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This year's hot, dry summer is resulting in more unripe acorns on the ground, posing a danger for multiple animal species, including horses.

If horses eat too many unripe acorns, they can be poisoned. Acorn poisoning in horses is usually associated with autumn storms, when lots of green acorns and leaves are blown down from the trees and eaten by horses for lack of other food. This year, there are already many more green acorns on the ground than is normal for these months. 'It's crucial that people who have horses watch out that they don't eat any acorns or oak leaves', warns Dr Marianne Sloet, professor of Equine Internal Medicine at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

What are the signs of acorn poisoning?

The main toxins in acorns are tannins. In horses, symptoms of acorn poisoning are drowsiness, poor appetite, colic, bloody diarrhoea and dark-coloured urine, signalling kidney damage. Occasionally, the horse may die very suddenly. According to Sloet, 'If a horse falls ill and there is any possibility it may have ingested acorns, call a vet as quickly as possible. One of the things they can do is administer paraffin by nasal catheter and put the horse on an IV drip. Feeding it a linseed mash furthermore has a laxative effect. In terms of prevention, don't pasture horses in fields where there are lots of acorns on the ground, fence off areas around oak trees and possibly feed them some hay before putting them out to pasture.'

Impacts of dry summer

Pita Verweij, assistant professor at the Copernicus Institute, explains that 'The persistent lack of rainfall this summer has led to more unripe acorns on the ground. Like other plants in drought conditions, oaks have been using all their energy for survival, rather than for growing acorns. Already, climate change has caused a trend of acorns falling three to four weeks earlier than was normal 50 years ago; now, the high temperatures are compounding that effect.'