I've been seeing this question come up on lists for as long as I've had goats. Oak leaves are listed as poisonous on practically every list I've ever seen, so people are always wondering if they have to cut down trees or keep goats away from the oak trees. As some of you know, the name of my farm is Antiquity Oaks, and it's named that because the place is covered with oak and hickory trees. (Antiquity Oaks just sounded better than Antiquity Hickories, IMO.) My goats eat leaves from burr oaks and white oaks when they fall into the pasture every fall with no problems.
Anyway, in Goat Medicine by Mary C. Smith, DVM, and David M. Sherman, DVM, MS, it says:
Oak poisoning, which is caused by the ingestion of large quantities of young leaves, blossoms, buds, stems or acorns, produces considerable morbidity and mortality in cattle and sheep. The toxic principle is believed to be a gallotannin and it produces a severe intestinal irritation and a characteristic nephrosis. Animals show depression, abdominal cramping, and constipation followed by bloody, mucoid feces, and often succumb to uremia. Goats appear highly resistant to oak toxicity, possibly because of comparatively increased levels of tannase enzymes in the rumenal mucosa. It has been demonstrated in vitro that infusion of tannin into goat rumen fluid increases fermentation activity while it depresses activity in sheep rumen fluid. Goats are routinely used to clear scrub oak from pastures to make them safe for sheep and cattle. (p. 404)
(The "in vitro" research means they put tannin and goat rumen fluid into a test tube.)
The book goes on to describe several experiments and case studies involving goats and oaks, and they did manage to make the goats sick when feeding them "a diet consisting almost exclusively of fresh shin oak for an extended period," which is not exactly the type of situation that a goat would naturally find them in nature.
So, for the most part, this sounds like another instance of people assuming sheep and goats are the same animal.
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Whew, sure am glad I found this thread... my new doelings have been seeking out all the little sprouting oaks on the property to eat and I was in something of a panic since I'd read they were poisonous (in Storey's Guide to Raising Goats). Thanks for posting this info, Deborah!
Mine love oak leaves as well, ours don't grow in the pasture so we cut some every few days and bring it to them and they fight over it.
They also love willow oaks. We have a lot of pin oaks too.
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
Add me to the list of people with oak on my property... in fact,
Ginger waits for Harriet to lose a few leaves that she can snatch up. lol
My goats go NUTS over the stuff... to the point they seek it out. I didn't read about possible toxicity until I had let them eat a ton of them... so I figured it was safe after all. Nice to see documentation backing that up! Very cool. Thanks, Deb!!
If she didn't have a necropsy, she doesn't really know what killed him. People find cause and effect relationships all over the place. Based upon what I read, he would have been sick within hours of eating the leaves.
WorkingGoats4 said:
So, here's a question. When I started showing at my local county fair years ago, a local breeder warned me to watch the goat barn because kids liked to feed the goats leaves and such that they found. She told me that one year her son had a buck at the fair and some kids fed him some oak leaves and branches. The buck died later that week. Do you think that is possible or was it more stress related? Doesn't really matter I guess --- I just used to always worry when I went to the fair because of that story and this info you have makes me think differently about her story. Thoughts?
-WG4
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
Thanks for this information. This was one of the questions I recently had also. We have Oak growing on several trees. This makes me feel better. Thanks again :0)
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