Do you let horses graze around woody, stickery shrubs (danger to eyes)?

[cardinale]

The genius /s who previously owned my property planted quite a few woody shrubs in the landscape (numbnuts also planted multiple red maples including overhanging a pasture, so horse health hazards were not uppermost in their minds). Several are quite woody, with little sticks poking out. Some have spines, e.g. Berberis. These shrubs are not in the pastures per se, but rather in the lawn areas that can be fenced off sufficiently to provide otherwise good grazing opportunities.

I’m in the process of cleaning up these plants–removing dead wood and thinning out. Nevertheless, there is no avoiding poky things at eye level.

I could cordon some of these plants off with temporary fencing but would like the horses to lawnmow as much as possible, albeit not at risk of injury to their eyes.

There’s lots of open space around these plants so it’s easy to avoid them unless a horse pushes its head in to get grass growing under/around them.

Would you feel comfortable letting horses graze around these plants?

[GraceLikeRain]

Without seeing it I don’t know but I’d probably use a hard brim fly mask.

[trubandloki]

I admit that I fully believe horses get up every day looking for creative ways to kill/hurt themselves, but generally speaking I would not worry too much about bush branches.

I did remove a couple of red maples that grew over my sacrifice area, knowing that the horse’s time in that area would have limited grazing so falling leaves would be of interest to them.

If you have one that is more accident prone than the average horse, then clearly bushes might not be a good idea, but as long as they are not toxic I would not worry too much.

[Simkie]

If there’s good grazing outside of directly in/under the pokey plants, this just isn’t something I’d worry about.

Horses are dumb and suicidal, just not usually “poke your eye out with a sharp stick” dumb. At least when there’s yummy stuff away from the sticks

We also have a metric ton of maple here. I haven’t had any issues with horses eating fallen leaves.

[NancyM]

My horses live OUT, in huge pastures that were completely feral when we moved here. We have forest, grassy areas, hillside, creek etc. We have thick bush of every variety. My horses are TB and TBX, who were previously kept in paddocks with stalls attached, and on clear fields that used to be hayfields, before we moved here to this remote and semi-wild location. I have some horses who were born here. In 17 years, I’ve had one eye injury on one horse. Which healed up fine with treatment.

IMO, every option in horse keeping has it’s flaws and risks and negative possibilities. Horses who spend a lot of time in stalls are more prone to impactions, and hoof issues, and stress issues. Choose your poison.

[trubandloki]

@Simkie

We also have a metric ton of maple here.

I am sure you know this, but just clarifying for people who do not know this - there are LOTS of types of maple trees, not all are an issue.

Fresh red maples leaves are not an issue, wilted/dry red maple leaves are toxic.

If the red maple trees had been near my pasture, I would have left them. In my case, the red maples was dropping all its leaves in a place where the horses would have easy access while on restricted feed.

[poltroon]

We have problems with foxtails in summer, and I use a flymask when/if they become dry and nasty. It’s good armor for eyes.

[2DogsFarm]

@Simkie

Horses are dumb and suicidal, just not usually “poke your eye out with a sharp stick” dumb.

I own the Exception to that Rule, exemplifying Murphy’s Equine Law:
Horses are born looking for ways to die
3rd year in a row, horse has managed to scratch his eye. TG, no damage to the cornea or infection. Just a week or so of me having to put ointment in the eye 3X a day.
To which he objects in varying degrees until healing is underway.
My 5’2" is no match for his 16h, so “sporadic” best describes the earliest stage of treatment.
My pastures have ZERO greenery that could poke/scratch. Not a bush or tree within 6’ of the fencing.
My guess is he does the damage scratching on my 6" round fenceposts.
Flymasks - both standard & the newer stretchy ones - don’t do much to deter him scratching.

OP:
I’d just trim those prickly things so they’re out of reach if they’re outside the fencing.

[Calvincrowe]

Here in the land of blackberries (the nasty, invasive, very poky, kudzu of the PNW type), horses graze among them daily. I also have hawthorne, snowberry, plums in my pastures. So far, eye injuries have not factored into their daily scratching on, pushing heads into/among to get to that particular piece of grass/leaf. Have they gotten body scratches from them? Yeah. Heads? Not so far.

My massive oaks make me a raker of acorns, but otherwise, I don’t remove any trees that might be a problem theoretically. I prune, pick up fallen branches, make sure my fences are tight and upright, spray noxious weeds (tansy, thistle, daisy) but otherwise, horses are free to be horses.

[Scribbler]

My mare sticks her head into a thicket of Himalayan blackberries both for the leaves, especially in winter, and for berries. She has never been scratched. I don’t know how she eats the leaves, but the thorns don’t seem to bother her.

[goodhors]

Going with “they will hurt themselves” I would remove the thorny bushes. Bayberry is an invasive plant I would not give space on my property. I would be hacking away the branches, even if only a few each day, until they are gone. Horses WILL graze by thorny things just because they should NOT!

One of the great things about regular mowing of fields and paddocks, fence lines, is that it keeps volunteer plants from getting established, turning into sizable bushes or trees you don’t want around. Electric fences need to be kept clean to be HOT so equines are not reaching over or thru the wire where they shouldn’t.

My horses would not be grazing in the landscaped area until the “bad bushes” were removed. Not worth the chance of injury.