24/07/2026
It’s that time of the year when Neill becomes slightly obsessive about yellow flowers around the farm… Is this a beautiful wildflower - or a dairy farmers nightmare? You are likely to see cheerful splashes of this yellow flower on roadsides & meadows every year. Ragwort is a native plant, it supports bees, butterflies & many insect species, but on the farm it’s also toxic to our cattle (& horses if you have them). Ragwort contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids which cause cumulative liver damage - so symptoms can appear weeks after cattle have eaten it, by which time the damage is done 😢 The plant is also particularly cunning in that, when fresh the cattle avoid it (they know), but wilted in hay or silage they can’t detect it, & that’s where the danger lies! So, at this time of the year Neill is frequently to be found with a spade (gloves on because it’s also an irritant to skin 🙄) & as many people as he can press into action, digging it up & disposing of it!! If you leave small areas of it, the seeds soon spread & next year more of the farm is affected!
