may i answer your questions with a quote bilzor?
“A variety of animals feed on diverse psilocybin mushrooms, most commonly on Psilocybe and Panaeolus, which are popularly known as funghetti by young Italians who seek them out for their hallucinogenic effects (Pagani, 1993).
Siegel relates having seen dogs in Hawaii and Mexico deliberately nipping the caps off psilocybin mushrooms and swallowing them. After only a few minutes, the creatures were running in circles, shaking their heads, howling and barking, and refusing to obey human commands (Siegel 1989, 68). Although it is unclear whether the dogs were conscious of what would happen to them after ingestion of the mushrooms, there is no such question about intentionality in the case of goats. These peculiar ruminants seem to enjoy absolute supremacy in the animal world as far as their passion for disparate drugs is concerned.
In the course of my field research on the hallucinogenic mushrooms growing in Italy’s alpine meadows (Samorini 1993), I have personally observed on several occasions the greed with which goats will devour the species Psilocybe semilanceata. Once I was actually assaulted by a large billy-goat, which gave me a shove with his powerful horns while I was bent over to observe some funghetti. He was one of the more massive animals in a herd of about 50 that was rambling by me. Trusting in their harmlessness (though aware of their curiosity), I simply continued gathering the mushrooms. When I saw that several goats had stopped to watch me, I smiled at ingenuously and showed them the bunch of mushrooms I had just harvested. The moment I did so, the buck leaped forward and shoved me sharply with his horns, causing me to roll several feet down the slope. During my tumble, the paper bag holding the mushrooms I had collected fell out of my hand. Surprised and frightened, I remained at a distance from the buck, who, with several other goats, threw himself on the sack and devoured its contents. When it was empty, the animals began rooting through the grass, gobbling up all the mushrooms I had not yet collected.
Ever since, when I have encountered a bunch of goats, I have followed the advice of a knowledgable goat-herd and brandished my stick on high; it is the only way to stop them. And when I stumble onto a psilocybin site already claimed by goats, I make no attempt to drive them off – partly out of respect for them, but partly from fear of being attacked by animals already under the influence of this powerful drug and therefore doubly recalcitrant and dangerous.
Once they locate a cluster of psilocybin mushrooms, goats will not eat grass or any other kind of fungus, feeding exclusively on their drug of choice. It seems clear that they know how to recognise it, and that they search it out for its psychoactive effects. Goats under its influence exhibit overstimulated behaviour, run about awkwardly, and shake their heads wildly back and forth.”
From: "Animals and Psychedelics: The Natural World and the Instinct to Alter Consciousness" by Giorgio Samorini (Park Street Press, Vermont, 2000).
thanks to snotty for typing that for me,each time i tried it it logged me out for some reason.i am not a very fast typist.
