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PLEASE NOTE:
"Poisonous" does not mean deadly. Some manifestations of toxicity are subtle. The dose, as always, determines if a plant is safe source of nutrients or a toxic hazard.

Frequently (and not so frequently) Asked Questions

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BRIEF: Could you tell me an additive I can give to my animals to treat fescue poisoning?


QUESTION:
I am trying to find an additive to put in mineral or salt or feed for treating and preventing the affects of fescue..

ANSWER:

Which specific effects??? There can be many. If you are focussing on late gestation havoc played by fescue on horse reproduction (abortion, delayed parturition, etc.), then pulling horses off the fescue pasture and hay at 300 days of gestation (or earlier, if you can) will take care of most of those kinds of problems. Also, frequent clipping/mowing of fescue pastures to prevent seed formation will reduce the amount of ergovaline and the other endophyte alkaloids eaten. For other hypoprolactin mediated effects, the domperidone is your best bet. I have started using a mineral with ctc in it, chlortetracyline, which i do not know if will help or not..

ANSWER:

It will not reverse ergovaline effects. Some feel thiamine might help with the non-repro symptoms, but I don't know first-hand.(of course, other diseases and conditions can affect fertility, too...) Keep the fescue vegetative (graze or mow so you don't let flowers or seeds form, just leaves) and remove horses at critical periods (late gestation, breeding maybe), and you should see that foal crop figure improve. You may have to buy some non-fescue hay for those times, of course.