Is weed killer safe for pets and children?
By The Weed GuyLast updated
Every UK weedkiller label I have read sets the same condition, and it is a condition rather than a clock: keep children and pets off a treated area until the spray has dried, after which they can go back on it. Weedol Pathclear (MAPP 16524) says keep children and pets away from treated areas until spray has dried. Roundup Fast Action Path & Drive (MAPP 14483) says keep children and pets out of treated areas until dry. Vitax SBK Brushwood Killer (MAPP 12711) puts it the other way round: children and pets can be allowed on treated areas after the spray has dried.
What is actually in the bottle
Naming what is actually in the bottle matters more than the word safe on the front of it. The usual active on a UK drive is glyphosate, and the strength varies enormously between products that look alike on the shelf. A ready-to-use Roundup Fast Action is 7.2 g/L glyphosate acid. The Weedol Pathclear concentrate is 125 g/L glyphosate plus 20 g/L diflufenican, the residual ingredient that stops new seed germinating. The professional Barclay Gallup Hi-Aktiv Amenity is 490 g/L, more than sixty times the ready-to-use figure before you dilute it. Products for tough woody weeds are usually a different active again: SBK Brushwood Killer is triclopyr, 48 g/L in the concentrate and 3.6 g/L ready to use. Read the small print on the back, not the claim on the front, because those numbers are what the safety instructions are written around.
Why no label gives you a number of hours
Evergreen Garden Care, who market Roundup and Weedol in the UK, state that definitive drying times cannot be given because the weather and the temperature affect them, and their advice is to restrict access to the treated area during mixing, application and drying. That is why the labels say until dry, and never a number of hours, and it is the honest part of this. So I am not going to invent an hour figure either, and you should be wary of any website that does. While the spray is still wet it can transfer, onto paws, shoes, a football, a knee. Once it has dried onto the leaf there is nothing wet left to pick up, which is precisely what the condition on the label is there for. If it is the timing you are really after, the answer on how long weed killer takes to dry works through what every label does and does not say, and the separate one on how long weed killer takes to work covers the killing time.
If a pet or a child swallows some
If a pet or a child swallows any, do not work it out yourself and do not try to make them sick. The labels tell you where to go and what to take with you. Roundup Fast Action says that if swallowed, seek medical advice immediately and show the container or label, and Weedol Pathclear and SBK both carry the standard line that if medical advice is needed, have the product container or label at hand. So keep the bottle, do not bin it. For a person, the NHS says to call 999 or go to A&E if you think a child has swallowed, touched or breathed in something harmful, to call 111 if you are not sure the thing they swallowed is harmful, to take the packaging to show the doctors, and never to try to make someone sick because they could choke. For an animal, ring your own vet, or the Animal PoisonLine on 01202 509 000, which is run by the Veterinary Poisons Information Service, describes itself as the UK's only animal poison centre for owners, is open 24 hours and charges per call. I am qualified to spray professional weedkiller, not to give medical or veterinary advice, and this is exactly the point where the right answer is to ring someone who can.
Watch the dying weed, not the paving
SBK Brushwood Killer instructs you to keep grazing animals out of treated areas until the foliage of any poisonous weeds like ragwort has died down and become unpalatable. That is the risk that gets overlooked, and it is printed on a label. The thinking behind it generalises past horses and paddocks. A plant that a dog would walk straight past while it is upright and bitter can become a lot more interesting once it is wilting, and a sprayed weed is a dying weed for the next two to four weeks. If you have a dog that chews plants, the thing worth watching on a treated area is the weed itself, not the paving it grew out of.
How to tell whether advice applies to your bottle
Turn the bottle over and find the MAPP number. That one habit is worth more than any amount of reading about this, and it takes five seconds. Every product legally sold for UK home garden use carries one, and it ties that exact formulation to its approved label and its safety instructions. It is also the quickest way to tell whether advice you have found online applies to what is in your hand, because a great deal of the weedkiller writing that ranks in the UK is about American products under American approvals, with different concentrations and different wording. If a website gives you a waiting time and cannot say which product and which MAPP number it came from, it is quoting somebody else's bottle.
What I do on the day
The practical version, then. Bring water bowls, toys and anything a small child puts in their mouth in off the area before you start rather than after. Shut the gate so the dog cannot wander onto a wet drive. Pick a dry, still day so the spray dries rather than sits, and so it does not drift onto the bit of lawn the dog actually lies on. Wait until it has dried, then let everyone back on and get on with your day. Store what is left in its original container and out of reach, which is not fussiness: that container is the thing a doctor or a vet will ask you to read out to them.