# Plum Trees



## Sagebrush (Oct 4, 2009)

Read that Plum trees can be bad for goats also? has anyone had experence with that? We have a section on the pasture with them in it, the horses dont seem to mind them.


----------



## DKalakay (Dec 24, 2009)

*Re: What plants do you worry about?*

Plum trees along with other trees in the same family (cherry, english laurel, apricot, etc.) have a cyanide precursor that is released when the leaf is "damaged" and wilted. From what I understand the seed part of the fruit also contains cyanide. 
My goats can eat some Rhody without any problem but the Pieris Japonica (Japanese Andromeda) nearly killed one of them so I took those out of my yard. 
False Hellebore (corn plant) seems fairly common in many of the areas I hike and the goats think the seed stalks and pods are candy canes. But those are bad news too. 
Denise


----------



## sweetgoatmama (Dec 10, 2008)

*Re: What plants do you worry about?*

The wilted leaves on any pitted fruit are bad news. They build up cyanide as they wilt.


----------



## Sagebrush (Oct 4, 2009)

*Re: What plants do you worry about?*

Well my worry stems from that my nieghbor has an infestation of them. They are pretty thick from years of not trimming or even using the fruit. How worried should i be around them, there is a fence between but goats have their ways.


----------



## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

*Re: What plants do you worry about?*

The danger is mostly with wilting leaves. Eating green leaves from the tree are usually not a cause for concern. Nor would a few stray leaves that happened to blow into the pasture on occasion. The problem would be if a limb broke off the tree and the leaves were wilting or their was a hard freeze that killed the leaves. Goats eating a quantity of leaves in this condition would be a problem. As Carolyn said, the wilting leaves contain concentrated toxins that are potentially fatal. Here is a good link to read more about it. The on line reference material at Merck is awesome. http://merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp ... 210800.htm


----------



## Shas (Oct 7, 2010)

Thanks for the Merck link, Rex.
That's always an authoritative reference.
I live just above you in British Columbia
and our area is thick with wild cherry.
And here I was thinking that this habitat,
so rich in underbrush, would be nearly perfect
for foraging goats.
Alas.
But the danger seems to be greatest
just after the autumn frosts yellow the leaves.
What do you think-
is browsing amongst cherry safe the rest of the year?
Or must we never allow our buddies 
to scout about in the woods?


----------



## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

We are fortunate not to have wild cherry here but I did grow up with it in the midwest. We never worried about the cherry leaves unless they were wilting. Never saw a problem with naturally fallen leaves only ones that had broken off in a storm or from trimming the limbs when the leaves were green.


----------

