I plan to plant a few trees (fenced off) in a corner of some fields so as to provide some natural shelter. There is plenty of advice on the web about which trees are poisonous to horses, but v. little on which are particularly good.

So far I am thinking of apple trees (for obvious reasons ), but would welcome advice on others.

Soil is pretty well drained sandy loam on gravel. Though there are one or two corners which get boggy in really wet weather.

mmmmm apple trees!

I know they are not strictly trees but there is nothing my pony loves more than a bit of Hazel!

And what pony may that be Jaquie?! :D How is Gracey?!

Are you going to have drunk ponies when you have an area full of fallen apples!!!!- or more to the point colic

Yup, that was my first thought - apple trees and equines, not a good mix. Unless you can remove the animals from the field from the first signs of fruit until all are gone, which would be a large chunk of the year.

Horse in the field behind my house died of a twisted gut after colicing from gorging on the fallen apples from a tree in my garden that fell into the field. I felt awful even though I had warned owner (various reasons why I couldn't access area to clear them) - a very nasty experience

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It is a good point about colic, hence my "fenced off" plan.

Apart from hazel, are there any other trees that they might be able to occasionally munch on without ill-effect? Or even bushes?

My boys love standing under an elderberry tree to get away from the flies.

My ponies love eating willow leaves. We have a big Crack Willow in the field and they do a giraffe impression to get the higher leaves.

Holley x

What about beech trees? Don't know of any ill effects from them (apologies if someone knows better) but the field I grew up with was surrounded and the ponies loved to keepthem trimmed! They are also indigenous to the Forest and very beautiful in their own right. Yes they will need protecting for a long time so how about underplanting with elder berry as sugested - it grows quickly to mediium height. also hawthorn slower growing but can be bought from garden centres as a 6' tree. Holly is fairly quick to grow and very popular for browsing on!! Incidentally we used to put sprays of elder into the ponies bridles to keep the flies off when we were riding - we never thought about looking silly and it worked

Willow and / or beech / and or birch all good.

If they have access to willow, they will (when necessary) use it to self-medicate against laminitis, too!

And you can go all Neanderthal and make your own willow poultices for pulled muscles, etc., in yourself

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Willow extracts a lot of water from the ground I believe, good if you have a boggy corner. I read an old book on SJing that advised picking some to take on long journies to help rehydrate the horses. Isn't there a natural anti-inflammatory extracted from willow bark?

Elaine - I think it is a little known drug called Asprin

Abbie - the fox of course - gracie is good, almost plump!!

J - Foxy eats absolutly everything anyway! And glad Grace is good! You going to see the foal when it is born?! We are still waiting! Are you taking Grace or any of them to the breed show this year?!

Yay, aspirin!

Willow (salix) species are the strongest natural source (I think) for salicylic acid, which is aspirin. The bark has the strongest concentration. That's why willow works for laminitis - thins the blood AND is anti-inflammatory.

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Holly is good as a windbreak and it's evergreen, of course. Plus foresters like to munch on it