We recently fenced in a twenty acre mixed forest woodlot. In about two weeks the buds and leaves from the lower level browse will be appearing and the horses will be given access to a forest buffet. There are no wild cherry trees in the woods.
High fiber, low sugar, diverse forage is natural in many wild horse environments. My first BLM mare came from and area of sense pinion pines. She would not consider alfalfa or clover but she would erase pine needles with zeal. The Corollas stay in great shape from what is basically a mixed browse diet in the winter.
I am really looking forward to seeing the result of this reversion to a diverse forage based diet. I will keep you posted.
The horses are going to love their new "playground" in the woods. :)
ReplyDelete-E.
I'll be interested in hearing your results. The fact that horses are browsers, not grazers, seems to have gotten lost.
ReplyDeleteHorses can kill trees by eating off bark. They like some (mulberry) more that others (walnut, which is poisonous.) You may need to protect a few of them to retain shade on the pasture.
When my family moved to the farm that I grew up on, it was quite overgrown. The ponies eradicated the blackberry briers from their pasture long before we got them out of the house yard.