livestock ignore mushrooms. And in any case, there isn't much you can DO about them, as their mycelia are belowground where you cannot do anything much to kill 'em without permanently poisoning your soil for plant life as well.

If it were me, I would go out and pick/dispose of them (or just whack 'em to pulp where they stand, if they ahve not matured spores yet), do it again anytime another big flush of 'em appears, and call it "as good as it's going to get". And I seriously doubt you will have problems with them, unless perhaps you let your goats get truly STARVINGLY hungry.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat