Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been pruning my tomatoes below the last set fruit, and the results are amazing. It has become quite an obsession, and the fruit are scrumptious. I have about 30 plants in and about 6 different varieties. Question is... I have been giving the prunings to the goats, but Heather thought they may be toxic... the goats haven't dies yet but I would hate for a build up of toxins to affect them.
Anyone know the answer??

Not sure. Tomato leaves stems and green fruit are on the list of not feeding to your pets. But I would of thought goats would be okay with them. I think the pets list is more for dogs and cats etc. Do we have a vet on the forum.

Tomatoes belong to the nightshade family and do contain some toxic substances (alkaloids) and can give some people a bellyache. The leaves and stems have a higher concentration of these toxins.

My grandmother used a tomatoe leaf tea to kill aphids on her roses. Not sure how affective it was.

Stu - like tobacco leave, tom leaves are often used to make an organic pesticide. As for suitability for goats, I can't shed any light. I personally would not feed it to the goats. Most foraging animals will not eat a lot or any of something that is going to make them ill, but goats are garbage guts and I wouldn't trust this one to their own initiative.

Beat me to it fishfodder

I am not a vet but have had goats in the past and if mine were anything to go by they are not stupid. I think they would avoid anything that was really poisonous to them.

cheers

I hope that's not the goat that you are going to cook for us????

nah, he's on fine pasture

Make shore he is fat theres going to be a few there

I keep dairy goats. They relish tomatoe plants and cuttings and have been eating them for years. I have seen no problem from feeding it. When milking I feed nothing but alfalfa and grain to avoid off flavor milk.

Can't get any more defintive than that. I wonder how my chooks would go with them

my chooks won't touch them & the rabbits only eat a little then ignore it completely ( maybe chickens are smarter than rabbits , but then again , maybe their dumber - mine dont even eat celery leaves .. )

i know one azalea bush will kill 100 goaties but as for tomatoes i think only if they are wilted then they might get
sourded stomach.

piggy can eat most anything that dont eat them. chickens also i think

i sure do miss my nigerian dwarf goats now that i think of them

IT also depends on what is in the paddocks. Contrary to the myth goats can be really fussy eaters but they tend to favour all the things that sheep and cows don't like which is the origin of the myth. However if there is nothing else that they want to eat within the confines of the paddock they will break out (most common) or eat whatever is left until it is all gone.

I've put a heard of goats through clover that was contaminated with thistles to the point that the clover was being substantially shaded by their growth. The goats went through and eat the seed head off every single thisltle and turned a disaster into a top quality hay. When trying to really push them to eliminate Broom and Blackberries we have managed to keep them confined on a very few occasions where everything got eaten. To try and get them to really hammer the blackberries we would throw in branches of lucerne trees or more broom and within an hour or so they would strip the fresh food of leaves, bark and any soft wood.