walled garden - lightning

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gwniver

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well as some of you know I have recently moved my horse to a lovely new place and he is very happy and settled , we have another mare coming out on loan on Saturday to keep him company, he is currently in the walled garden (which is very big) and will be moving out to the paddock once his companion arrives , but with this thunder storm coming up tomorrow I am worried that the chances of him getting struck are higher , there is a huge yew tree in the middle of it so my question is - is the chances of getting struck higher in a walled garden ?? would you do it ?? thanks in advance :)
 
I don't like either option that much, but I would probably choose the walled garden if I had to, I would still worry if I knew that there might be lightning, since there is no guarantees when it comes to were it might strike, but choosing a paddock with a huge yew tree in the middle of it, would be a big no no for me. I've heard of to many times where horses, cows and humans etc., have sought refuge under or close to trees when there is thunder, lightning strikes the tree, travels along the root system for a while and killing or injuring the ones standing above the root system. For example, as I recall it, many years ago there was a small, hobby-type Swedish Warmblood breeder who had most their horses in a paddock with two, three trees standing in it, not far apart from each other, lightning struck in one of them, travelled along the roots and killed about 5 or so of their mares and foals/yearlings.

If it was a big grove of trees to a small forest in the paddock, then I maybe would choose the paddock, thinking that if the lightning does strike in a tree, the odds are better for that it might not be tree that the horse maybe is standing next to.

On the other hand, I don't know how "attractive" a horse is for lightning in a walled in garden, but still, that one huge "strike here beacon"/yew tree is, as said, a big no no for me.
 
Hopefully the yew tree is fenced off well enough that the horses can't get near enough to it to use it as shelter anyway. Make sure that no bits of it are anywhere near to being within the horse's reach or lightning is the least of your worries.
 
ohh sorry I forgot to mention that the yew is double fenced and he is in a field 8 metres away
and the yew is not that big (less than 12ft ) there is a lot bigger trees around and in the paddock , we are very careful about keeping him away from the yew
 
I would have thought the walled garden was no more risk than anywhere else to be honest.
Does the general area lend itself to lightening strikes? I am sort of picturing a walled garden close to a big house or other buildings and some large mature trees. In that sort of scenario the walled garden would be on the lower end of the risk scale I would have thought.

We have had 3 strikes close by in about the last 10 years as we are in an area that appears to be atmospherically perfect (in the lee of the Downs). You get very uneasy as you can feel the positive charge in the air. One poor tree in the village has been hit twice - but it still keeps going.
 
It briefly crossed my mind when I wrote my first reply, that I thought that Yew tree was poisonous, but then I thought that if it is standing in the middle of a horse paddock, I've either gotten the English tree names mixed up, or it is fenced off, and in either case, I don't know if Yew trees have a big, medium or small root system, so I presumed that it could have a big root system, that a possible lightning strike in the tree could travel through.

putasocinit said:
Leaves blow in the wind more than 12ft, get rid of yew tree or move horse asap.
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Yew trees have leaves that can blow away in the wind? I thought Yew trees kept their leaves/needles all the year around?
 
FinnishLapphund said:
Yew trees have leaves that can blow away in the wind? I thought Yew trees kept their leaves/needles all the year around?
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They don't loose their needles in the autumn, of course. However, the needles have a finite life and are shed all year round and replaced by new ones, which is why there is a layer of needles on the floor under evergreen trees. A good wind can blow these and any bits of loose branch into the field. I wouldn't like to have one close to my horse.
 
Gloi said:
They don't loose their needles in the autumn, of course. However, the needles have a finite life and are shed all year round and replaced by new ones, which is why there is a layer of needles on the floor under evergreen trees. A good wind can blow these and any bits of loose branch into the field. I wouldn't like to have one close to my horse.
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Thank you :) . The spruce, pine and similar trees with needles in my garden, just seems to drop a few dead needles straight down, and I've never noticed that they've blown anywhere. I must admit that I, for some reason, thought Putasocinit was talking about the green needles being blown away, and also that I didn't think that dead yew tree needles contained much poison :redface3:.
 
i am afraid I cant get rid of the yew it I think it is something like 440 years old =O
I am moving to the paddock over the weekend because my new loan horse is coming out !!!
 
I just checked and all parts of yew are still poisonous when they are dead. Less than 0.05% bodyweight can kill a horse in 5 minutes from heart failure. (<250g for a 500kg horse)
 
Gloi said:
I just checked and all parts of yew are still poisonous when they are dead. Less than 0.05% bodyweight can kill a horse in 5 minutes from heart failure. (<250g for a 500kg horse)
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That is really interesting to know, but at the same time, I think it is wrong to get rid of a tree that is over 400 years old, but my view is probably coloured by that I have one bush and some plants in my garden that is poisonous, and they've never caused any problem with my pets or my sister's children when they were small. In fact, my sister have a laburnum in her garden, which also haven't caused any trouble.
 
Yeah, I am another who would not want my horse anywhere near a yew tree. I don't think trees in general are huge lightning conductors as such. We have a large ash tree at the top of the hill in our field which must be a couple of hundred years old. A large branch form it came off one year but I assume due to strong winds (that's more of a risk than lightning IMO). Our Oak tree (again several hundred years old) has also lost a large part of itself but again due to strong winds and the tree is still going strong.

Yew can cause death very swiftly so I would be very wary about having any livestock nearby.
 
again I have research this and it was the safest option at the time , but he will be moving out of there on the weekend =)
 
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