Can Goats Eat Wisteria?

Can Goats Eat Wisteria? (Find Out!)

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In very small amounts, wisteria is safe, but it is generally considered fairly toxic to most mammals. While your goat would have to eat a very large amount to do itself any serious harm, the possibility is far less than zero. To be completely safe, I would advise against letting your goats have wisteria.

 

Goats do often enjoy eating flowers, and one of the central parts of your goat’s diet, in the warmer months, should be from active forage that they find themselves.

This, naturally, often includes flowers, but in the case of wisteria, you are better off avoiding it.

Let’s look further into this.

Can Goats Eat Wisteria?

 

Is wisteria good for goats?

Not really, is the simple answer.

Ignoring, for a moment, the actual toxic element of it, there’s simply not much benefit in a goat eating wisteria.

Let’s look at what small benefit it does have, and why you’re better off getting that elsewhere.

The biggest way wisteria would be a bonus in your goat’s diet would be if it was growing wild on their pasture, and they seemed to enjoy eating it as forage.

Foraging is a necessary part of their diet, and indeed of their enrichment.

For some, any diversity in forage is a good thing.

Beyond that, there’s virtually no actual nutritional benefit to speak of.

They are fibrous plants, and fiber should be the backbone of your goat’s diet—but fiber is in pretty much any plant you can think of.

There are plenty of non-toxic sources.

So, ultimately, as you can see, even if the plant weren’t potentially dangerous, there’s also no real benefit to it, either.

Let’s consider the potential harm it can do.

 

Is wisteria bad for goats?

Yes, it is—at least potentially.

Wisteria is actually poisonous to a very wide range of creatures, including us and indeed most mammals.

This is because of the presence of a couple of chemical compounds, lectic and wisterin.

These can cause a very wide range of symptoms, from a painful, burning sensation to vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain.

For goats, the exact same is true.

The thing about goats, too, is that they are used to eating flowers—unlike us.

So, the problems are likely to arise when a goat gorges itself on wisteria in a short period of time and then experiences the adverse effects.

While it would take a great deal more than most goats would eat to do fatal harm, indeed to do any serious harm, the possibility is always there, especially with younger, more naïve goats.

Furthermore, as I said, there’s very little benefit to them in the first place.

So, they are potentially very toxic, and carry little nutritional benefit.

For my money, that means they are not good for your goat.

But are there any parts of the plant which are?

 

Can goats eat wisteria flowers?

The flowers are likely what will attract your goats to the plant.

Goats have reasonably good color vision, and this makes sense given that they are foragers.

They need to be able to identify things in the environment they can eat—often, this is flowers.

The flowers are not the most dangerous part of the plant, but the fact is they do contain some amount of the toxic compounds.

They are no safer than any other part of the plant, and no more beneficial, either.

 

Can goats eat wisteria stems?

The stems are actually one of the worst and most dangerous parts of the plant, with some of the highest concentrations of those compounds we mentioned earlier.

This, coupled with the fact that most of the nutrition in the plant is going to be the fiber in the stem, shows you why there’s really no point bothering with wisterias on the whole.

Goats should not eat wisteria stems.

 

Can goats eat wisteria seeds?

Finally, the seeds are undoubtedly the most dangerous part of the plant.

They contain the highest concentrations of any part of the plant, and it is hypothesized that this is to force animals that have eaten the seeds to expel them shortly after.

In any case, your goats should not eat wisteria seeds, and given that they can be contained in any part of the plant, it goes to show that your goat should not eat any part of a wisteria plant.

They are not safe, and are not nutritionally advantageous, either.

 

So, no part of the plant is really safe, then. while, again, it would take quite a large amount to do any serious harm, there’s no point taking that chance.

Beyond the chance to forage something new and a little fiber, there’s very little benefit to a goat eating wisteria that it couldn’t get elsewhere, from a safer source.

While, for many, my advice might sound like excessive caution, like I say, there’s just no real reason to feed them wisteria even if it wasn’t poisonous.

 

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