Poplar for Cold Days

[CanoeTomah]

We keep some small logs of poplar for browse for days when we keep horses inside for a long time.
This is something my father used to have us do. I do not recall if it was supposed to do anything or just keep some bad cribbers from eating the hovels. It gives them something to worry on during a long day inside.

Has anyone else heard of this?

[mitchmaine]

i cut our fields back one spring and it was all young popple. the stuff i cut in the pasture was stripped clean of bark by our horses. popple is in the willow family. wonder if it doesn’t ease their pain or sooth their guts somehow? like aspirin or bute.
the old farmers around here used to cut sod with roots and dirt attached and throw it down for the cows with the same results. the stuff just vanished. salt, minerals?
every old barn had a root celar for turnip and pumpkins for cows. no body does that anymore. the old guys are gone along with a bunch of their secrets.
what end of maine do you come from?

[Eli]

When I was a kid we would throw a shovel or two of dirt to the sows in farrowing pen. My father said pigs like dirt. We farrowed some pigs in pens and some outside. I was young so I don’t know exactly what his thought process was. Eli

[mink]

didnt the say that popple bark was like a natural wormer?

[Michel Boulay]

That’s a saying that I heard also that it was a natural wormer.

Mike

[Anonymous]

My grandfather and other old horse loggers up here used to give them a stick of popple in the manger and they said it would worm the horses. I do know that a vet told one of my friends not to do it because the wood fiber was not good for the digestive track. However, I have seen my horses consume their share of wood in the barn, eat fir, poplar and hardwood browse, and not seem to have any ill effects.

[Tender Soles]

@Eli 39427 wrote:

When I was a kid we would throw a shovel or two of dirt to the sows in farrowing pen. My father said pigs like dirt. We farrowed some pigs in pens and some outside. I was young so I don’t know exactly what his thought process was. Eli

I got some pigs that were a bit young and seemed to be having trouble with putting on weight and dealing with the stress. I think they may not have been completely weaned. A friend who raises pigs for a living took a look at them and said to try throwing sod in with them because they are probably lacking minerals; particularly iron. You father may or may not have known the reasoning is for giving them the dirt, but they sure do go crazy on the soil and the roots of the sod as well.

[CanoeTomah]

Thanks, great I was thinking there was a reason other than giving them somethng to worry.
We have some woods in our winter pasture area and they will really bark any hardwood tree but seem to go for poplar 1st.

Mitch I am from the East Grand Lake are near the border.

[Eli]

My horses eat twigs and branches when we are in the woods some say they know what they need. However they didn’t need to trash my swamp white oaks, left them alone for 3 years then trashed them. The guy I got my curly horses from told me that’s why curly horses are so hardy they will eat brush or whatever it takes. I don’t know but mine are fat on good grass hay and a mineral.

I’m sure my father new why he fed the sows dirt he just never told me. Eli

[Jay]

I’ve always heard to throw some sod in with the sow and piglets for iron for the little ones (apparently none comes through in the milk). I’ve also heard of giving pigs wood ash and charcoal as a wormer – changes the ph of the stomach/intestines I guess. I’ve heard of poplar for worming horses in the winter or early spring – I wonder if it tricks the worm larva into thinking that the horses are on pasture so they pass their eggs – right into to manure pile instead of onto grass…. Jay

[Author]

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