Test Questions.

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1. Has anyone ever had a tree to just die from the cattle standing under it over a lengthy period of time?
2. Has anyone ever fed minerals in a feeder hanging under a tree and the tree die from some of the minerals and salt being knocked out?
 
yes depending on the type of tree. know a guy that had a row of big pine trees near his house for a wind break, then since they were 30 some feet high & foot & a half through he figured he could let the cows around them. they killed them all. & yes the old man would put salt around a big thorn tree for the cattle, so the salt & stomping would kill it
 
jerry,This debated question had to be settled here by someone else. Two know-it-alls with all the answers. I agreed to go along with the answer on this forum. I said cow's can stand in the shade and it won't kill a tree. I'ver seen trees live in a pasture. I have seen trees die if you put round hay bales over the roots.
And the minerals, ......... Looks like I am going to lose this fight on both accounts. :( Sometimes you have to go to an outside source to settle the deal. When two people are involved, two ideas involved, it takes a jury(forum members) to decide.
 
I disagree about cows standing under trees and killing them as my pasture is full of trees. My mineral feeder is under a couple of big Oaks for years. The only dead ones are lighting stuck. Not saying a weak tree would not be affected by stress from blight, drought, traffic.

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These are trees standing by themselves, not in a woods. There are several options where the fence will go. The trees are pecan, oak, and maple. The oak and the pecan tree are really big. The maples are smaller. Seems Mother Nature made the tree, provided shade from the sun, natures way of making sure the trees were provided with nutrients from the animal waste. Ask me where I came up with that one; I have no idea!
 
Chuckie":p9vv57j2 said:
1. Has anyone ever had a tree to just die from the cattle standing under it over a lengthy period of time?
2. Has anyone ever fed minerals in a feeder hanging under a tree and the tree die from some of the minerals and salt being knocked out?

Question #1 - No, we have not had trees die from cattle standing/laying under them.

Question #2 - No clue. We don't feed salt/mineral like that.
 
I have one large Oak tree and one large Sweet Gum in the middle of my pasture my cows live under them in the heat of the day and both trees are still growing well.......
 
jerry27150":34zzpsin said:
oak trees are tough as nails, you can girdle them & they may take years to die if at all. pine trees are a lot more tender


Maybe in Missouri they are, but in my area if it's not tough, it doesn't grow. Below are average rainfall figures, January through December. Most of the trees on the ranch were pine and the cows didn't bother the mature ones at all.


Avg. Precip. 0.3 in 0.4 in 0.7 in 1.7 in 2.5 in 2.3 in 1.9 in 1.1 in 1.1 in 0.9 in 0.4 in 0.3 in
 
Have 3 trees in the loafing lot where the show calves run at night. Frost hit them hard last spring and the horned calves are sharping their horns on them. This year they didn't bud.
5 years of that abuse before they gave up.
 
I don't believe you could kill a Cottonwood or an Oak tree with either cattle or supplements around them. I've got both around here and they are very old and have had cows around them longer than I've been alive.
 
Chuckie":1zmifenm said:
I win part of this. I will fence in the trees and make a hanger for the minerals but not over tree roots. :D Thank you jury!

Here's one of those yes/no/maybe deals.
A lot depends on the number of cows and the type of soil, type and number of trees.

We have trees, all oaks, some of which have been killed by cows loafing under them, others that it doesn;t bother. The dead trees have the soil so compacted under them that it's hard as concrete and the water just runs off and isn't absorbed, that's in heavy clay. Other trees that are in a more gravelly or loamy soils aren't bothered with compaction. When this place was a dairy and they ran high numbers of cows alwasy in the same pastures the soil was compacted badly. I haven;t found a method to losen the soil that won't destroy the grasses that are growing or damage the roots of the trees.
If you hang a feeder under any tree it will be over the root area of that tree. We hang the minerla feeders from trees but keep the salt at the water points.
What I'm trying to say is that different circumstances/conditions can cause different results.

dun
 
our cows have a shady area under a big bois'arc (bodark) tree, up kinda near the feed troughs. it has been there for ever, they have rubbed some of the lower limbs smooth... do ya reckon ya can kill a bois'arc :lol: they also have a wierd loopy limb on a cedar tree in the front pasture that they have rubbed smooth too...i know that tree has been around for at least 44 years so far no damage, the mineral feeder is not around the trees, so i dont know about that part.
 

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