What eats hedge apples?

I''m not sure anyone knows how long an osage orange fence post will last. A university somewhere has been running a test for over 50 years. Even the creosoted posts are showing rot. The osage orange is still unaffected.

Hedge aka ozark orange makes great posts to prevent them from splitting after cutting cure them in a pond for a year it causes the latex to set.
this should be done if one is making a Bow as well . I have a hand made OO bow that scares people half to death when they draw it as it creaks and cracks .
when planted close together and trimmed a hedge row can be a better fence than barb wire, the thorns are short and vicious on new growth the wood its self once seasoned is hard as a rock. we have some posts in the fence line that have been there for over 100 years .
as for eating the apples
deer squirrels and rodents seem to like them .
I tend to question the wives tales about repelling spiders as Ive seen many a web built on the apples and dont even believe the myth of repelling bugs as the first warm days you'll see the apples covered with various insects ants love them .

I had a few cut up hedge-apples in my house to repel spiders, and when they turned black I went to pick one up to throw away. My hand went right through a spider web, only inches away...

Word of caution. I worked for a large animal vet and one summer, on two different occasions - two different owners, saw two nice black angus cows come in with blockages in their throats from swallowing hedge apples.

Sadly, both cows had to be killed, they were dispatched right in the squeeze shoot at the vet clinic - no way to help them. Both farmers were able to take their cows into a local butcher.

__________________
You shall judge a man by his foes as well as his friends
~J. Conrad

We have a row of them along a portion of the fence line. Explains why the neighbor's cows congregate there in the afternoon--shade and insect repellent. There is no collection of fruit on his side of the fence, but tons on my side. Used to lob them ovr the fence for his cows until I heard one of them choked to death on one.