Oak tree in horse pasture - cut down or leave

[going_gray]

DH and I are now living on our small horse property here in North Carolina. (Recently moved here from MI) We bought bare land and are gradually setting up a three acre pasture for our two mares. (Currently they are in a paddock which is about an acre in size.)

The larger pasture acreage has a small section of trees (in the middle) which we are taking down - it has wild cherry trees and one vey large majestic oak tree.

It looks fairly old, possibly over 50 years, and has a wide span. My husband keeps looking at it (cherry trees are down now and the oak stands alone) and says how he wishes we could leave it there. I know acorns can be toxic to horses so I feel the tree needs to be taken down.

We had a tree service business out Friday to start the cutting. They will be back on Monday to continue their work. The owner also found (within another group of trees next to the pasture) more wild cherry trees and a black walnut. He knew his trees! So more cutting to be done!

Should we leave the oak tree or cut it down? I know our horses would use it for shade and eventually find the acorns. I did a CoTH forum search and found one thread which provided conflicting accounts of horses eating acorns and not getting sick and then colicky horses who definitely ate acorns. I really don’t want to chance it. Any thoughts on this situation? Thank you!

[wsmoak]

Probably one of my posts. My big Irish horse will eat the acorns and then have some mild gas colic. I do wish horses had better logic skills.

But I would not remove a beautiful oak tree just because of that… I just put up temporary electric fence to keep him further away from the trees during a couple of months in the fall. (Premier1 Horse Quik Fence is great for this.)

Note that I said ‘further away’ If you have a tree in the pasture, you will likely want to fence around it anyway to keep the horses from eating the bark, girdling it, which will kill the tree. And it’s better for the tree if they are not compacting the soil over the roots.

My vote is to leave it and manage the acorn situation if it becomes a problem.

[stb]

Big and old oak trees are a treasure. Please don’t cut it down. If it spreads widely it may be a live oak, and I’m pretty sure it’s a sin to cut down a mature live oak;)

I have multiple oaks in my pastures. They give great shade and make my place beautiful. I have one horse who will sometimes munch on acorns in the fall, but not very seriously. My others ignore them. I am careful to keep hay out in the pasture so that they don’t get too tempted to munch the acorns. Once the acorns have been down for a bit the horses lose interest in them.

If I were to take the oaks out of my pastures I would devalue my farm by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I’m not exaggerating.

[Critter]

We live in an area where there are pretty much 2 main trees - oak and pine. Our pastures are bordered by the oaks and we’ve left some of the bigger ones in the fields for shade. Knock on wood - we’ve not had any issues with the oak trees in the fields. The horses pretty much leave them alone. We had one horse who loved the acorns, but didn’t have any issues. We do have the trim the branches up a bit as the baby horse will try and grab leaves once and a while. But, we’ve been here 20+ years without issues (again, knock on wood!).

[goodhors]

Leave the Oak and fence around it to protect the bark and roots from the horses. Horses will be glad for the shade. We have a big Oak in our field, never had any acorn problems over many years, lots oF horses. You could muzzle a horse who loves acorns.

I bought a nut picker upper, wide wire ball on a stick, that does an excellent job of cleaning up nuts of all sizes. Bought it for the dog who was chewing up Hickory nuts! I was afraid of a lacerated digestive system with the hard nut shell edges! It works equally well on acorns, just pushing it around, dumping when full into a bucket. Easy and quick.

[Marla_100]

I have hUGE oaks all over my pastures. I bought this place partially because of the gorgeous
shade oaks. But I also have 2 piggy horses who overindulge on acorns so I put up temporary step in fencing around the problem trees or close off those pastures for a while til the other critters eat up the acorns.
Oak trees provide food and habitat for many critters, birds, butterflies, squirrels etc. They’re too valuable to remove them just for horses. Same w/ Wild Cherry trees. My horses haven’t ever been bothered by them either.

[OzarksRider]

Another vote for keeping the oak tree. We have a couple of oak trees that drop acorns in the pasture. I keep the horses off by spreading their manure around them when they’re dropping acorns. Works like a charm.

We also have walnut and wild cherry trees in the fields. None of them have ever been a problem with the horses.

[splitrockfarmnc]

@OzarksRider

I keep the horses off by spreading their manure around them when they’re dropping acorns. Works like a charm.

That is brilliant! Will definitely be doing that in the future. I my big oak trees in my fields.

OP, you should not cut yours down!

