Herbage for Horses - The "Dandy" lion

 Thursday's "Herbage for Horses", will be a time in which we will explore various herbage and plants which are either helpful or harmful to horses. For our first installment, I bring you the dandelion.

This little baby is a whammy of a plant, let me tell you. Good not only for horses, but for people too.

  Dandelions are: "one of the most nutrient rich plants in the world! They contain more available vitamin A than even carrots as well as lesser amounts of vitamins B, C, and D. They also provide a source of potassuim, sodium, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, and iron. As well as being a source of valuable nutrients, other beneficial effects of feeding dandelion plants are as a liver and kidney tonic, blood purifier, and diuretic. Dandelioins are the only natural diuretic not to deplete potassium levels in the body due to their high potassium content."1

  Jo Bird suggests that you: "Feed one or two plants daily. The whole plant can be fed-flowers, stem, leaves, and root."2

Apparantly, the Dandelion plant can also be used externally:

 "The fresh juice of Dandelion is applied externally to fight bacteria and help heal wounds. The plant has an antibacterial action, inhibiting the growth of Staphococcus aureus, pneumococci, meningococci, Bacillus dysenteriae, B. typhi, C. diphtheriae, proteus. The latex contained in the plant sap can be used to remove corns and warts" 3

So now I know that you're going to stop thinking of Dandelions as weeds, and start picking them to feed to your horses, right?

1 Keeping a Horse the Natural Way by Jo Bird; page 168
2 Keeping a Horse the Natural Way by Jo Bird; page 168
3 http://www.altnature.com/gallery/Dandelion.htm