Horses and Pine Trees

[ChrisB]

My daughters have been saving their money and think they will have enough to buy a couple horses next spring. Now I have to figure out where to put them. One area that I was kind of thinking about has some Norway Pine that are 18-20 feet tall and also some Spruce (Colorado Blue and Black Hills) tress that are 10-12 feet tall. My question is would these trees possibly be toxic at all to horses? And also if it is not toxic would the horses eat the needles and bark and possibly kill the trees?

Also if they get horses I thought we might as well put them to work a little bit and use them to move cows when needed. My cows have never even seen a horse before; what is a good way to avoid having the cattle run through the fences when they see a rider on a horse for the first time?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[IHeartCows]

We have pine trees everywhere around here and never had any problems.

Here are a few links:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/b762/b762_24.html
http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/horselist.html
http://www.whmentors.org/saf/poison.html

 

[Hippie Rancher]

what kind of enclosure are your cows in?

If the horses are gentle I would say just ride the perimiter nice and slow a few times before trying to workd the cattle. And going slow is the key to working as well.

I wouldn't worry about the cattle as much as horses that don't know anything. Cattle are usually the other way around - if they are used to being worked horseback, a body on foot will bother them more.

cutting and sorting on horseback with cattle more used to a person on foot might be....interesting, but I don't think that is what you are talking about.

Don't keep them together unless the cattle have pletny of room to get away from the horses - horses will run cattle around and take the wieght off them, along with other problems like crashing them through fences. Horned cattle may fight back and injure a horse pretty good.

 

[Cindy]

One thing I know about Pine is sone years ther more toxic than others, they won't affect the normal horse only the expecting mare. There perfect if you never want foals. the other thing is why I don't have horses in with pine trees is they will rub out the mane and tail. I watched some people move near us from the coast, Beautiful show horses Arabs and part Arabs. There Prize stallion lost his beautiful long mane!!!

 

[Mike Franklin]

In order to work cows I've always figured that the cow needed to at least be leary of a man on horseback. Do watch your ponies around mama cows as they can be dangerous, I guess you know that. If your horses are not used to cows they may take some work. If I were you I'd look real hard at getting some retired ranch ponies. Most of'm have many years of service left in'm and tend not to be spooky about much, especially cows.
Never trust a cow whose horns grow down toward their nose!

 

[mustangkoda]

watch for alergic reaction from the horse robbing on the tree bark. my mustang had a very ugly skin allergy to the sap of the pine tree. lost a bunch of hair and had gooy (sp) yellowish stuff oozing out of it.