The rains have kicked in the weed growth and I had to resort to 'round-up' herbicide spray where my chickens range for a supervized hour daily and was wondering how long until safe for them to range again. I know that the action and tociscity [sp] of round up is quick and relatively safe, but I want to be sure.........

Anyone know??

I've since googled a couple of poultry forums and the general concensus is that because of the speed and mechanism of kill that round-up uses, it is deemed safe within hours of spraying. I will take the conservative side and wait until we have a decent rain before letting my chickens out.

one post reasoned that you can drink a cup of round-up w/o toxic effects, so it shoud be safe [low LD] and another post pointed out that the chickens ignore dead and/or wilting plants and usually dig around for worms, insects.

Will post if my chickens have any ill effects or the eggs are deformed or taste funny.

So long as it is dry - spray in the morning, fine in the afternoon.

If its wet or damp - wait 24 - 48hrs.

The rains have kicked in the weed growth and I had to resort to 'round-up' herbicide spray where my chickens range for a supervized hour daily and was wondering how long until safe for them to range again. I know that the action and tociscity [sp] of round up is quick and relatively safe, but I want to be sure.........

Anyone know??

Round-up is designed to attack only green coloured cellulose plants..hence you can spray around the base of a tree and not kill it as it is brown/grey etc. As soon as 'roundup' soaks into the earth it neutralizes. Other problem is if you've sprayed the weeds and the fowls happen to peck at them they will then injest the active 'roundup'. It obviously takes many days sometimes weeks for the 'roundup' to do its job and completely kill the plant. A classical eg is where some locals soak chicken meat in 'roundup' and throw it down in their sois to get rid of dogs..so be careful..maybe best to pen off an area for your free-range-chookies to run for a while.

"A classical eg is where some locals soak chicken meat in 'roundup' and throw it down in their sois to get rid of dogs..so be careful"

never heard of that and it doesn't sound like the most efficient way to kill anything except the weeds that may come into contact with it. monsanto claims that round-up is as safe as table salt [which I take with a grain of salt, pardon the pun]

A much more effective way to kill dogs or whatever is to soak meat in warafin [not that I recommend it].

I think the mechanical action of round-up makes it quite safe, but to be on the super safe side, I will wait till the plants are dead and/or we get some heavy rains.

In the future, I am looking for a LPG weed burner. , but that doesn't get the roots of those hard to kill deep rooted weeds.

I have used round up since it became available. I sprayed around a pond for cockle burrs one time and had a large fish kill, Can not say for sure that round up was the cause, but never repeated so take it for what you want.. Recent tests do seem ti indicate that it may not be as safe as Monsanto advertised when it came out.

In the future, I am looking for a LPG weed burner. , but that doesn't get the roots of those hard to kill deep rooted weeds.

If you ever find ow200,000 BTU LPG weedburner, I would sure like to know about it. I have never seen one here. If you find it, can you PM ?