Horse stripping bark - will the trees die?

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zoon

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I have a pony that was found wandering and siezed by the police. He was underweight with very overgrown feet. He came to me after he'd put on a little condition and had his feed sorted. But ever since he's been with me, he's had a taste for bark. We have plenty of grass and they have ad lib hay and hard feed, so it is not as if he's hungry. Now he is a good weight, his hard feed consists of a balancer and a handful of sugarbeet, but there is still plenty of grass and piles of hay. The other don't touch the trees, but he is constantly stripping bark from them. They are now in fields without trees and when they return to that field I'll put electric fencing around them to stop him doing it.

My questions is, will those trees now die? They range from smaller trees, to very tall ones and I'm worried come spring that they will be dead and not grow new leaves since every bit of bark he could reach has been stripped.
 
The trees will die if they have been ring barked but may survive if some bark remains. It wont be immediately obvious .He may be deficient in minerals and this will drive him to eat bark.
 
Pretty much what Mike said - if there is a complete break in the bark in a circle around the tree then yep, it will die :(

Have you tried putting a keep block out for extra minerals?
 
All my trees are dead then :(

Is there nothing I can do about this now to save them? He has taken off all the bark he can reach, so from about 50cm up the tree to about 1.5m there is no bark. Will the really old massive trees die too? It is going to look horrible having a field full of dead trees with no leaves. The little sod stripped them all within a matter of weeks.

I've had him now since august and he is now of a good weight and has a daily balancer to get his full quota of vits and mins. They've been out of that field for a while now and on the winter grazing with no trees, so not sure he'll do it anymore. They already have a field lick in their shelter
 
If there are no areas in which the bark is complete from the ground to the top (the bark is gone all the way around the circumference of the tree?), then yes, they're all dead, including the massive old ones :(
 
Sorry Zoon - I can understand you are upset about the trees. Have a look in the light tomorrow and see if he left any bark at all around the girth of the tree. It is true I'm afraid, if he has stripped it all the way around the girth then they will die. There is nothing you can do to save them that I know of. Maybe ring your local garden centre or tree surgeon tomorrow, just to make sure.:(
 
Can't comment on the trees - but there will be a nutritional reason why the horse is doing this.

Can you fence off the trees, but supply some big (I mean big) logs for him instead??? And then review his diet?

Do you supply a mineral block in the field for the horses? This may address the issue very quickly.
 
What a shame.

We got lots of young trees quite cheap from a farm auction to plant around our stables. If they do die, just think of the firewood you will have, and plant some more.

As everyone says, try and find the reason why.
 
Maybe look around the area for some fields with dead trees and you will find out where he came from any also the reason why he was found wandering round ! Seriously though it is really sad about your trees, I would check with a tree expert just so you know for sure wether they are all going to die, I would also fence them off, because even if you give him a mineral lick he is still going to have a taste for the trees.
 
Jen_Cots said:
Yep they will die
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Rather sweeping - and inaccurate too! Even trees that have been completely ringbarked CAN survive!

For OP - get yourself to a GOOD garden supplies centre. I can't for the life of me remember its name, but there is a product you paint onto the ring-barked areas which will help stop infection getting in and facilitate recovery.
 
JanetGeorge said:
Rather sweeping - and inaccurate too! Even trees that have been completely ringbarked CAN survive!

For OP - get yourself to a GOOD garden supplies centre. I can't for the life of me remember its name, but there is a product you paint onto the ring-barked areas which will help stop infection getting in and facilitate recovery.
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Thanks JG - you have given me hope!

I have some large logs (about 2ft diameter) that we can roll down the hill into their field to satisfy his bark cravings! They have a saracen pasture lick in all the shelters, so although it may have been a deficiency in the beginning, i doubt he is deficient now as he has this and the balancer. But like I said, now trees in current field, so not sure if he'd still do it now.

Teeth on the other hand may need a check. Vets did a thorough once over when he was found and when he came to me, but that was about 5 months ago so will get the EDT out soon anyway.
 
amymay said:
Can't comment on the trees - but there will be a nutritional reason why the horse is doing this.

Can you fence off the trees, but supply some big (I mean big) logs for him instead??? And then review his diet?

Do you supply a mineral block in the field for the horses? This may address the issue very quickly.
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I think 1 of the feed makers do a bark supplement or culd u not bed him on shavings n he might just chomp them down insted ;)
 
GODRULESDAWORLD said:
I think 1 of the feed makers do a bark supplement or culd u not bed him on shavings n he might just chomp them down insted ;)
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He lives out! We put bark chippings down outside the shelter to help with the mud and he didn't eat them. Maybe just particular trees! Or maybe he is just an evil tree murdering pony ;)
 
Mike007 said:
If they have truely been ring barked (and not just the outer dead bark) They WILL die ,sweeping and true.
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A few IFs there. IF they have been truly ringbarked, through the newest bark layer AND if it goes all the way round, then yes - short of possibly some emergency bark grafting .....

But horses rarely do THAT good a job on anything but fenceposts!:rolleyes:
 
The tree underneath is smooth and undamaged - just the dark brown old bark peeled off. It doesn't appear to have gotten into the tree if that makes sense. One of the youngest trees seems to be completely destroyed, but that doesn't bother me as it was only very small. I don't want the very tall old ones to die - they've been there hundreds of years and I hate the thought of a few weeks with the evil pony killing them off.

We'll see come spring anyway!
 
5p worth from me - I've had this happen a few times with the 3 & unders we used to have.
The little blighters would try to strip anything growing, usually only in October to January (if they got the chance that is!)
Holly was a favourite (nice squits from that!)
Oak was also delicious as were horse chestnut.
Luckily they didn't enjoy willow (I say luckily, as that splinters with sharp pieces going into gums etc). The Hornbeam hedge was only flavoursome in the early spring & usually only to the smaller ones of the wrecking crew.
Having got a 'ring' of trees & hedging on the boundary round the paddocks, it was a right pain having to electric fence them away from the natural shelter, but it was mostly only for the yukky months of the year & they seemed to not bother through spring/summer tho.

Good luck with saving the trees, hope they recover :)
 
they sometimes do this out of habit, and be warned, they can encourage others to do it and 'get the taste' too. We have one that is a bu**er for it, started with her and gradually the others began doing it too, fortunately, where we are now, has more bushes than trees and they have been distracted from the big trees onto the smaller hawthorn branches.
 
My son who worked for a nursery and grew trees told me to cake mud on to the trees that were stripped of bark where rabbitts had ring barked here i splatted mud on and trees survived hope it works for you.
 
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