Horses on a few acres in Tennessee: what needs doing this September

Fire danger right now — Nashville area

One district can stand in for a state, so this is Nashville area. For the rating at your own address, the app checks it for you every day.

What horses need in September

From the care calendar — the things that come round once a season for horses in Tennessee.

1. Book the dentist

   An annual dental is standard for horses. Dropping feed, quidding or weight loss between visits is a reason to bring it forward.

Plants in Tennessee that hurt horses

Worth walking the fence lines for. Each one links to the official page with photographs, because a description alone is not enough to identify a plant.

• Garden plant or tree

  Oleander

  Look for

  Tall garden shrub with long, leathery, dark green leaves and white, pink or red flowers. Very common in old farm gardens and along driveways.

  Worst

  All year. Dried clippings are just as deadly and more likely to be eaten.

  What it does

  Attacks the heart. A few leaves can kill a horse or a cow. Deaths most often happen when someone prunes it and the clippings end up where animals can reach them.

  What to do

  Know where it is on your place and make sure nothing can reach over a fence to it. NEVER put clippings anywhere near a pasture, a feed area or a compost heap animals can get at.

  Photos and detail: Agriculture Victoria — Poisonous plants

• Weed

  Bracken fern

  Look for

  Coarse triangular fronds on a tough stem, often in big patches on poorer or timbered country and along bush edges.

  Worst

  Late summer and autumn, and whenever feed is short.

  What it does

  Horses get a thiamine deficiency — wobbling, then staggering. Cattle bleed internally and can develop bladder cancer with long exposure. Both build up over weeks of eating it.

  What to do

  Keep animals out of heavy bracken country when there's nothing else to eat, which is when they start on it. Look for it along the timbered edges rather than in the open.

  Photos and detail: Agriculture Victoria — Poisonous plants

• Garden plant or tree

  Avocado

  Look for

  The tree, and anything fallen under it. Common in old house gardens on acreage.

  Worst

  Whenever fruit and leaves are dropping.

  What it does

  Leaves, bark and fruit affect the heart and udder. Horses and goats get swelling of the head and neck; birds are very sensitive and can die quickly.

  What to do

  Fence animals and poultry out from under the tree. Don't throw pruned branches or spoiled fruit into a pasture or a chook run.

  Photos and detail: RSPCA Australia — Plants toxic to animals

• In the water

  Blue-green algaealso Cyanobacteria, Pond scum

  Look for

  Not a plant — a bright green or blue-green paint-like scum on still water, often blown up against the downwind edge of a pond.

  Worst

  Hot, still weather in summer, especially in a pond that's dropping.

  What it does

  Can kill within hours of drinking. Animals are often found dead at the water's edge.

  What to do

  Fence animals off any pond with scum on it and cart water until it clears. Check ponds on hot still days — that is when it blooms, and it can appear in a day.

  Photos and detail: Agriculture Victoria — Blue-green algae

• Garden plant or tree

  Red maplealso Swamp maple, Acer rubrum

  Look for

  A common shade tree, not a weed — three-lobed leaves, red in autumn, often already growing along the fence line or in the hedgerow. The danger is the fallen branch, not the standing tree.

  Worst

  After any storm or high wind, and through autumn. Fresh green leaves on the tree are not the problem; it's leaves that have wilted or dried, which stay dangerous for about a month on the ground.

  What it does

  Wilted leaves destroy red blood cells in horses. A horse can eat enough in one afternoon of boredom. Signs are dark red or brown urine, pale or yellow gums, and sudden weakness — and by then it is an emergency.

  What to do

  Walk the fence lines after every storm and clear anything that's come down. Don't rake maple leaves into a pasture or use them as bedding. If a tree overhangs a pasture, fence the horses out from under it rather than trying to keep it tidy.

  Photos and detail: University of Minnesota Extension

• Garden plant or tree

  Black walnutalso Juglans nigra

  Look for

  A big timber tree with long compound leaves and green tennis-ball fruit. The usual poisoning has nothing to do with the pasture at all — it comes in a bag of shavings.

  Worst

  Whenever bedding is changed. Shavings from a mill that cut walnut will do it even at a small fraction of the bag.

  What it does

  Causes laminitis within hours of a horse standing on it — heat in the feet, shifting weight, reluctance to move, legs filling. It doesn't need to be eaten; standing on it is enough.

  What to do

  Ask your bedding supplier whether they can guarantee no walnut, and buy from one that can. If a horse is suddenly footsore after new bedding, get it out of the stall first and ring the vet second. Keep horses off ground under a walnut where hulls and leaves have fallen.

  Photos and detail: University of Minnesota Extension

• Garden plant or tree

  Yewalso Japanese yew, Taxus

  Look for

  A dark green evergreen hedge or foundation shrub, flat needles with paler undersides, small red berries. Extremely common around older houses — very often already planted on the property when she bought it.

