Oak trees?

[TED2010]

I know acorns are poisonous to horses but mine seems obsessed with eating the leaves off an oak tree on the hedge of one of my paddocks at the moment (even though he has plenty of grass). Does anybody know If this is at all harmful please? I can't remember any of my other horses choosing to eat them in the past and they are usually in another field at acorn time or I fence It off.

Thanks

 

[castleboy]

pease dont let your horse eat oak leaves , they are poisonous and highly addictive to horses to the point some horses will only seek oak leaves even though there is plenty of grass/hay in the feild, my friends horse nearly died from eating oak leaves in his feild even though he had plenty of grass/hay he used to stand on his hind legs to reach them ,even breaking fences if needed this is how addicted they can become to them, it took over a year to get him through it which inc having to move him to another yard where there was no oak trees , fence them off if you need to or even better move feilds if you can there is no treatment for oak poisoning it is just a case of nursing them through if you can.

 

[TED2010]

pease dont let your horse eat oak leaves , they are poisonous and highly addictive to horses to the point some horses will only seek oak leaves even though there is plenty of grass/hay in the feild, my friends horse nearly died from eating oak leaves in his feild even though he had plenty of grass/hay he used to stand on his hind legs to reach them ,even breaking fences if needed this is how addicted they can become to them, it took over a year to get him through it which inc having to move him to another yard where there was no oak trees , fence them off if you need to or even better move feilds if you can there is no treatment for oak poisoning it is just a case of nursing them through if you can.

OMG!! Thank you very much for your reply, not been on since last night but think I will give my vet a call in the morning and just tell her that he has been eating them and do some more research. I'm not sure exactly how much he has been eating but i dont think it is a huge amount, when I went to get him in last night he was reaching up and pulling them off the branches, haven't seen him eating any today but I will try and cut down any branches in reach or fence off tomorrow! Anyone else had experience of this? We have kept horses in these same fields since we moved here 30 years ago when I was a baby and never had a problem but we always kept an eye when the acorns were coming down and fenced off then.

Worried now!

 

[TED2010]

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.
Prevention
In general it is best to restrict the access of horses to acorns, particularly if other food is scarce,or else pick up the fallen acorns at least once a day - although this method is time-consuming and less effective as most horses will still find some. The best thing to do is fence off oak trees - either permanently or with electric fencing.

Got this from a poisonous plants website. From what I have read up it mostly says that a small amount shouldn't hurt but it is worrying that some horses can get a taste for it and it can become addictive, it can obviously then start to cause long term damage. Another job for the morning, fencing, maybe I'll just get the ruddy things cut down and have done with it!!