FARMERS in mixed cropping and grazing regions are being urged to look out for a dangerous weed that is toxic to livestock.
An outbreak of heliotrope, which can cause liver failure in animals, has emerged in northeast and western Victoria’s traditional mixed-farming areas.
Agriculture Victoria Hume district vet Dr Jeff Cave said farmers needed to monitor paddocks for the toxic weed.
“Livestock won’t preferentially ingest heliotrope because it is fairly unpalatable, so as long as they’ve got something else to graze on they won’t eat it, but it’s important to keep an eye on the paddock to make sure there is an alternative food source,” Dr Cave said.
He said sheep were more likely to graze on the weed.
“If you get a good spring after sheep have had a couple of summers with livers damaged by heliotrope, the large amount of copper, particularly in clover, is too much for their livers to handle and they run into a situation of copper toxicity, where their body gets flooded with copper,” he said.
“Farmers typically call that condition ‘yellows’ because as part of the condition they go into liver failure and they develop jaundice — the whites of the eyes become yellow and inside the carcass it will look yellow and the kidneys and liver will have a black appearance which is copper toxicity.”
He said there were drenches to counteract copper overload.
credit:weeklytimesnow.com.au