Goats, Nectarine, Lemon and Tangelo prunings?

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11 years 8 months ago #30951 by Ghilly
I need to do a bit of pruning before I miss my window of opportunity this season. Are these plants poisonous to goats? I know Almond is. I'd rather let them have a pick at the branches I cut off first before burning and cutting up for kindling but I have to be 100% sure.

Cheers
Yakut

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11 years 8 months ago #417005 by Andrea1
almond and nectarine are in the same family. They are ok if fed fresh, but the problem is when they are fed wilted. My goats will browse on my peach trees when led through, and no one has ever come to harm. I have also fed prunings in the past past when I had branches break off in wind storms, but then over so many goats they are lucky to get more than a few mouths full. I know they LOVE citrus peels, so they may also like the tree prunings. As to the pruning, though, I thought stone fruits were meant to be pruned when bare/dormant? Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong about the pruning.

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11 years 8 months ago #417135 by LongRidge
With stonefruit in NZ, there is a high risk of the pruning causing silverleaf. It was found many years ago, and may have been disproven since, that pruning when the sap is still flowing reduces the risk of catching silverleaf.
I haven't had any problems with the goats eating peach and apricot prunings, or citrus prunings, but they don't get much all at once.
Only my cows will eat citrus, which is a shame because we cannot eat grapefruit any more and the tree has got very productive in the last few years .... :-(

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