My horse is eating acorns!

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horserider0912

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Hi, my horse has recently moved fields as he jumped a fence in to farmers land. In his new field there are acorns on the ground. everyone at the yard has told me that he is eating these acorns. I have sent a text to the owner for him to move fields but is there anything i can do to stop him? how dangerous are they?
thanks!
 
Horses can get a real taste for acorns...my lad did one year and I had not realised for a day or two. I fence off the trees now every August through to spring...just to be sure.
Acorns are not good for horses and you should find a way of getting your horse away from them.
 
If he eats enough acorns he will die. It is that serious. If he's got the taste and is stuffing them now, you need him off the field now, even if it's in his stable until safe grazing can be arranged.
 
A small number won't harm him, and most horses don't eat too many if there is ample grass/hay on the field. However some horses find them addictive and you won't know until it's too late whether your horse is one of those.

The addicted horse gorges on the acorns to the extent that they ignore the grass and hay. The intestines are then overloaded with a high protein high fat meal and no forage. The horses 'emergency system' tries to kick in and send loads of water to bulk up the intestines and evacuate the food, but the high protein inflames the bowel so the water can't get out. Within hours you have a dehydrated horse and the worst case of colic you can imagine. Shortly after you have a dead horse - don't let yours be one of them.
 
To be honest, if you can tell he is ill from them I think it will be a bit too late. I've copied this for you:

Poisoning by oak is usually seasonal, being most common in spring when the young buds or leaves are eaten and the autumn when the acorns are eaten. Oak leaves and acorns contain tannic acid which is poisonous to horses and though eating a small number of leaves or acorns is almost certainly harmless, they can also be addictive, and once a horse has acquired a taste for them they can actively search them out. Also some animals seem to be more suseptible to oak poisoning than others with individual animals having different levels of tolerance.
Oak poisoning causes gastroenteritis and kidney damage.
Symptoms include:

* lack of appetite
* staring coat
* constipation followed by diarrhoea which may be bloodstained
* abdominal pain
* depression
* blood in urine

There is no antidote. The horse is treated with drugs to reduce the pain and control the diarrhoea, antibiotics may be prescribed.
 
My boy got quite poorly from eating acorns.... He came up in like a rash all over his body. Raised skin and like massive lumps and was just generally not himself. I don't think he ate many but justy reacted badly to the small amount. That was due to the YO not wanting to move him to the new fields so left him basically in a starvation paddock !
 
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I've eaten acorns before but didn't roast them quite long enough - boy did I feel sick!! - so I can imagine eating a load of raw acorns will make anything feel pretty horrendous!!!!:p
I'd get the horse out of the field straight away - don't bother waiting for the owner - get it out and ring a vet for advice!
 
horserider0912 said:
ok. Hope the owner replies soon. My horse is mad!
Click to expand...

Why text when its such a important matter ??? personaly I hate texts, find them rude because they dont often contain the polite interaction of normal conversation, and also can look like the person can't be bothered to spend time or money on the phone with you and it shows a lack of respect....
 
horserider0912 said:
how will i know if he is ill from them?
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You will see him standing under the trees with his head low, breathing rapidly. He won't sweat as in colic, as all the fluid is in his intestines, but you will see a wet tail and signs of severe scouring on his legs.

You will need the vet immediately to administer large volumes of fluid - he may be too exhausted to drink himself. The vet will give something to line the intestine to protect it and he will need medication for shock.
 
I did not know I had a oak tree in a new field I started to rent the tree was not in the field just a few branches hanging over the fence, my mare discovered she liked the taste of them. I only noticed the tree or my mare eating the acorns untill one afternoon after I had untacked her she trotted straight over to the corner and her head went straight down. So I walked across to see what it was that she doing, thats when I discovered what she was eating. When she had hoovered up what was there she stood under the tree and waited untill she heard a thud (acorn falling on ground) the rushed over to find it.
I immediately fenced the tree branches off, but she contantly just stood looking at the acorns on the ground pining to get to them so I move her out of the field at acorn time. She did suffer some symtems the next day so she must of eaten quite a few, she suffered yellow discharge coming from her nose and eyes. She scoured what I can only discribe as acorn shell soup, I called the vet who advised I feed as much forage as possible to push the remaining acorns out of her system and make sure her water consumtion high as I could get her to drink. There is no cure for acorn poisoning you can only treat the symtems as the occur, she looked to me like she was in pain, but thankgod she was still eating and she fully recovered. I did buy her some special additive to put in her food which was designed for horses recovering from illnesses to give her a boost.
My vet as said some horses actively seek out acorns at this time of the year this is why I totally remove the mare from this field at this time every year.
 
I think a lot depends also whether the acorns are green and ripe or if they are brown. We ahve an Oak tree at the bottom of our field and the horses really have never ever bothered with it. It is sort of behind the fence but the branches hang over. However, one year there was evidently a good crop and unbeknown to us our old TB and my sister's horse were scoffing the fallen acorns. They were actually passing all the brown shells out in their poo!

We did ask a vet if we should be worried and he said, if they were brown, fallen acorns (this was towards the end of the 'crop') then they were not as harmful so we needn't worry but keep an eye on the horses. We set about raking up the acorns and since then the tree itself fell partially in high winds so we don't have so many over hanging branches and we try and electric tape the tree area off.

Most horses do not bother with them though and before this we had never had problems and we've had horses in the field about 20 years! Some horses do seem to get a bit obsessive with them. I guess you could liken it to us and people drinking/smoking too much. It's not good for you but there's a certain 'buzz' you get from it, but if you have too much it can be fatal.
 
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