Cattle Introduction One of the major obstacles preventing successful planting and establishment of oak seedlings on rangelands is browsing by herbivores such as rabbits, deer, and livestock. While screen cages have been used to protect seedlings from rabbits and deer, protecting seedlings from cattle has proved much more difficult. Cattle often nip off or trample unprotected oak seedlings. This damage is especially great in the late spring and early summer when other vegetation is drying up and young seedlings may be the only green plants around.
Cattle also tend to pull up, stomp, or bend small protective cages or shelters.
Consequently, to date, it has generally been recommended that cattle either be excluded from oak seedling planting areas by building small cattle-proof exclosures, or kept entirely out of pastures where seedlings are planted. Unfortunately, these approaches have significant costs associated with them. Small cattle exclosures are expensive to build and maintain. And eliminating livestock from large pastures for the five to ten years it can take for oaks to grow big enough to be resistant to browsing, takes land out of production, thus eliminating revenues. Treeshelters are tall, slender, double-wall plastic tubes that protect seedlings from physical injury and create a greenhouse environment favorable to more rapid growth.