Oak leaves and tannin

[PennyT]

I graze my sheep on a neighbor's property for several hours every day. There are many oak trees down, almost down, or leaning from the hurricane that have green leaves. Eight or ten out of around 60 sheep have acquired a taste for oak leaves. There aren't any acorns around. Are the leaves toxic enough to worry about? The sheep look healthy enough.

 

Penny

[Howdyjabo]

http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant47.htm

[PennyT]

Thanks for reference. I had read that oak leaves were bad. I was hoping that someone else had some experience with letting sheep browse oaks.

 

The odd thing is that the few sheep that really like oak leaves look just fine. There is plenty of other forage, so I suppose I'll try to keep them off the downed and semi-downed oaks.

 

This is a real shame because there is a lot of tasty brush near and around the oaks, which the other sheep are doing a good job on.

 

Another oddity is that spurge, which I don't have, is on many of the toxic lists I saw. I am under the impression that sheep are used to reduce spurge, so perhaps I was taking some of the poison plant information not seriously enough.

 

I wish that someone who has done weed control professionally or at home or for neighbors would let me know what to watch out for and what to yawn over. I keep the sheep away from oleander. I am positive I saw some of my sheep helpfully eat some poison ivy. They seemed to suffer no ill effects.

 

Penny

[Cindy Evans]

I can't help you with an answer, but I have wooded land and am using sheep to clear the place. The sheep seem to eat the live oak with no problem, but won't eat white oak or red oak. I have wondered about it myself.

 

There is also a cherry tree here that I watch out for. They like the bark, but the wilted leaves are very toxic.

 

Maybe the live oak is a different species? What kind of oak do you have there that they are eating?

Cindy

[Howdyjabo]

Biggest thing to watch for is keeping the sheep plenty of other fresh feed to eat--

If they are not starved on to eating it-- they will probably measure themselves how much they consume.

I think the majority of problems is when fresh feed starved animals get hold of a tree that fell down and gourge on it.

People around here have problems some years with acorn poisening-- its only the years when there is a feed shortage. We learn to get them off the wooded pastures if the animals are on the hungry side.

 

Cherry trees are the biggy-- we watch real hard for any dead, dying or downed cherry trees.

[Bill Fosher]

Oak leaves shouldn't post any real problem. It's wilted cherry leaves that you need to be concerned about.

[doubleofarm]

I live in southern NJ and don't know what type of oaks I have but even on plenty of hay my sheep do graze on the brown oak leaves and acorns. So far I cannot attribute any illness or death to that but I have lost an occassional sheep for unknown reasons. Unfortunately I don't have an area to move them to to get away from oaks, we are surrounded by forest.

 

Tina DeAngelo

[PennyT]

I think I found the culprit: privet (ligustrum). A late mostly barb lamb is fixing to die, and only after I started thinking about toxins did it occur to me that Pathetic loves privet (he isn't among the oak munchers) and look up privet. I now that I think about it, a large old Katadhin ewe I had euthanized and necropsied last year probably died from privet, too. The necropsy was inconclusive but showed lesions in the stomach that the vet did not think looked right for CL. The old ewe was always leading everyone off to eat privet.

 

Interestingly, the Gulfcoast natives seem to tolerate privet...only they aren't allowed to have it ever again.

 

If someone tells me that dewberry vine leaves are poisonous, I'll cry. Dewberry fruit is quite edible so I'm hoping the fact that dewberry is not on any of the toxic lists is a good sign. The neighbor's neglected pastures that I am helping with are full of dewberry.

 

It's been a dry year since the hurricane, and my rye grass is not ready for sheep yet.

 

Makes me wonder how sheep clear weeds anywhere.

 

Penny