It was a phone call that I didn’t want to receive. On a pleasant evening in June, a neighbor rancher – someone I’ve known for many years – phoned to ask my advice about some baleage.

It’s that time of year when poison hemlock, a dangerous noxious weed that can be fatal to humans and all classes of livestock, is once again in full growth around the state, officials with the Idaho Weed Awareness Campaign warn.

Poisonous plants cost the livestock industry upward of $500 million annually due to animal losses and increased management costs. It is your responsibility as an animal owner and operator to protect your livestock from toxic plants.

Undesirable genetic traits causing fetal abnormalities have occurred throughout the evolution of livestock selection. There are more than 20 genetic traits cattle breeders monitor in the A.I. industry.

Vetch is not vetch is not vetch. Poison ivy is not an ivy, and poison oak is not an oak. Yes, names for common plants can be delightfully whimsical and inconsistent, but there’s nothing delightful about the toxins in these plants.

No range management textbook is complete without a cautionary photo of bloated livestock that got into a patch of something or other that they oughtn’t to have. Native rangelands host a range of picturesque killers from larkspur to lupine to locoweed. Let stockgrowers beware!