@mroades, I feel your pain. One night several years ago one of my horses managed to take the gate down from his stall during acorn season and spent the entire night gorging on green grass and acorns with no grazing muzzle to slow him down. The next morning when I found him he was biting at his flank, standing stretched out, lying down and getting up frequently–all the signs of colic. Vet dosed him with mineral oil and I kept him in for 24 hours and he was fine, but it was quite the scare. I always pay close attention to the acorns, and until this year I’ve been able to manage the horses by keeping them in at night, using grazing muzzles, and spreading manure under the oaks. None of that worked this year. And like you, I don’t have any fields that can be kept free of acorns. I finally put up a temporary electric fence in my smallest field. It’s not ideal, because there’s not a lot of grass, but at least it keeps them away from acorns without me having to watch them every second.
We have used a lawn mower with collection bag to get up a lot of ours in the dog yard in previous years. Maybe use a high powered blower such as a push one or big backpack one to blow tgem under the fence. Maybe roll the remaining ones into the ground.
Absolutely tons of acorns here.
The deer have been parked in my yard gorging on them.
Tons and tons of acorns here. I have oaks in every pasture. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many acorns as we have down this year.
I’ve been using a nut roller constantly. I’m amazed by how many acorns we have this year.
This morning I put my two geldings in grazing muzzles. The geldings and the little mini are all munching on acorns - and they are literally everywhere on my farm. The mini already wears a muzzle but the geldings don’t. I either have to keep everyone stalled at this point or hope the grazing muzzles will slow them down enough to keep them out of trouble.
This is such a pain. I have never seen an acorn crop like this one. I hope I never see it again.
Amen and amen!!
FWIW, I had my 2 guys in grazing muzzles before I put up the temporary electric fence. They had learned how to move their muzzles along the ground to scoop up the acorns, and I didn’t think the muzzles slowed them down very much. Don’t know what type of muzzle you’re using, but Greenguard has a new diet insert that has slots half the size of the regular slots. If you’re using Greenguard muzzles you might try the new insert (and if you do, let us know how it works).
