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Show KEEP SHEEP FROM THE DEATH CAMAS Ranchmen Warned Against Poisonous Poi-sonous Plant Which Abounds in Utah Keep your sheep from the death camas (Zygadenus), says the U. S department of agriculture agricul-ture to ranchmen. Cattle and horses should also be kept from this herb, although actual fatalities fa-talities from the poisoning are almost entirely confined to sheep-Nausea, sheep-Nausea, muscular weakness and coma are some of the principal symptoms of the poisoning-There poisoning-There is no satisfactory medical remedy but affected live stock if kept quiet for some time, will often recover. The death camas (Zygadenus) is most dangerous early in the season, not because the plant is more poisonous at that time, but because it is more likely to be eaten at that time when other oth-er forage is dry. Later, sheep are less likely to eat a large quantity, because of the greater abundance of other food- As a matter of fact, most of the cases of extensive poisoning have occurred oc-curred before the flowering of the plant, which occurs in the late spring-It spring-It is impossible to make even an approximate estimate of the losses of sheep because of the '?.- !'. no, li,t it ia rortAin that they are very heavy. Investiga tions have led specialists to believe be-lieve that many of the losses in Utah and California, which were ascribed to other poisonous plants, were really caused by the death camas, and without doubt this plant is one of the sources of the greatest loss to sheep owners in Wyoming and Montana. Mon-tana. It is said that in 1909 in one couty m Wyoming 20,000 3heep died because of the Zygadenus- The death camas may be recognized rec-ognized by noticing its leaves which are grasslikc, long, nar j row and shaped as though they had a keel They grow from a bulb The flowers are greenish-yellow greenish-yellow or white. The plants are perennial, blossoming in the late spring or early summer and then disappearing- This poisonous herb occurs abundantly in the mountain regions of the north, and although al-though found very widely throughout the United SfnW- it is only in the western region that it has become of sufficient importance to be noticed. The plant is sometimes called wild onion; other names applied to it are the soap plant, alkali I grass, squirrel food, mystery grass and poison sego. There have been cases of human hu-man poisoning as well as stocl: poisoning as the result of eating the deadly herb- Most of the cases have been children uh found the bulbs attractive aid have collected them instead of the edible camas- There hr.ve been a number of fatalities, although al-though most cases recover. o |
