When are acorns not a problem

[JaneyB]

and I don't mean when they're on the tree still!!

I mean, when they fall, there must be a certain period afterwards when it's safe to put horses on the land? Or is it when they literally disappear, i.e. are consumed into the ground?

 

[piebaldsparkle]

When the horses can't reach them

. Think you need to either fence them off, rake them up, or get a pig to eat them!!!(LOL). Sorry not much help.

 

[filly190]

I have put my fencing meters away from my many acorns, I just cant take the risk. I dont know much about this subject, so hopefully someone who does will post a reply

 

[JaneyB]

So do you never let them graze on the area?

 

[sojeph]

You shouldn't really let horses graze on acorns. Some get a taste for them and they are poisonous. You need to rake them up regularly if they have access to the area.

 

[emma69]

As far as I know they are dangerous full stop - we used to manually clear the area before letting horses on....then we cut the tree down

 

[Sparklet]

Mine have an oak tree in their field and it doesnt cause a problem. They just dont eat them.

 

[sojeph]

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.

 

[Patches]

I would say they just don't eat them all.

If you fenced the tree off I bet you'd be surprised at how many more there seem to be under the tree after a couple of days.

I fence all three of mine off in the autumn. Feel a bit guilty as the Oak trees are the best shelter in the field too. Once they have stopped shedding acrons I rake them up and store them in a bucket under the bird table. Squirrels come and pinch them then.

Patches, rather worringly, loves them. If she can get to them she will eat them, crunches them. I could tell she'd found some from an unknown source a while back as her poops went black. traced source to a pile under the hedge, can only assume a squirrel had left them there when they'd dropped from the tree.

 

[brightmount]

I know in theory acorns are poisonous, but my horses are at a huge yard with about 70 horses, miles of grazing in huge fields and hundreds of oak trees, and nothing is ever done to fence them off or rake up the acorns - it would be impossible on that kind of scale. And I do watch them eating them at this time of year, and worry about it, but there's nothing I can do about it as I'm only a client, and in the 10 years I have been at this yard I have never known of any horse suffering any ill effects.

There was one horse that died in the field a couple of years ago, and I did think *acorns!!!* but the vet did a PM and found an impacted worm burden.