Acorns

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Can anyone help?????
My horse is in a paddock surrounded by acorn trees and he has decided that they taste really nice a hoovers them up first thing in the morning. We cannot fence the trees off and they are falling quicker then i can clear them, not sure what to do with preventing him from eating them.
Any suggestions?????: :confused:
 
Thank you
I know a lady who had a pony and he ate them all the time and was perfectly fine, do worry about him, he seems to have got a taste for them :(
I go out in a morning to clear them up and he helps by eating them lol
 
I have just spent today with a leaf blower.
blow the acorns into big piles, then use your poo picker & scoop to scoop them up and barrow them away.
you cant get every one of them, but the majority.
back breaking, but satisfying afterwards!
 
Can't you ring the tree(s) with some electric fence tape and posts?

Although it is documented that eating a few acorns will probably not harm them, horses differ in their tolerance to acorns (or the toxic in them, tannin). If you read the other threads, there have been several fatalities this autumn due to acorn poisoning. Pigging out on them can cause colic, or death, and eating them every day can have a cumulative effect, like ragwort poisoning.

If there is no other solution, then picking them up is the only one left to you. Can you move your horse while you do this, so he can't 'help' you? When I was in this situation, it used to be a race as to who could pick up the most - me or my horse.
 
Please take this seriously - acorns are poisonous and can be fatal.

If ponies get a taste for them they will leave perfectly good grass to gorge on them so giving a hay net is NOT a solution!!!
 
Thanks for all the replies, unfortunately i haven't read all the other posts as i am new to the forum lol

I think you are all right clearing them is the only option, unfortunately we cannot fence the trees off as they are in the hedge row of the paddock :(

Will have to start clearing them before he ventures out first thing in a morning, that way he cannot help lol :)
 
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