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Re: [RC] lupine - heidiEd, I know I've read that lupine is poisonous, however, a nat. geographic horse special showed wild horses that ate the lupine at certain stages of their flowering. I have a gelding that was pretty much raised wild, til the age of 5 anyway. I ride in some Weyerhauser clear cuts and there is one trail that goes by a particularily large lupine plant. My gelding will dive into this plant to grab a huge mouthful of flowers, ripping reins out of my hands!! He's also particularily fond of the tiny purple thistles, stopping to happily munch the tops off, even when the are brown and seemingly unappetizing. I think they are milk thistles? Anyway, I've let him eat the lupine, he's so intent on having some, not at any time of the year, only when flowering. (Not sure at exactly what stage of the flowers though.) The only horse I have that does this as well!!!! Any medicinal purposes to these plants that my horse may know about? I don't know of anything medicinally useful about lupine, but if ingested at a critical point of early pregnancy it can cause some pretty nasty birth defects. It is a real problem in cattle. Heidi ============================================================ People in Alabama swear by manure tea as an herbal remedy for colds. ~ Lisa Redmond ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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