Western Water Hemlock

Does anyone have experience grazing cattle on land with Western Water Hemlock? Due to the drought in Alberta we are very short on pasture and we have a piece of land that we just fenced off and are planning to use but it's full of Hemlock. In school they said that as long as you pick what you can and don't over graze it should be fine but I'm still nervous to put my cows on this pasture, however with the lack of feed in our area I don't have much choice. I've been picking all that I can and I'll continue to do so. Other than the Hemlock this is the best pasture that my cows will have seen all summer- I'm 5'7 and the Reed Canary Grass is between knee and shoulder height on me. Comments from anyone familar with the poisonous weed would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

In  the Treasure Valley, of Idaho,  (near Boise) we used to have problems with poisoning from Western Water Hemlock in early spring because it was the first thing to get green along the drainage ditches.  Most of those cattle died from seizures.  Those we could get to quickly enough to anesthetize with pentobarbital (this is 40 years ago) until the hemlock toxin was eliminated metabolically,  survived without problem.    After the grass came in the pastures,  we had no further problems as the cattle prefer grass if it is available. 

Thank you for the comment idalee. I'm sorry that you had some deaths from it but it does make me feel better knowing that you only had problems in the early spring. Everything that I've read suggests that I won't have any problems putting cows on the pasture now but I feel safer hearing it from someone who's done it before!

idalee said:

In  the Treasure Valley, of Idaho,  (near Boise) we used to have problems with poisoning from Western Water Hemlock in early spring because it was the first thing to get green along the drainage ditches.  Most of those cattle died from seizures.  Those we could get to quickly enough to anesthetize with pentobarbital (this is 40 years ago) until the hemlock toxin was eliminated metabolically,  survived without problem.    After the grass came in the pastures,  we had no further problems as the cattle prefer grass if it is available.

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I took that medicine for ten years as a kid every morning. Stunted my growth bad. I grew 2" after I turned 25. I haven't had that medicine in 25 or 30 years not heard that word. Brought back a bunch of nasty memories of choking down some nasty syrup type liquid every morning. Not trying to hijack the thread. Hope you get some rain and your cows don't get sick from that weed.