  Worst

  Any time, and especially whenever someone prunes. Clippings tossed over a fence as a kindness are the classic way this happens.

  What it does

  One of the fastest-acting plants there is. A mouthful can stop the heart of a horse or a cow, often with no warning signs at all — animals are frequently found dead near the hedge.

  What to do

  Find out whether you have it before anything else on this list. If it's within reach of a pasture, fence it off or take it out. Never put clippings anywhere an animal can reach, and tell anyone who helps in the garden the same.

  Photos and detail: ASPCA Animal Poison Control

• Weed

  Water hemlockalso Cowbane, Cicuta

  Look for

  Wet ground only — ditches, stream banks, the boggy corner of a pasture, edges of ponds. Umbrella-shaped clusters of small white flowers, leaves with veins ending in the notches between teeth rather than at the tips. The root is chambered and smells of parsnip.

  Worst

  Spring, when it's green and other feed is short, and any time ground is disturbed and roots come to the surface.

  What it does

  The most violently poisonous plant in North America. The root is the worst part and a piece the size of a walnut can kill a cow. Seizures come on within an hour and death usually follows.

  What to do

  Learn to recognise it and keep animals off wet ground where it grows. Dig it out with the whole root, wear gloves, and don't leave the root lying where anything can find it. Never let animals onto ground that's just been dug or churned where it's known to grow.

  Photos and detail: USDA Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory

• Weed

  Poison hemlockalso Conium maculatum

  Look for

  Tall — often over head height — with a hollow stem blotched purple, fern-like leaves, and flat clusters of small white flowers. Crushed leaves smell musty and unpleasant. Roadsides, ditches, neglected corners, fence lines.

  Worst

  Late spring and early summer when it's tall and flowering. Most dangerous cut and wilted in hay, where the smell that would normally put animals off is gone.

  What it does

  Paralysis that works up the body from the legs; death comes from the chest muscles giving out. Also causes deformed foals and calves when eaten by a pregnant animal at the wrong time.

  What to do

  Pull or cut it before it flowers, wearing gloves and long sleeves. Bag it — don't leave cut plants where animals can get them, and never put it in hay. Watch for it spreading along fence lines and drains, which is how it usually arrives.

  Photos and detail: USDA Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory

• Weed

  White snakerootalso Ageratina altissima

  Look for

  Knee to waist high in shade — woodland edges, under trees, along the shady side of a fence. Clusters of small fluffy white flowers in late summer, heart-shaped toothed leaves on opposite sides of the stem.

  Worst

  Late summer and autumn, and worst in a dry year when the pasture is bare and the shady edges are the only green left.

  What it does

  Causes trembling, stiffness and weakness — the old name is 'the trembles'. The toxin passes into milk, so a nursing animal can poison its young while showing little itself, and it passes to people through unpasteurised milk.

  What to do

  Fence animals out of shaded woodland edges in late summer rather than trying to clear it. Make sure there's enough feed in the open pasture that they aren't driven to the edges. Don't drink milk from an animal that's been grazing where it grows.

  Photos and detail: USDA Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory

• Weed

  Johnsongrass and forage sorghumsalso Sorghum halepense, Sudangrass

  Look for

  A tall coarse grass with a stout white midrib down each leaf and an open airy seed head. Spreads by thick underground runners. Along fences, ditches and anywhere a sorghum crop has been.

  Worst

  The first frost, and any drought-stressed or wilted regrowth. Young regrowth after a knockdown is the most dangerous stage there is.

  What it does

  Frost or stress turns it to prussic acid — cyanide. Animals go down within minutes, breathing hard with bright red blood. In horses it also causes bladder problems and hind-end weakness over longer grazing.

  What to do

  Keep animals off it for a week or two after a frost and after rain follows a drought. Don't turn hungry animals onto it. Grazing it tall and letting it stand rather than eating short regrowth is the safer way round.

  Photos and detail: USDA National Agricultural Library

Ring a vet now if you see any of these

Not a list to think about — a list to act on. Every one of these is measured in hours.

• Colic can kill a horse in hours and needs a vet now.
• Suspected snake bite is an emergency — antivenom is time-critical.
• An animal that can't get up or won't bear weight needs a vet now.
• Laboured breathing is an emergency.
• A suspected poisoning needs a vet now — what they ate changes the treatment.
• Birthing trouble is measured in minutes, not hours.
• A prolapse needs a vet now.
• Seizures need a vet now.
• Uncontrolled bleeding is an emergency.
• Pale or blue gums mean shock or severe anaemia — a vet now.
• Metabolic collapse is treatable but only quickly.
• Laminitis is an emergency in its early hours — the damage is done while it's still 'just soreness'.
• Choke needs a vet now.
• Sudden eye injury or blindness needs a vet now — eyes don't wait.