[SusanO]

I have some really old large oaks in my large pasture. No way would I ever cut them down. One reason I bought this place was the big old oaks and cedar trees. I had one horse that never bothered the acorns. However she got placed in a small pasture to control her grass consumption and one time she was turned back out in the big pasture and she did over indulge in acorns and got sick. She can’t go there anymore but the one mare that does have access to the big pasture has never been interested in acorns. I also have a volunteer black cherry that she never touches. She would rather gnaw on the pecan trees I paid money for and planted to have pecans.

In fact I am so unworried with the large oak trees that I planted willow oaks around the barn for shade. I can’t imagine turning a horse out in a pasture with no shade in this climate.

[B_and_B]

Leave the oak! But a good fence around it, far enough away so a horse can’t stretch his neck out and gnaw on the bark, is a must. It keeps the roots healthy and prevents chewing on the tree. You may want to prune some branches as well, if they are low enough to grab.
Not all horses are browsers, but some are. My pony for example wouldn’t dream of eating trees. The older draft will browse for leaves. The young draft, within a week of being here, had stripped all the bark off of a tulip tree branch that was in reach…and had been in reach for over twenty years for the other horses. Thankfully, tulip poplar is safe to eat.
You will probably end up wanting rotating pastures anyway, so the easiest thing is to plan that the horses aren’t in the pasture with the oak when the acorns are falling and are therefore new and exciting.

[candyappy]

Leave the oak tree. We just rake up the acorns on occasion if it is an abundant year, but my horses never touch them. The squirrels usually take them before they fall the last few years.

[Simkie]

I just can’t imagine taking down a healthy mature tree just because there might be a risk of horses eating acorns. There are so many ways to prevent that!

Please leave the tree! Fence around it to protect it. It has so much value to you as is.

[No1]

Leave it. That’s nearly the only type of tree we have in my part of the country. If grass is available, it is unlikely that a horse will eat enough acorns to cause issues.

[lorilu]

leave it. I have a large oak in my pasture and have never had an issue with my easy keepers eating the acorns. If you are worried fence it at the edge of the branch spread. Additionally, that will keep the horses from stripping the bark. The ONLY person I know who has had issues has rather sparse grass and sandy paddocks…

[going_gray]

Wow! I was totally surprised to find so many people who feel we should leave the tree and keep it to give shade to our horses. It is a big tree and does throw a lot of shade in the afternoon.

I like the ideas so many of you shared too. Especially throwing manure in the areas where the acorns fall under the oak tree. Our horses will not eat any grass near their manure piles. That and some fencing could work.

Since we have a smaller pasture, we could move the horses back to that section of our property until the acorns wear down or are eaten. (So far, though we haven’t seen any squirrels and we are surrounded by trees.)

I put in a picture of the oak tree and another tree left of the oak. The tree service can take that tree out and trim off the under hanging branches of the oak and then clean up that area. I’m not sure we could rake up the acorns as our pasture is all fescue and really thick!

Thank you all for your replies and great ideas. They are really helpful! I will share this thread with my husband and see what he thinks. He will be delighted to keep the tree in the pasture.

Here is the tree. Anyone know what type of oak this might be?

[jvanrens]

I’m glad you’ll keep the oak. Such a beautiful tree. I’d likely keep the other tree too for extra shade. Maybe just get the lower branches cleaned up, I’m so tired of seeing fields stripped of trees lately.

[fourfillies]

Beautiful tree. Post a picture of a leaf if you could? Looks like a water oak but hard to tell.

[skydy]

Make sure that you don’t overdo the manure. I’d ask a tree person how much manure the oak tree can tolerate, just to be safe.

I’m in the definitely “keep the tree” camp.

[stb]

Maybe a water oak? I am not sure what kind of oaks you have in NC. I have water oaks and live oaks on my farm, a white oak, and also another oak that loses leaves in the winter but is not a white oak.

@OzarksRider your idea to spread manure around the trees is brilliant. I will definitely be doing that this fall. I have found that my horse that eats acorns prefers certain trees and totally ignores others. I am not sure what that is about.

[OzarksRider]

@going_gray, IIWM, I wouldn’t put fence around the tree trunk unless I saw a problem. My horses like to scratch on tree trunks, and they’ve never damaged the trees. They occasionally chew a little bark, but not enough to notice unless you actually see them do it. And they don’t spend enough time under the trees to damage the roots; rather, they spend most of their time out in the sun grazing. One of my horses likes to eat young oak shoots in the spring, but you can easily discourage that by keeping the branches trimmed high.