Controlling/preventing buttercup sprouts in foraging areas?

[DonyaQuick]

I have just dealt with my third iteration of poisoning from buttercups (Ranunculus) in two years, also the most serious so far since I had an almost fully paralyzed, barely breathing hen in my arms for over an hour through the worst of it. I haven't been letting my birds free range lately due to hawks; this most recent case is from a small sprout that came up underneath a windbreak and was just within nibbling range of the edge of the run to be pecked at. I have been very aggressive in removing anything I've IDed as Ranunculus from my main field after my first encounter with a chicken that ate some of it, but the tall buttercups in particular are extremely aggressive and have started taking over some unused, overgrown fields just down the road from me - so new seeds ending up in my field each year seems somewhat inevitable.

Before anyone says "chickens don't eat buttercups," that clearly isn't the case for all species/strains and I found clear proof of my chickens eating one this last time (nibbled sprouts up against my HWC). Maybe young plants don't taste as awful; I have no idea. Whatever species/strain I've got, it seems like my chickens aern't able to figure out that it's nasty until they've fully consumed a small bit of it. When the symptoms do start, the birds first go off food and water. Once the plant is ground up in the gizzard and moving along through the digestive tract, the toxicity hits and the birds go downhill fast. They begin to have minor coordination issues, then it progresses to inability to stand and apparently can go all the way to full paralysis based on this latest case. I still don't know if it's the dehydration from not drinking or some other side effect affecting the gut, but they then end up with a compacted plant matter impaction that has to pass over the next two days. Recovery is a long process that involves a lot of supporive care to get the bird though it. In all three cases, the crop also stopped moving things through until after the paralysis stage so emergincy activated carbon isn't really an option and they just have to try to ride it out.

So, I would really like to find a way to control these nasty plants beyond the yearly manually removal I already do - which is something I can only do once they've grown quite a bit since they are impossible for me to see otherwise. I'm going to try mulching around my runs for immediate control. However, when hawks are less awful, I like to let my birds out for supervised forage time, which has been quite beneficial for rehabillitating the soil on my proprety over the years. The main species I'm dealing with is the tall one, or meadow buttercup, which I also gather is invasive. My field gets mown regularly but I've read that mowing basically does nothing to control buttercups, even the tall species. Other than resorting to herbicides (which I don't really want anywhere on my land), what else will control these things in a grassy field? Are there other species I could be seeding that would somehow outcompete buttercups or stop sprouts from getting a foothold? They seem able to get going mixed in with just about any sort of grass.

 

[ChaosMom]

Perhaps covering it with several layers of heavy black plastic? Deny it any sunlight or direct precipitation.

Be aware, sometimes a plant is so bad that you do have to pull out the chemicals, as taught to me by the retired chief ecologist at Mountain True.

You might want to call your local State/County Extension Office for more ideas. I know you’re not in NC, but here’s what or extension Plant Toolbox has: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/ranunculus/

Edit to add: if it’s extensively spread through your pasture, you might have to limit the plastic to areas close to the chickens and break out the shovel for the rest. I am guessing that it would take several years to successfully choke it out with competing plants.

You might also contact whichever department at Cornell teaches Ecology, in hopes of finding someone who teaches Invasive Plant Management.

 

[kattabelly]

Are you sure the buttercups are definitely the cause? Lots of chickens DO eat ranunculus ime but I've never known one to eat enough to show any signs of illness. Maybe you have a particularly toxic species in your area though, or your chickens are just unusually sensitive to it.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Are you sure the buttercups are definitely the cause? Lots of chickens DO eat ranunculus ime but I've never known one to eat enough to show any signs of illness. Maybe you have a particularly toxic species in your area though, or your chickens are just unusually sensitive to it.

I'm pretty confident it's the buttercups; the past incidents were after foraging in a small area that I discovered was littered with them mixed in with the grass and this incident featured one that had definitely been nibbled through the HWC. I went on a plant identifying spree after the first two incidents and can't find anything else in the area that has the potential to cause such reactions. The reaction unfolds very similarly to what's described in some places for other livestock as well if one considers that it won't get crushed significantly until it hits the gizzard (although I do realize it's mostly described in mammals).

Unusual sensitivity or lack of ability to taste the plant was actually my original hypothesis since the first two birds who had trouble were mother and son - so inheriting something like that seemed plausible. However, the hen who got bombed this week is completely unrelated and not even the same breed. So that hypothesis goes out the window I think.

I'm leaning more towards it being a potent strain, the phase of growth, or to do with the part of the plant eaten.

Perhaps covering it with several layers of heavy black plastic? Deny it any sunlight or direct precipitation.

