<font color="blue"> The side that faces the field is a little mushy, but I don't think that whey would be caught in the mud, it is not that deep. </font color>
Careful about the mud...it loves to grab horse shoes and pull 'em right off! [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Now that you mention it, I do remeber hearing that you should not use walnut shavings, what about the apple trees. Will they gorge themselves and get sick? Or are apples OK?
Black walnut trees will kill all your horses if they eat any part of them in any quantity
Cut them down, spray the entire area with roundup and verify that none come up again. If they are old enough to produce nuts I'd repeat this procedure in the spring to try and get the ones the squirrels planted this year. I would wait some time to make sure the area is really free of these trees before putting horses out there. Otherwise you'll have a dead horse telling you that you missed some
I'm not so sure about killing horses. Some, not all, horses may founder from walnut shavings or they may get swollen legs. It's like saying that if you eat peanut butter you will die. Yes some people are allergic to peanut butter but most people get along fine eating it. Alot of people have used walnut shavings and had walnut trees in pastures over the years with no bad effects. Rarely will horses chew on a tree unless there is nothing else to eat.
Same with the apples and the trees. Some horses have bad effects from apples but probably not. Most crab apples will rot before the horses get to them. They may eat the leaves and branches if they don't have pasture.
I've definately heard of horses foundering and dying from exposure to black walnut trees. I think the black walnut is much more toxic than the english walnut. Anyone I've ever talked to about it just considers black walnuts to be about the worst thing as far as bad vegitation. The living tree may be worse than the sawdust.
I'll investigate further [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Of course it's been many years since I had a horse, but we had a black walnut tree just across the fence from the pen around the barn. The cows and horses couldn't get to the tree, but leaves and walnuts fell into the pen and I never heard of there being any danger to livestock.
However, we dug a hole and sunk a concrete water trough in the ground in the shade under the tree (outside the pen) to keep minnows in and learned that the walnuts falling into the water would kill fish. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I don't know whether it was just the green walnuts or whether ripe ones would do it, too.
Please let me know what you find out, I have a small tree that is outside of the paddock, and I have 2 lambs, that have been running around free while I put this fence up. I have caught them eating the leaves and brances that they can reach. I yell at them and shoo them away, but they always come back (when I am in the middle of trying to level a fence post). They seem ok, and have suffered no ill effects from eating the leaves. [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img] I am equally concerned about the 4 or 5 apples trees that I have in the other field that I have yet to fence in. I am concerned that they will start eating as many apples as they can find on the ground, and then become seriously ill. I do not want to cut down these trees, and wonder if I should fence them off, to keep them away..... Thanks you all for your expert advice with this project, I am almost finished with the posts and rails. The sawyer was out of rails this past weekend, so we just put up the PT posts. I would say that we have about 7 more to go, and we will be done. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
I did a quick search using google and "Black Walnut" & horses and came up with a bunch of stuff. I didn't go through it all but here are a couple interesting links.
It seems the problem with Black Walnuts is caused be a yet unidentified toxin present throughout most parts of the tree. From the studies that I skimmed over it seems that NEARLY ALL HORSES will show an adverse reaction to the toxin including laminitis or symptoms that usually precede laminitis. The toxin can enter the system through contact or ingestion. Most reported cases seem to be from shavings, but other cases have resulted from horses ingesting leaves, bark, AND MERELY BEING EXPOSED TO POLLEN BLOWING OFF THE TREES.
Sounds serious to me! As a horse owner you’ll learn very quickly that any risk factors for laminitis should be minimized as much as possible. This is something you don’t want any horse to go through. Jason, unless these trees mean more to you than your horses I would remove them.
>Poisoning of horses in pastures containing black walnut trees is also a concern, particularly during pollen shedding in the spring, and in the fall when the leaflets are shed from the walnut leaves.
Yeah Steve, I guess it might be time to move those trees up to the house, far away from the fields that I will be boarding horses in. I did not realize that these trees could be a problem, even if I did not make bedding out of them. I have a lot to learn about this horse stuff, thanks for the help everyone, it looks like the trees are going to be moved [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote