I turned my mare out in a different paddock overnight with an oak tree in it. The next day she was badly stocked up. She is sugar sensitive. Is it possible she ate acorns and they made her stock up? If so, how long do you think the stocking up will last?
Yup… Get her off the acorns. They can be toxic, even fatal in rare cases. Most horses won’t eat them, but some seem to develop a taste. I have a horse who gorges on them if given a chance and develops all sorts of issues from edema to colic to abscesses. Her edema will go away in about 24 hours when you keep her away from the acorns.
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yep…get her away from that oak.
i know a friend who lost a horse to acorn poisoning 
Yes, she is off that paddock until I can get it sectioned off with electric wire. But the stocking up has not gone away so I’m concerned.
[QUOTE=outfoxem;8399491]
Yes, she is off that paddock until I can get it sectioned off with electric wire. But the stocking up has not gone away so I’m concerned. :([/QUOTE]
How long has it been? How bad was the edema? Is she in a stall or outside for the time being? I ask because if the fluid was significant, it can take awhile for it to reabsorb, especially if she’s confined to a stall.
Or it could be completely unrelated to the acorns, since there are plenty of things that will cause a horse to stock up.
We have an oak tree over one of our stall paddocks. The horses LOVE the acorns.
They’ve always eaten them… 5 different horses with no issues.
Last year the acorns were so thick after not having a horse in that spot that I fired up the leaf blower to get them out of the paddock
For manual acorn removal, the Garden Weasel Nut Gatherer is a great tool. It is a wire type ball with a handle that you push across the grass. The wires separate to collect the acorns or other nuts. When the wire ball is full you dump the collected nuts into a bucket. I have removed a LOT of nuts and acorns this way. Trees were WAYYY out in the field, so no blowing acorns under the fences. Fairly inexpensive at below $50. I have not used any of the “looks like” models by other makers.
I have the mid-size model for nuts and acorns. The larger model works really well for collecting apples that fall over the fence from the neighbor’s trees. I do feed the collected apples, a FEW at a time daily. That huge apple crop a few years back netted enough collected apples to last into January! Horses didn’t care if the apples were frozen. But we don’t want the horses having access to a bushel or more of apples daily!! Horses are only out at night when apples ripen, so I collect fruit before they get turned out. Collection of apples goes REALLY FAST using this tool, over hand picking, forking them up or raking into the tubs.
Sorry, just noticed this is a really old thread.
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Sorry @Texarkana I know this thread is forever old, but were you saying the horse got hoof abscesses from eating acorns?! I have a PPID mare that has been getting a crazy amount of abscesses this winter, and it has coincided with her eating acorns in a paddock (she was never in this paddock during winter previously). She did just have her bloodwork rechecked and her ACTH was high (I’m increasing her prascend dosage) but even before she was diagnosed she never had this many abscesses.
I’m wondering if the acorns are the cause?
Possibly!
We moved states and I guess none of the acorn varieties are as tasty around here because she hasn’t eaten them in years. I also actively try to keep her away from them.
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