feeding garden produce

[wvdexters]

Well it is that time of year. The garden is going strong and we're busy working, weeding, and eating those tomatoes. Yes!!

The girls are really admiring it too. (Luckily from the other side of the fence) So I'm wondering about what I can and can't share with them. I know corn stalks, bean plants, pea plants, salad greens and carrot scraps are OK. (in moderation of course) But what about carrot tops? cabbage leaves? etc. I remembered from a past post that beets were good for them. Thanks. They loved the scraps!

I know that plants from the nightshade family are poisonous to humans. (toms, peppers, pots, eggplant)

Funny thing, I do know they love weeds. With this rain they have really been growing too. Every morning they watch me filling my weed bucket and wait. Everyone lines up in their spot. Patiently at first, but well; there is a great deal of mooing and a little pushing for position if I take too long. Then the banquet is on. They usually end up wearing a few. I'll have to see if I can get a pic.

[ian]

Hi

Cabbage is fine, we used to feed cabbage by the truck load to dairy cattle in England when I was young. It will taint the milk flavour a little as does silage.

Regards

[wvdexters]

Thanks Ian. They are enjoying the cabbage leaves along with their other treats. They meet me every morning at the garden fence. We have our good morning welcome and then they keep me company while I do the garden chores and harvest the vegetables. Talking and waiting for their favorite scraps to be tossed over the fence. Often times I even sing to them a bit. I love our mornings.

[cddexter]

A big time breeder in England has a contract with her local supermarket. ALL their past-it veggies and fruit go to her, she feeds them to her Dexters, the Dexters thrive. Including avocados (they so far have never choked on a pit), oranges, grapefruit, lemons, chard, cabbages, you name it. She does chop up a few things like celery and cabbage.

The cows I exported to NZ took no time at all to eagerly devour windfall citrus fruit. Funny to watch long tongues snaking under the fence to hook one they thought might be close enough to snag without waiting for the handout from a human.

Rhubarb leaves are poisonous to humans, not sure about cows. I'd check up on those before feeding. Otherwise....

Go for it.

cheers, c.

[marion]

Swiss Chard....rejected!! Even the 'cow who eats everything' didn't give it a second look..

[wdd]

Here in Idaho some Dairies mix in cull potatoes with hay, grain, etc. The cows pick them out of the mix like candy. Onions taint the milk and make for pungent manure. A dairyman in Utah was being crowded out by urban sprawl. The new home owners didn't like the smell and flies that came with their country homes. They were "well to do" neighbors and were trying to force the sale of his farm at a below market price (he was going to be condemned & have to move no matter what). He contracted for some cull onions from a farm 20 miles away. It didn't take long for the neighbors to pony-up and pay him a fair price .

[cddexter]

just reading that potato tops and stems are poisonous, as are the twigs and leaves of wild and cultivated cherry, as well as shoots, leaves and bark of Elderberry and black locust. Out west here we have something called skunk cabbage, a bog plant with a yellow calla lily like flower with a 'perfume' exactly like the smell of a distant skunk. These leaves are poisonous, too. cheers, c.

[wvdexters]

Hmmm. Potato plants make sense. Since they are members of the nightshade family. Black locust trees are used for fence posts here. We'll have to watch that. We have yellow locust all through our woods. (the black tends to grow a little higher up) Thanks CD. I'll have to check into that.

[lakeportfarms]

It's not produce, but Japanese Yews are VERY deadly to cattle.  We had some of our yearling Highlands pastured at our house, and somebody thought that their trimmings from the shrubs would make good feed and tossed it over the fence.  The 7 Highlands ingested it and we lost 5 of them.  As little as one cup can kill a full size cow.  The only two that survived were the lowest on the pecking order and so did not eat much.

[cddexter]

I didn't think to mention yew, but it's on the list, too. As are tomato plants. Oak leaves and holly berries. But I thought pigs are often fed acorns? Buttercups (which my animals eat) and hemlock. If you want to get really anal, don't feed them bleeding hearts, sweet pea seeds, larkspur, or lily of the valley. Or poinsettia leaves when you throw out that defunct Christmas plant. I've known about oleander and the rhodo family, laburnum, and wisteria. I gather with some of this stuff you have to eat a ton of it, not like yew. cheers, c.

[lavacaw]

Don't tell cattle in South Texas that they can't eat oak leaves...they keep the lower branches of the oak trees trimmed in every pasture around here!

[lakeportfarms]

I hope cucumbers are OK, because I have a bumper crop this year and the neighbors all lock their doors when they see me coming with cucumbers. It's as bad as the years of zucchini overproduction. So, I offered some to the Dexters. At first, no takers, but when the goats began eating them the cows gave in and tried them. Now they look forward to my cucumber visits. I grow the burpless kind, that can get up to 2 feet long. I break them into short pieces for the cows.

Gene, we have the same problem with cucumbers, as well as lettuce, zucchini, radishes, and some other produce.  But I'm not sure if it's because we're bringing by so much, or if it's because they know that the garden is the wintering area for one of our groups of Dexters

[peastickcowboy]

I would be very careful about feeding cattle anything other then grass, hay or grain as I just paid a $150 dollar vet bill and a week giving boluses and shots to a 4 month old heifer that ate something that stopped her intestines from working. Luckily we were able to catch it in time and get her to working again before her intestines burst. Do a google search on peritonitis in cattle and read about all the different causes and the potentials of fatality.

[vtdexters]

I work on a vegetable farm in Vermont and i have the ability to feed my steers as much raw kale and collards as they can eat for the duration of grazing season. Now its almost time to send my first two steers to freezer camp. SO ive been finishing them on raw whole beets, carrots, turnip, and rutabagas (the prefer the tops over the bulbs) in addition to some bailage alfalfa and all the while on green grass. all of it organic. The animals are 29 and 25 months old. I have had them since April so I cannot attest to their initial diet but I am eager to taste the results.

[karenp]

BSF?