Re: [AlpacaTalk] Wild Cherry
Janice,
First thing to do is to contact the County or Regional forester and have them positively identify them as Black Cherry. The wilted leaves have cyanide in them. Wild Cherry could be any plant including a non toxic cherry that has gone wild. They are usually associated with the State's Extension office. Here is where your location would have been helpful in your signature!
Now the other advantage to the Forester is that he can tell you the value of the trees if you decide to remove them. This is a very valuable hard wood and it might be that you could have them removed for minimally free or even make some money. The forester could tell you how to proceed and provide names of reputable companies that harvest for use.
If you do have to remove them, please be very careful about who you use. There are some great companies out there that are very trustworthy and then there are many who will try to take advantage of you. If it is Black Cherry and good log size, it should not be cut into fire wood. That would be a terrible shame.
Laurel
Tim & Laurel Shouvlin
Bluebird Hills Farm
3617 Derr Rd.
Springfield, Ohio 45503
bluebirdhills@
www.bluebirdhills.
937-206-3936
----- Original Message -----
From: houckj@aol.com
To: AlpacaTalk@yahoogro
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 8:35 AM
Subject: [AlpacaTalk] Wild Cherry
I know Wild Cherry is toxic. Does anyone know the details? I know it
is the wilted leaves and the bark from what I have read. I have done
an inventory of my wooded pastures and discovered to my dismay they are
full of huge, tall mature wild cherries that are currently thick with
the cherries, which of course are dropping in the pastures. I have
never noticed this before, but then I have noticed a lot of wild fruit
trees bearing this year that have never borne fruit before. I believe
there is a panicked survival mode happening around here due to our
extended drought. Are the cherries toxic as well? Surely not.
I have had an estimate done on removing these trees......$
don't have that kind of money and would have to get rid of the alpacas I
have, before I could spend that kind of money. And I have no other
place, without cherry trees, to move them. I only have 4 left having
buried 2 breeding adults last year and numerous premature babies over
the past several years :-(. I guess I now know why all the premature
births - wild cherry? And I can only guess they are also the cause of
my two adult deaths. The stud male I had an autopsy done on and was
merely told he had some sort of intestional obstruction. He was fine in
the morning, dead by night, after much obvious distress for which the
vet could apparently do nothing. The female, I did not even know was
pregnant, was just dead in the pasture one morning with a nearly dead
baby a ways off from her. I managed to keep that baby alive only about
4-5 days. He seemed fairly strong and would drink from the bottle, but
he had some sort of deformity on one of his front feet that made it hard
for him to get around. He went downhill one night and was dead by the next.
The male died in the winter when I suppose it is possible he was eating
the dead leaves off the ground. I have seen many of them eating the
dead leaves......
most brutal heat wave. She was fine the day before, but didn't eat
dinner, and was dead by morning. The trees are so tall they cannot
reach their leaves, so I do not believe she was eating anything from
these trees.
These wild cherries are absolutely everywhere around here. If they are
so toxic how do wild life manage to survive? A walk thru revealed that
the horse pasture is full of them.....still in the bushy stage which I
am cutting out myself. The horses are not touching them.
What brought my attention to this whole situation was one of the alpacas
had pulled down a sapling and they had stripped it of its leaves, so I
didn't recognize what it was. I had it cut out one day as it was
hanging in my way, and saw the alpacas crowd around acting like kids in
an ice cream store. They were gnawing on the little branches left
behind and literally sucking up the sawdust off the ground from where it
had been cut like it was candy and I panicked. I got them away and
quickly cleaned up what was left.
Hence my dilemma.....
(the trees) out of there without creating more hazard from the sawdust
and also wild cherry is a weed that will sprout forevermore from the
stump left behind. One of the tree services that came out to give me an
estimate said to pour concrete all over all the stumps, when I told him
I wouldn't want to use an herbicide around the alpacas. How awful that
would be.
Do you think this is really what has been causing all my premature
births and deaths?
Thanks! Janice
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posted by Chaddo at 6:12 AM
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