{"topic_id":"exotic_toxicology_horse","category":"exotic-pet-toxicology","context":"---\ntopic_id: exotic_toxicology_horse\ncategory: exotic-pet-toxicology\ntitle: \"Horse poisonous plants and feeding hazards — ragwort, privet, yew, laburnum, sycamore seeds, oak acorns, grass cuttings (UK DEFRA code)\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"DEFRA — Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017); Open Government Licence v3.0; verbatim quotation per COPYRIGHT_POLICY §2.\"\nsource_file: pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt\ndate_parsed: 2026-08-24\ntokens_estimated: 378\nverification:\n  method: substring_match\n  claims: 9\n  passed: 9\n  date: 2026-08-24\nrecovered: false\npath: exotic-pet-toxicology/exotic_toxicology_horse/01_exotic_toxicology_horse.md\nsource_document: \"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)\"\ncitation:\n  authority: \"Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs\"\n  title: \"Horse poisonous plants and feeding hazards — ragwort, privet, yew, laburnum, sycamore seeds, oak acorns, grass cuttings (UK DEFRA code)\"\n  url: \"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-for-the-welfare-of-horses-ponies-donkeys-and-their-hybrids\"\n  retrieved: \"2026-08-24\"\n  ref: \"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)\"\n  doc_type: \"official PDF\"\n  needs_review: false\nlicense: cc_by\ncopyright_note: \"© Crown copyright 2017. This publication is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3); verbatim reproduction permitted with attribution. Attribution: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017).\"\nauthority_tier: T1\nauthority_tier_basis: \"T1:uk-gov\"\nauthority_tier_date: 2026-08-24\n---\n\n# Horse poisonous plants and feeding hazards — ragwort, privet, yew, laburnum, sycamore seeds, oak acorns, grass cuttings (UK DEFRA code)\n\nSource: UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), “Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids” (December 2017), gov.uk. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0 — verbatim quotation permitted with attribution; C1 substring-verified against `pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt`.\n\nThis topic covers plant toxins and feeding hazards for equines under the UK welfare code: privet, yew and laburnum are extremely toxic; ragwort causes fatal liver damage and must be removed and disposed of correctly; sycamore seeds and oak acorns are seasonal autumn risks; grass cuttings are unsuitable feed.\n\n## Claims\n\n- `Some plants and trees (e.g. including privet, yew and laburnum) are also extremely toxic to horses, therefore horses should not have access to these (or their clippings) at any time.`\n- `Grass cuttings are not suitable for horses to eat and care should be taken that horses do not gain access to these (i.e. garden waste or cut fields).`\n- `Owners and keepers should ensure that they make themselves aware of which plants are poisonous to horses and take steps to prevent their animals ingesting these.`\n- `Some plants pose a particular risk in certain seasons (e.g. sycamore tree seeds and oak trees which are most dangerous in the autumn when they shed their acorns) so arrangements should be made to mitigate such seasonal risks.`\n- `Horses will eat living or cut ragwort.`\n- `Therefore all ragwort should be removed and carefully disposed of from land used for grazing horses or land that will be used to produce forage for horses.`\n- `Gloves should be worn when removing ragwort, and it is important to remember that flowering ragwort can still seed even when removed from the ground and it has a 70% germination rate.`\n- `Ragwort should be disposed of by incineration, controlled burning or landfill according to The Guidance on the Disposal Options for Common Ragwort, produced to supplement the Code of Practice and provide more detailed advice on disposal.`\n- `Common Ragwort is one of the plants covered under the Weeds Act 1959, Ragwort Control Act 2003 and the Code of Practice on How to Prevent and Control the Spread of Ragwort 2006.`\n","sources":["exotic-pet-toxicology — Horse poisonous plants and feeding hazards — ragwort, privet, yew, laburnum, sycamore seeds, oak acorns, grass cuttings (UK DEFRA code) (retrieved 2026-08-24)"],"source":{"authority":"exotic-pet-toxicology","title":"Horse poisonous plants and feeding hazards — ragwort, privet, yew, laburnum, sycamore seeds, oak acorns, grass cuttings (UK DEFRA code)","url":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-for-the-welfare-of-horses-ponies-donkeys-and-their-hybrids","retrieved":"2026-08-24","ref":"","doc_type":"official PDF","source_document":"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)","verification_file":"pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt"},"source_document":"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)","source_file":"pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt","trust":{"authority_tier":"T1","fidelity":"verbatim","license":"cc_by","display_grade":"A"},"tokens_estimated":378,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}