Oak leaves & Acorns

I am trying to get my ducks all lined up as we only have about another 3 weeks left before we get to come home. I have finally found a place to rent that will allow my family and horses on it. Pretty nice place, had a friend who owns horses check it out for me. The only issue she mentioned is it has Oak trees on it. I checked the poisonous plants thread, and saw that oak leaves and acorns are on the list. How dangerous are they? If I keep them raked up, out of the water tank, and have plenty of hay for them to eat would my horses be ok?

I have never had a problem with Oak trees or acorns and have always had them in our pastures. I have seen them eat a few acorns, and I have seen them browse on leaves but evidently they have never eaten enough of them to be a problem.

I have also not had any problems with Black Walnut trees. But, we do not let our horses get hungry as they always have access to good pasture or free-choice round hay bales in feeders. I have had horses that hunted out and ate pecans and they have not hurt any of them either.

I haven't had horses on a property with oaks however I did find this article:

Ask the Expert -- Poisonous Plants

Seems that cattle are more prone to oak poisoning and horses will generally leave them alone when given the choice, that is, there is plenty of good feed around for them to eat instead. It also says that Autumn and Spring are the danger times.

Mostly I just wanted to say that I am glad you found a place and to welcome you back to Texas - yee haw!!

Thank you ladies for the input. I was worried that they would really hurt my horses.

Sarahver, thank you so much for the welcome back. I am getting so excited. We won't actually be in Texas until mid Jan, but getting back to the States is going to be so nice!

Our mares munch on acorns every year and we've never had a problem. They do have pasture + free choice hay, so there's always a lot of forage in their system.

Our horses munch on Oak leaves all the time... hard to stop them. But, we have never had one single problem.