Acorns are driving me nuts--a question and a rant

[OzarksRider]

First the question:
How many acorns does it take to be considered a “large quantity?” Everything I’ve read about horses and acorns says large quantities can poison horses, but how many is that, exactly?

Now the rant:
Both of my horses are absolutely addicted to acorns this year. I have no idea why, unless this summer’s drought made them especially tasty. And it’s a mast year, so there’s no shortage. For the past 10 years I’ve kept the horses off the acorns with a combination of shutting them off from oak trees where I can, shoveling their manure under trees where I can’t block them, and using grazing muzzles to slow them down. And they’re stalled at night, so that keeps them away from acorns half the time. That has always worked, until now. Before, they would mostly stay away from acorns and just pick at a few now and then. But this year is different. Every morning when I let them out they go straight to the acorns. In addition to a generous coating of manure, I also piled on urine-soaked saw dust and moldy hay, and they still root through it like a couple of pigs. This morning one horse kept rooting for acorns while I was slinging manure in his face. It was funny, but not really, if you know what I mean.

I’m already doing everything I can, but if you’ve got a magic solution I’d like to hear it. We don’t have oak trees in the fields, but lots of oaks line the fence lines. It’s way too much to isolate with temporary fence. Obviously I need to get a tree service to trim branches overhanging the fence, but that won’t help me right now because the acorns are already on the ground. And there are so many acorns I could never even make a dent trying to pick them up. The ground is too rough for a nut wheel to work. In a last ditch effort to thwart them, this morning I put the horses in with a herd of cows hoping that the competition will slow them down. Maybe the cows will at least stomp the acorns into the ground so the horses can’t scoop them up through their grazing muzzles. If this doesn’t slow them down I’ll try putting tape on the grazing muzzles, and maybe order one of Greenguard’s new diet inserts. I’ll be so glad when the deer and squirrels clean out the trouble spots.

[SusanO]

I have two huge oak trees in my big pasture and acorns were not a problem until they were. My older mare had been in that pasture for years with no problem. Then because of other issues I divided that pasture and she no longer had access those trees. All was fine until her BFF tore down the dividing tape fence and I had to put her out there while I repaired the fence. I did notice her around the trees but thought nothing of it.

Well she presented with severe gastric distress very much like Potomac. But Potomac isn’t seen much in this area so I am convinced it was gorging on acorns. She was on banamine, probiotics and I finally got Biosponge when the symptoms were subsiding. I thought I was going to lose her or even if she lived she would founder again.

I am NEVER letting her have access to acorns again. Her BFF is in the pasture but has no interest in eating them. Can you rig up some kind of grazing muzzle that has openings too small for acorns? Or use step in posts and hot wire the horses away from the trees? Given my experience I get nervous when I see acorn consumption.

[Zu_Zu]

Deadly - liver failure • nothing to be frustrated with / rather something requiring immediate and permanent restriction from for all equine • by the time there are symptoms, it’s frequently too late ~ Jingles & AO for everyone dealing with this acorn toxicity environment/ problem •

Drought apparently makes acorns tastier.

[candyappy]

Friend had a gelding colic seriously from acorns one year. He had been fine every other year until he wasn’t. She brought him to my house for a while until they could get them cleaned up.

Rake them up and dispose as best you can?

[Bogie]

OMG. I’ve been dealing with acorns this year, too. Giant oak tree at the end of their pasture. Although the two mares have access to an amazing amount of grass, they both went after the acorns with gusto this year. My vet said that “most of the time” horses don’t eat enough acorns to cause a problem, but no advice on how many would be too much. Our horses have been fine so far, but it’s very worrying.

We’ve closed down the pasture for now and my barnmate and I bought a nut rake and have been going over the field. We’ve removed pounds of acorns but the tree is mammoth and I’ve never seen such a yield. I want the chipmunks and squirrels to get cracking on eating their fill.

[wsmoak]

Ugh, the former landowner planted some kind of oak here that makes the tiniest acorns I have ever seen. And there are millions of them this year. I rake them up with the leaves as best I can in the dry lot, and use Premier1’s Horse QuikFence which is easy to set up and keep him away from the worst of it.

No idea how much is too much but I know that if I do not do something, I will have at least a gas colic to deal with.

[Texarkana]

I see what you did there with your title.

My one horse is addicted. The other horses leave them alone, but the addicted horse will eat acorns all day if you let her, choosing them over grass, hay, and even coming up to the barn for dinner.

After a day or two of this (because when I was boarding I didn’t always know right away), her legs will stock up and she will begin abscessing. It has never progressed past that stage because she always gets removed from the field, but it has reached that stage several times. About 12 years ago (before I knew about her addiction) she got very ill one fall, and in hindsight, I think there’s a chance it could have been acorns.

[carman_liz]

Tow behind grass sweeper/catcher? Make a few passes and then for the ones that are now smooshed into manure and shavings, take a chain harrow or some kind of drag with some weight to churn them up to the surface and then run the grass sweeper over it again. Make a big pile of everything you dump, have a hose nearby, light em up n burn the whole pile?

Depending on how hard it would be to drop the trees, you may be able to find a tree company in your area that would cut the trees down if you let them keep the log and sell it to Woodworkers or something like that. I had a tree company drop a walnut for me, they left the branches but they took the main log and pushed the branches and the remaining little part of the log into the woods for me. I did not have to pay a dime.

