oak trees - advice please

[debra wiltshire]

Hi, can anyone tell me if oak trees or rather acorns are harmful to cattle?

thanks

[Saffy]

Hello Debra,

They wouldn't usually eat them unless they were short of food, most of my fields have an oak tree in the hedge line, we never had a problem with our dairy cattle eating acorns and so far haven't with Dexters. Although they may have tried them. I believe in quantity they are harmful but am not absolutely sure. You could Google it. There is certainly info that can be Googled about what is poisonous for horses. Why do you ask? Are yours eating them?

They are OK for pigs though.

Stephanie

[debra wiltshire]

Hi Stephanie,

Like you I knew about acorns, horses and pigs care of countryfile down in the New Forest...we have been offered some land with oak trees on it for some grazing so I thought I would ask to see if anyone knew about acorns and cows....

[Saffy]

Cattle can get acorn poisoning which is serious but quite rare.

I think it is unusual for them to eat them and only whne there are lots of acorns - I am sure Duncan will clarify!

Stephanie

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Hello All,

sorry I am a bit slow in posting these days, just manage quick looks to see what is on the board, quite a few days work seems to occupy 12 or even 16 hours at the moment, and Dexters beginning to calve too.

Yes acorns are very poisonous, but only seems to happen when there is a huge crop and cattle take the notion to eat them. Some large oak trees will drop drifts of acorns in exceptional years, and particularly young cattle will gorge on them. They damage liver, kidneys and lining of gut. I have not seen it very often but it is not good when it happens.

Duncan

[debra wiltshire]

thanks for the information everyone...

[fdb]

hi 10 years ago I was responsible for the management of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire. We introduced 12 white park into the forest as it is an old wood pasture and cattle provide vital food for a number of dung beetles, flies, fungi as well as further up the food chain, birds, bats, mammals, reptiles etc. Anyway that autumn we had a mast year and two of the cattle gorged on acorns. One died in then forest and a second back at the yard. Cattle no longer have the ability to digest large quantities of tannins, unlike say fallow deer that also gorge on acorns.

Keep and eye on the trees you will see them laden with acorns in a mast year. This happens every 7 to 10 years (approx).

[Broomcroft]

I have oak trees all around the farm. Not usually a problem till this year just gone - little grass but loads of acorns for some reason. I had to hurdle off areas under some trees to stop my sheep gorging on them. So I suppose it depends on the specific conditions each year to an extent?

[fdb]

Dexters are not my line of expertise but as a Forester trees are so I hope I can offer a little info that might help others. Oak trees produce mast to overcome anything that eats acorns by swamping them with a glut. In a natural system this supports a whole host of species. Wild ancestors of cattle, in our case the aroch and sheep would have fed on acorns but domestic livestock have lost the ability to breakdown the tanins, hence over eating leads to death. Masts vary in locality and intensity but generally are really big every 7 to 10 years. Typically I chose the wrong year to decide to fatten my pigs on them before slaughter last year as we had mixed mast, some trees had little or no acorns yet 10 miles away other trees had a fairly good mast.
You will be able to see the mast potential early in the season and generally it wont fall until oct so hopefully time to make plans.

[Broomcroft]

That's interesting. I didn't know about masts. That's what we must have had last year.

[Saffy]

I knew that we sometimes had a bigger crop of acorns but I didn't know it was called a mast and we also had one last year. We have one cow that is very partial to acorns and had to dose her with a bottle of cooking oil as she had blown up, she wasn't very impressed about the cooking oil.

Stephanie