Good idea - it can spread by runners as well so for the moment I'll do this in the area where I found it near the run (I don't think I have enough stuff to do the whole perimiter right now). I think I got the whole plant out but hard to tell since I have a HWC skirt that it was into, so I couldn't use the tool I normally do to ensure removal of the whole taproot. I might try with landscaping fabric since drainage can be an issue in the particular area; I think that would let the water through but stop sprouts.

 

[ChaosMom]

…Good idea - it can spread by runners as well so for the moment I'll do this in the area where I found it near the run (I don't think I have enough stuff to do the whole perimiter right now). I think I got the whole plant out but hard to tell since I have a HWC skirt that it was into, so I couldn't use the tool I normally do to ensure removal of the whole taproot. I might try with landscaping fabric since drainage can be an issue in the particular area; I think that would let the water through but stop sprouts.

Ugh - spreading by rhizomes; UGH!!!

I wish you luck.

It’s a shame, because (to me) they’re lovely little wildflowers. But they’ve no natural enemies in North America, so that leaves us with our trowels.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Wow, this blows my hypothesis completely out of the water - that chickens won't eat toxic plants because if they did, they'd be extinct already. I confess I've been complacent but my belief is based on my experience - MY chickens won't eat the toxic plants all over MY property, namely the lilies and daffodils with which they happily coexist. Thanks for opening my eyes. I hope you get your buttercup invasion under control without losing any chickens!

 

[Altairsky]

I have buttercup everywhere in my pasture and none of my chickens ever had any issue.
I also have stramonium, delphinum, digitalis, which are all much more poisonous than buttercup. Never had a problem. It might be something else.
Anyway temporary fence the buttercup area and go heavy with glyphosate until everything dies, till the area and plant some good forage plants like alfalfa.
You can also kill them with salt but the ground will stay poisoned for much much longer.
Chlorine is also very toxic to buttercups, but again, it is more toxic than glyphosate.

 

[CabritaChicks]

Sorry about your loss.
I’ve seen my birds nibble on some truly dangerous things—green-spored parasol mushrooms, fragile dapperlings, and even the toxic manchineel fruit, sometimes called the "poison apple." These are not just mildly irritating; they’re potentially lethal.

But birds are still kick'n.

Living on an island, there’s only so much control I have over what pops up in the environment. Toxic plants and fungi seem to appear overnight, especially after rain. So I stay vigilant. It’s a constant battle, but that’s the reality here.

Beyond that, the only other line of defense is making sure their immune systems are resilient. I focus on diet, sunlight, fresh air, and natural enrichment to help their bodies cope with whatever exposures they might encounter (I saw one atttck a P.Racer (snake) today and still lived to tell the tale). Still, it’s nerve-wracking—you can’t train them to avoid everything, especially not the curious or hormonal ones.

 

[Altairsky]

I witnessed my chickens eat deadly stramonium (a nightshade) and nothing happened.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Wow, this blows my hypothesis completely out of the water - that chickens won't eat toxic plants because if they did, they'd be extinct already. I confess I've been complacent but my belief is based on my experience - MY chickens won't eat the toxic plants all over MY property, namely the lilies and daffodils with which they happily coexist. Thanks for opening my eyes. I hope you get your buttercup invasion under control without losing any chickens!

I think the common idea that chickens won’t eat toxic things is because issues like what I’ve run into are still pretty rare, and when they do happen it’s really hard to know what happened if a bird just falls off the roost one night in a flock that mostly keeps to itself (vs deliberately seeking out the human when feeling poorly as mine do). If I hadn’t caught any of these cases early to see the full run of symptoms, particularly the temporary paralysis phase, I’d have never suspected the buttercups.

In another area I have tons of lilies, irises, daffodils, even a couple bleeding hearts which are super bad to eat (side note: none of those cause paralysis). I used to let my chickens over there to basically weed the area! They sometimes ripped on some lilies and such, but just tasted and dropped it, never fully ate it that I saw. This was also before the buttercup invasion in their main foraging field. It had me convinced they wouldn’t eat anything toxic either…but I also lost my very first roo to eating a poisonous caterpillar so I have been more paranoid about that kind of thing since then. I was convinced that would happen again, because we get SO many here and I have no ability to control what might drop out of a tree and crawl through the HWC, but it seems to have been a one off. Meanwhile I have a Cochin and Cochin-cross flock that will literally only eat grass, dandelions, clover, and the odd nibble of plantain. Even the grass species they’re pretty picky about. They have no interest in exploring other plant options, so that flock I expect would never have plant toxicity issues. My other flock that has had the buttercup issues is very smart and curious in a mischievous way, which I’m sure is a contributing factor.