[Calvincrowe]

If you can run electric along the fence line where the oaks are, that would be a good solution. If you can save the trees, please do so, oaks are such a valuable tree for an ecosystem.

I hear you-- I have a massive, ancient Oregon White oak (a protected species in my area) IN my sacrifice paddocks! No chance I’d ever remove it, so I spend every day raking and hauling off the acorns-- and I move pipe panels to bar them from the worst of the drop of nuts. This year?? Not a single acorn on any of the 6 giant oaks on our property, which is odd because usually a few of them are loaded in any given year. Our very late snow (April!) combined with drought this summer (3 months, no rain!) may have had an effect.

[SusanO]

I agree. I would never cut down my old oak trees. They are magnificent and are maybe 100 years old. They provide food for the deer. I just monitor what the horses are up to and hotwire is your friend.

[Angela_Freda]

If you have Facebook, check Horse Vet Corner, I think they’ve addressed this there.

[Jarpur]

It’s an incredible mast year here, too. My husband swept up what he estimated as 40 pounds this morning, just off our balcony and deck! Currently, we only take our dog out to our oak-free front yard (away from the wonderful heritage oak spread over our backyard deck and balcony), check her mouth frequently for an acorn, and don’t turn the horses out in the front pasture where the other oaks are.

I’m counting on the ubiquitous whitetail deer, along with the relatively few squirrels, to take care of the acorns in the pasture. Can’t wait until they do. We have the largest oak there fenced off, but the high winds are blowing acorns away from the trees.

We had dinner at a lovely courtyard restaurant earlier this week, under a massive oak. I was hit in the side of my neck by a dropping acorn, which stung. Felt almost as though the tree threw it at me!

[OzarksRider]

Today I bought supplies for a temporary electric fence and fenced off about 300 feet in my smallest field. In theory putting up a temporary fence should be a quick and easy job–just step the posts into the ground and attach the wire. Here in the Ozarks it’s not so easy. We’re not known for deep rich soil; rather, we have poor soil and rocks and rocks and more rocks. I had to put posts in an area where the soil is only 2-3 inches deep before hitting a rock shelf, and that made the job a lot harder. But now it’s done and the horses are quietly eating grass and not acorns in the small field. I saw them look longingly at their acorns, but they didn’t challenge the fence.

@Calvincrowe

6 giant oaks

Only 6 oaks on your property?? I wish!! There are at least 75 oaks on the perimeter of our fields. There’s no way I could ever rake all that up. I’ll just have to wait on the deer to do the work.[quote=“Calvincrowe, post:9, topic:778429”]
If you can save the trees, please do so
[/quote]
Yes, I like the oaks for the shade they provide in summer. We don’t cut down trees unless they’re dead or dangerous. But, I do plan to hire a tree service to trim the limbs that overhang the fields so acorns won’t be such a problem in future years.

[Calvincrowe]

Oaks are rare beasts here in SW Washington so are protected if they’re native species. It’s clear that ours were planted deliberately as they line the south and west property lines. They’re estimated to be 115 years old. We have a smattering of younger ones but my god— they grow so slowly!! I’m glad you found a solution with the electric. And we have a similar issue with rocks and digging holes/fence posts. Ugh!!!

[MsM]

Around here we are in a down year for acorns after two mast years. DEEP is warning that bears may be coming into populated areas due to the lack.

[TT211]

Have you tried a nut roller?
Amazon, hardware store, maybe even TSC or anywhere that sells rakes and lawn tools.

[B_and_B]

Are you in CT by any chance? It is utterly bizarre, I don’t think I have seen a single acorn on any of the land trust/state/my own land this year. And I have been on a lot in the Northwest corner. No acorns from red, blacks, whites, or even chestnut oaks! I went and checked a stand of the last type just for that purpose, nope, not a single acorn. Combined with a really spotty soft mast (apple/serviceberry/etc) crop. It is going to be a hungry winter here.

[MsM]

Yep!

[mroades]

I am in SC and the acorns are out of control!! I am going to pick my jumper up from the hospital today from a gas colic that went bad quickly. He is fine now, but he LOVES acorns. I have not one paddock that can be kept acorn free. UGH

[Calvincrowe]

Same here in SW WA— no acorns, no apples, no huckleberries. The local deer demolished my garden (ate my broccoli and cauliflower, pumpkins, too!), ate every leaf off the fruit trees 4 feet and below, trimmed the mulberry tree in the same fashion. The bears are moving lower and lower with lots of sightings in people’s yards which never turns out well for the bears (put your damn bird feeders and garbage cans away!). The long dry summer was tough on rabbits here as well-- had a few who grazed the pumpkin patch daily because it was watered and grew grass. I found adult rabbits in my raised beds several times just sitting under dahlias in the cool, wet shade. The food chain is not doing well, which means top level predators are going to suffer.

But no acorns, apples or plums meant my chores were much simpler this year-- did I mention I also have a heritage apple in my pasture/fence line?? Yeah, it’s about 100 years old, too, like my oaks (and the Italian plums that line the pasture) and I have to pick up hundreds of apples each fall. But not this year, as I only got about 50 total off it.