[juliem]

As the apple drop seems to have started in my garden I have started to throw the apples over to the sheep in the next field. I rent the field out to a local with some sheep .I do this every year even when they ripen...as too much work to do anything else with the apples  and it does keep the garden tidy. It does seem to make their movements a little loose....or is that my imagination? The plum try fell under the weight of the plums and winds and I threw all those as well....sheep not really interested though.

[Fleecewife]

Sorry I don't know about the apples, although I would think the owner would like to know his sheep have access to them.

I don't think though that sheep can eat too many gooseberries - our 'shy little forest creature' otherwise known as Balou the ancient Soay, has eaten her way through heavy crops of first of all Pax, a desert gooseberry, then through FIVE Invicta bushes which were all well laden.  She's still going very strong    (We call her a shy little forest creature because she rustles away in the shrubbery and fruit cage helping herself to endless browsing, well camouflaged in there, and because she's definitely not a shy little creature  )
The sheep will also jump up to reach golden gages, and they strip the lower branches of those, so I imagine they eat plums as well.

[juliem]

well yes the owner does know...I suspect he complains about me behind my back blaming me for their loose movements..but as I keep my eye on them on a day to day basis(and sometimes manage to rescue them when they get trapped on their backs.).I suspect he doesn't want to upset me. They are very useful for eating any foliage that I have pruned in my garden....but I know you shouldn't let them eat certain things like Ivy?

[Foobar]

Like everything, too much of one thing is not good.  A little at a time would be the best option.  And you don't really want to make them have loose stools otherwise that could attract the flies.


You are right to ask though, as a lot of sheep and cattle have been poisoned by people carelessly tossing garden waste over the fence into livestock fields.

[JMB]

We have fallen apples too and the vet said ok in small quantities.
You sound like a well meaning neighbour but I hate it when people feed my pigs and sheep. And I'd be more concerned about your garden prunings.
The problem is, if an animal gets sick or has loose stools I'd need to try and diagnose it, or get the vet out and go through possibilities.
If I don't know what they've eaten, that's a bigger problem and an expensive one too.
J xxxxxx

[in the hills]

My Soay are in fields where there were already apple and fruit trees planted and there are the same in the fields where my neighbour keeps his sheep. No problems so far ... they just seem to eat their fill and not over do it. Can't say that it has ever made them loose either. They have plenty of grazing though and maybe it would be different if grazing was a bit tighter.

Having had sheep poisoned with rhododendron by my neighbour (who was convinced despite being told to the contrary that 'sheep can eat anything') I would be more worried about the pruned garden bits. I'm sure that you are careful ........ but do you know exactly what is safe for them?  I personally wouldn't put anything in a field with other peoples stock, even if they rented from me. Then, if there were to be a problem, you've done nothing to cause or contribute to it. My farming neighbour is renting out a couple of his fields to other people at the moment and I know that he no longer uses weed killers etc. in there and is using mechanical control at the moment ..... just to be safe as the stock are no longer his in that field. I rent a small additional field at the moment and to be honest I wouldn't want anyone dropping anything in there for reasons given by other posters.

[honeyend]

You should have thought about this before you did this. I can not believe you are feeding someone else's animals even with the best intentions just to keep your paddock tidy. I would be livid. My neighbour fed my ponies grass cuttings, when challenged he said he thought he was doing me a favour when really he was just saving himself a few trips to the compost bin and in the process risking my ponies getting colic.
  If you really want to get rid of the apples bag them up give them to your neighbour and let them decide how much their stock can have.  Animals are hard enough to keep well without your neighbours sticking their oar in.

[juliem]

OK I'm suitably admonished.While we are on the subject what about acorns....they have access to a wooded area which come the Autumn has a lot of acorns..I think he said he reckons he has lost a sheep to eating too many acorns in the past.(whilst on someone elses land )
I'm assuming they will only eat acorns if they are really hungry. The sheep have plenty of pasture at the moment. I remember when my son was young he use to practice his golf swings into the fields and there was always golf balls flying threw the air or lying in the long grass in the fields.Then we rented out to a farmer with Hereford cattle and we were very anxious when he lost one and we thought it had eaten a golf ball......he had an autopsy and we were in the clear .Big sigh of relief!!!

[in the hills]

We have a huge oak in our field .... very difficult to fence off .... and woodland not belonging to us adjoins our fields, again lots of oak.

When our poisoned sheep were collected by the fallen stockman last autumn he warned us of poison danger from acorns. He had 14 dead ewe lambs on board that a local farmer told him had acorn poisoning. It was a big mast year last year for acorns, around here anyway, and he said that a lot of sheep had been poisoned.

We had no problems in the 4 years previously but I did scrape up as many as I could. Local farming friend said that he thought that they caused a blockage and this was often the problem if sheep suddenly got a 'taste' for them and gobbled a lot. He believed oak leaves to be poisonous too.

There are lots of oaks in farmers fields around here and so I assume that poisoning/ blockages don't happen too often. Maybe as you say if grazing is tight. Someone with more sheep experience than me maybe able to give you a more definite answer though.

I would think that the farmer grazing your land would know how much of a risk these are to his stock. It's not the same as you putting plant matter in there ......... the trees are there for him to see ...... assuming that he is an experienced farmer.

[mab]

Where I lived in E anglia there were several crab apples in the hedges which would drop apples right through winter into spring and the sheep never had any problems, but then they'd hoover the apples up more or less as they fell so it was little and often, so I'd say as long as you're throwing them over daily and not in huge numbers it should be OK.


As for acorns I had an ewe who was partial to a few when they fell, but didn't seem to have any problems. But last August the high wind blew down a big oak branch with green acorns and I have a suspicion that they were the cause of her not eating for a week+ followed by death, but without a PM I don't know for sure.

[Buttermilk]

I have bought a paddock vacuum cleaner this year just for the acorns.  There are 34 mature oak trees in my fence line and if I fence them off then I lose a third of my winter grazing.

[novicesmallholder]

Vet told us acorns affect the liver if eaten in large quantities, and will kill them. She said 1 kilo over 2 weeks was the max they could eat, so we have tried to get as much up as we can