My horses are eating the bark off my willow tree and killing it. They have a round bale 24/7 so its not lack of hay. Are we missing some type of supplement? They are eating the roots too. This is the last normal tree in this paddock. The others are black walnut which I’m hoping they won’t touch. Thoughts on how to stop this? These are not skinny horses either! They are well fed and have great hay! Frustrating.
Willow is delicious. It’s a shame when they die. Please plant more.
Signed,
My former horse and his pasture mate who killed 4 beautiful large willows over 2 years
Honestly, I’d be concerned about the black walnut though and would be figuring out a way to fence them off with a large perimeter or move horses away from them.
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Fence off the walnut.
Horses chew on trees because horses, especially late winter and spring.
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Because they do that. The more expensive the tree the more delicious it is. They can have unlimited premium Western hay and they will still kill your trees. One way to discourage this is to leave the lower branches so the horses cannot reach the trunk to gnaw. If you limb up the tree you will regret it. So anything you plant be prepared to hotwire the tree. And I repeat the warning about the black walnut trees. You need to fence them so the horse cannot get to the bark or the leaves.
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We know they crave plant diversity and their gut benefits if it’s the right plants. I’d be curious if you fed something like Biostar’s Hedgerow GI if their cravings for your willow would stop.
I’m feeding it on and off to my horses and they love it.
I planted Dr. Harman’s pasture herbs a few years ago and my horses gobbled them down.
Horses want more than the few plant species we typically offer and their gut benefits.
Does seem you’d want to block off reaching those trees. No good comes of killing a good tree or any tree. Who wants that clean up?
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Your willow tree is actually medicinal. Wow.
https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/herb/willow-bark#:~:text=Willow%20bark%20has%20been%20used,such%20as%20bursitis%20and%20tendinitis.
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This.
I forgot to mention that above. Should have signed it “Two creaky old guys who like to self medicate”. Neither were actually in terrible shape, but they did have some normal age-related aches and pains.
When young horses were turned out in that field, they generally left the willows alone. Different taste buds or truly oldies self medicating - who knows, but interesting nonetheless.
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Horses are actually part beaver. It’s just what they do.
Trees need to be fenced off from teeth.
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About black walnut trees . . .
Where I live black walnut trees are almost as common as oaks. I have several in my yard and in my fields. My horses have never nibbled on the bark or the leaves or the nuts because they don’t like the taste, and I have never heard of anyone around here with horses having a problem with them. My only concern with walnut trees is to be 100% sure any sawdust I buy for bedding doesn’t have walnut in it, because that will founder a horse. By far the bigger problem is with oaks and acorns. Every autumn I hear about horses colicking and cows dying from eating acorns.
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Agreed. I have several black walnut trees in my pasture and the horses have no interest in them at all. I’d love them to be gone, but cutting them down would be more dangerous (sawdust) than leaving them standing. Other winters they’ve snacked on tulip poplars or oaks, but apparently black walnut are yucky. My horses have been mostly leaving the trees alone the last few years, but I think they just start craving something alive and juicy in the winter when they start in on the trees.
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UC Davis had massive, ancient black walnut trees in their paddocks for decades. They all eventually died and were removed (to prevent any chance of sawdust) but otherwise never an issue.
I actually grow willows for other purposes (biodiversity, basket/garden support, pussy willows, drainage). Because my willows are coppiced, I always have short sections of pencil thick willow in late winter or early spring. I do throw a few in with the horses at times (careful to avoid those cut with sharp ends!). They LOVE them.
They also reached over (which required being in contact with) a five foot tall electric fence last summer to pull up and eat the sunflowers I had planted. Mature sunflowers can have quite the stalk. All that was left was the root balls! I watched Buddy eat one, it was just like it was being continuously fed into the chipper.
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In the winter, horses eat trees. It’s just what they do. Mine all have unlimited quality hay (alfalfa, o/a), good buddies, plenty of space. And they still eat trees. Cherry trees, oak trees, trees I don’t even know. They have killed 6 or 7 cherry trees. I now have most of my trees fenced off, or wrapped loosely in wire mesh to discourage teeth. But WHY they chew… It must be some instinctive winter behavior.
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I have privets, forsythia and olives planted as windbreaks. The horses love to chew the forsythia and privets (which have thorns!) but not so much the olives. These are chubby horses with quality hay fresh every day. They just love to chew wood! Which is why my fences are hot wired.
Another vote for “because they can”. If you want to protect your trees, fencing them off is really the best option.
Tree chewing will become particularly noticeable over the next several weeks, as the sap starts running and trees gear up for spring growth. Horses seem to love the sweet taste of that spring sap - mine have thoroughly de-barked an ancient oak and a persimmon (both of which I fence them away from in the fall, due to toxicity concerns with the nuts/fruit), even with access to acres of fresh spring grass and free-choice hay.
This exactly! If the trees taste anything like the nut they produce no worries on them eating the black walnut trees. My neighbor had 1 horse who has issues due to eating acorns. He was the only one out of many she owned.
Actually the chewing is genetically programmed into equines from back when they were feral. In winter the grasses were covered with snow, often too deep to dig thru. Horses then browsed brush and trees to survive the winters.
Deer do the same, gut changes to manage browse in deep winter months, because they could not get down to frozen grasses in the old times before settlers arrived. Around here when we had deep snow, people often put some hay out for the deer, who ignored it! They could not digest the hay!!
We put out logs or wood pieces for our horses to chew, in the paddocks. In the past, cleaning fencelines, we would have brush piles of various shrubs. The horses would chew the brush piles down to a few naked branches by spring! Even huge brush piles. They were mostly honeysuckle, hickory and oak trimmings. When horses had finished their hay, they would wander to the brush piles to gnaw on things.
We put out willow, cottonwood, hickory, pieces that we have around the farm. Firewood pieces work great. The oak seems to need time to get chewing going, probably the tannic acid diluting with time. Some big, OLD oak logs got very popular last winter, “it was time,” now tasty! Still working on last winter’s hickory logs, now totally debarked.
Horses stay busy, not destroying lumberyard wood. All trees are inside fencing line, out of reach of teeth. The weeping willows have some trailing stems over the fence, which the horses keep trimmed back. Saves me having to shorten branches!
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Deer don’t eat grasses/grass hay. They do love legumes (alfalfa) though!
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This is the first I’ve heard of Dr. Harman’s pasture herbs. Curious to know why you planted them only 1 year?
I planted them last year too but too much going on finishing barn building and working FT and didn’t get them watered enough. Big plans for this year - plant in three turnouts and put the sprayer on the tractor and get them watered. Those first 14 days or so really matter to get them started.
