4 MISC. PUB. 882, U.S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
feed. This point is especially important when animals are moved to 
unfamiliar surroundings where they may find a poisonous plant that 
they do not recognize. 
TREATMENT OF POISONED ANIMALS 
When plant poisoning is suspected, the stockman should make sure 
that his animals have not been poisoned by arsenic, insecticide, paint, 
or any other poison, and that they are not suffering from an infectious 
disease. An animal with an infectious disease usually has a fever 
and a dry, warm muzzle. An animal with plant poisoning generally 
has no fever and has a moist, cool muzzle. 
Plant poisoning should be strongly suspected when there is a sudden 
onset of obscure illness without visible cause, especially when a number 
of animals show acute disorders of the central nervous system or the 
digestive tract, with prostration or rapid loss of weight. Other indica- 
tions of plant poisoning are fast heartbeat, stomach and intestinal up- 
sets, depression, and repeated unsuccessful attempts to empty the 
bowels, and difficulty in breathing. These symptoms are often fol- 
lowed by weakness, coma, and collapse. 
Unfortunately, by the time symptoms are apparent many poisoned 
animals are beyond recovery. Prevention, therefore, is much better 
than treatment. When trouble strikes, call a veterinarian at once. 
Place the animal where you can give it adequate care and treatment, 
protected from the sun, and offer it water and a little good safe feed. 
Before the veterinarian arrives, try to learn everything you can about 
the case, such as location and identification of the offending plant and 
the symptoms of the poisoned animal. The veterinarian will want that 
information to use as a basis for treatment. 
CONTROL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 
The most certain method of preventing livestock poisoning is to 
destroy offending plants, but the cost of destruction must be weighed 
against the value of the forage that the poisonous plants make danger- 
ous for livestock to use. Frequently the cost of eliminating poisonous 
plants from extensive and scattered stands is prohibitive; some poison- 
ous plants are low in risk, and their value as forage offsets their poison- 
ous nature. For example, sudangrass becomes poisonous only under 
exceptional conditions and is normally a valuable forage crop which 
you are more likely to plant than to control. 
Factors that affect costs, such as location, density and extent of 
stands, land slope, and rockiness, determine what kind of control you 
should use. Adequate control may require only one method, or a 
combination of mechanical, biological, or chemical methods. 
Mechanical control—use of machinery or handtools to remove un- 
desirable vegetation—has generally met with only partial or temporary 
success in the Virgin Islands. Methods include cultivation, cutting, 
mowing, pulling, grubbing, bulldozing, and brushchopping. Except 
for cultivation followed by replanting, mechanical control has to be 
repeated constantly, or supplemented by chemical control, where poi- 
sonous plants or other weeds are well established. Of course, many 
poisonous plants, while in the seedling stage, can be killed easily by 
