Between the weather and the brush cutter, poison ivy has increased a lot around my place. At least one area is trimmable as my goats love poison ivy.
Meet Poison Ivy
There are three related plants that cause rashes: poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. The only one in my area is poison ivy.
In worse news, poison ivy grows in lots of ways. It can be a vine that grows up into the trees. It can be a low growing weedy thing. Or it can become tall enough to be a bush, although it likes support.
The only sure way to know it and avoid it is to recognize the leaves. They do occur as three leaflets as do many other mostly harmless plants. So, it is important to recognize them for what they are.
Goat Milk and Poison Ivy
There is an old tale that having dairy goats eat poison ivy, then drinking the milk will build up an immunity in a person. Is this testable? I doubt it.
However, anecdotal evidence points to this working. One of the people I interviewed for “Goat Games” had quite a tale.
It seems, when her grandchildren got LaMancha goats for a 4-H project, she was glad to have them at her house. They happily munched on her poison ivy, a bane to her as she often had a case.
After drinking the milk, her poison ivy case got worse and spread. She headed to the doctor who advised her to stop drinking the milk until her case cleared up.
That is the last time she got a case of poison ivy and it had been years.
My Barn Fence
The county road runs in front of my barn. There is a fence to discourage people from pulling over and this is now a wall of poison ivy.
On quiet mornings with no traffic I can carefully prop the road gate to block the herd from invading the garden area. Then I lead them up to the small gate to the front of the barn.
One imperative rule is to stay with the herd as long as they are out. This is a joyous romp for the goats and they tend to nibble and move on to areas they are not welcome, like the front yard.
As my goats love poison ivy, the wall of poison ivy is well trimmed within fifteen minutes. The patch in front of the fence is trimmed in another fifteen minutes. Trumpet vine, another favorite, is trimmed away from the mail box.
By this time the goats are beginning to wander around testing the boundaries I try to enforce. They have plenty of greens in their rumens to chew cuds as they laze in the barn until daytime temperatures go down.
Both the goats and I are happy as they file back through the small gate.
