Raye Walck, DVM, director of the Western Slope Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU), shared a grim story with Lela Nargi. She recounts what Walck said happened in sheep from high-desert grazing lands in Grand Junction, Colorado. “I had a case a couple of years ago where these sheep came off the range and were brought into a dry lot situation, into a bunch of old pens. There was a ton of kochia weed growing in the pens and they just went for it.”
There were just piles, honestly, piles of dead sheep.” – Ray Walck, DVM
Source: Ambrook Research, February 6, 2025. Link. Chemist, Stephen Lee at Poisonous Plant Research: Logan, UT, is involved in researching poisonings that occur in the 17 Western states where grazing land is not improved like pastures in the East. Lee has been testing the effects of some of the West’s most consequential toxic plants and working to figure out if hair, saliva, nasal mucous, or a slug of earwax will contain enough traces to identify the poisons. The answer is yes in varying degrees.
The plant toxins are in the blood and the blood feeds your glands. They come out in sweat through sweat glands, saliva through salivary glands, and the glands in the ear as well as the sebaceous glands connecting skin to hair follicles.” – Stephen Lee