We have 8 beautiful red maple trees that line our driveway. With dried red maple being toxic, I was wondering, is it ok to add the leaves to the manure pile and spread after composted?
I’m a composting newbie but have had one batch cooked and spread on the field. Cannot imagine
a problem with red maple leaves if they turn to soil basically. What I spread truly was like Texas Black Gold as the Beverly Hillbillies would say - yes I’m dating myself.
They are okay when fresh. It is when they are wilted or dry that they are toxic. The bark is also toxic. We have tons of them around here but not in pastures. If you keep the leaves away trom the horses they should be okay. Make sure they are getting plenty of hay. This article says they are toxic for about 4 weeks, so composting should be okay.
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Forty five years of having horses at home in Red Maples, Wild Cherry, and assorted other toxic vegetation in pastures and NEVER have I had a horse get sick. As long as they have good food to eat, they won’t eat the bad stuff.
And composting the leaves neutralizes toxicity.
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add walnut trees to that list, I am sure there are horses who have died from eating the listed items but if it was very common there would not be a horse alive in Kentucky as all of those trees are found in a lot of the pastures
The one that scares me is oleander that is often planted near to or in fence lines as oleander is “pretty” …well it is highly deadly to a horse. A horse only need one mouth full rather than 15 pounds of red maple leaves
Droughts are usually the driving force to encourage a horse to try some of that deadly stuff
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