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Post by winic1 on Nov 18, 2011 16:25:36 GMT
At least over here, golf courses are pesticide and herbicide playgrounds--they use more chemicals to get that perfect green grass than ANY other type of location, so be careful about using plants from anywhere near or alongside a golf course. Even "all natural" or "organic" pesticides are still chemical treatments (plenty of natural and organic things will kill you, and quite efficiently, too).
I have also seen fertilizer/weed killer applied to the sports fields at our town's schools and parks, and without the required-by-law warning signs put up, at least not where I could find them, so I don't trust anything on town property that's anywhere near parts that look nice or cared for. Which is a shame, really limits some temping vegetation, but since I can't be sure it isn't contaminated, I don't dare.
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Post by coronasol on Nov 19, 2011 19:15:16 GMT
Don't worry, my mum won't pick anything from the golf course! Although they're not allowed to use poisonous pesticides due to the wildlife and nature in the area. It's a very good point to make though
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Post by fred on Nov 25, 2011 20:33:40 GMT
A couple of weeks ago, Apology showed us her latest creations. This time her mixes were made up of ingredients bought from the German company FutterParadies. They sell a wide range of dried plants and seeds at what I believe are very reasonable prices. Also most of the JR Farm products. After davx kindly facilitated the initial contact, they have now given me details of the postage for delivery to the UK: 2kg - 15EUR 4kg - 16EUR 6kg - 17EUR 8kg - 18EUR 10kg - 20EUR 12kg - 21EUR 14kg - 22EUR 16kg - 24EUR 18kg - 25EUR 20kg - 26EUR 25kg - 28EUR 31,5kg - 31EUR Delivery to any of the islands would be an extra 16,66EUR. Package will be, dependent on volume order, between 0,5 and 2,5kg. This needs to be taken into account when calculating the total weight. Prepayment would be required (Futterparadies is a trusted supplier on deguforum.de). I believe this would be a fantastic resource for anyone interested in providing their degus with a healthy and varied diet. Their prices seem competitive enough to make the postage acceptable, even more so if members living near to each others managed to put a joint order together. Have a look at their site FutterParadies. Automated translation should suffice for some initial browsing. If several members are interested, I am prepared to provide a list with the translated names of plants, seeds, etc.
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Post by NightwishRaven999 on Dec 7, 2011 5:55:58 GMT
I must apologize for delayed update. About two weeks ago, I decided to try out a different vegetable drying technique. The photos posted by Apology have been a great inspiration, and like was illustrated on page 11, I tried drying Red Pepper, Yellow Pepper and Orange Pepper, Carrots, Parnips, Celery, Courgette and Italian Tomatoes by choping them up into small cubes. Result: Lost all of the Italian tomatoes, but all the rest came out exactly like I wanted. Success ! The degus are now enjoying a dried vegetable mix along with their herb/plants/flower mix and the new seed mix I will be posting about shortly.
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Post by deguconvert on Dec 7, 2011 15:05:14 GMT
It looks great, Jordan!! I love all the colours in there! It looks like it should give them lots of taste and chew variety
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19Uhr30
Warbling Degu
Keep calm and DFTBA
Posts: 40
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Post by 19Uhr30 on Dec 7, 2011 15:23:35 GMT
That looks really good. But I have to admit I am happy to have all those online shops here, that sell this stuff to me. I guess I would be too lazy to dry my degu's food by myself...
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Post by NightwishRaven999 on Dec 8, 2011 8:02:18 GMT
Thanks Faith ! I am pleased with the mix as well @ Benjamin Actually, I do envy you. The cutting and drying is time consuming and it takes vigilance to keep an eye on everything to see if it is drying properly and not rotting. Also, when the vegetables loose their water content, they shrink...so it take A LOT of vegetables to produce a mix that can last for a month...(something which I am learning at the moment). Ealier in Autumn I had collected a large amount of fresh greens, flowers, grasses, plants and herbs. It took hours to sort out and clean and I was estimating my supply to last until January/February. After a week of drying, the once "large amount" became not so large...now it is almost gone Atleast I know that next year, I will need to collect thrice this amount to last for the whole winter. There is snow on the ground 6 months a year here, so the "actual" winter can be quite long. Having an online shop would indeed make things easier for some of us...but on the other hand it would not be as fun. It has actually become a pass time going hunting for new ingredients to include in the mix ;D
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Post by moletteuk on Dec 8, 2011 16:50:05 GMT
I can recommend blackberry leaves for not disappearing away to virtually nothing once you've dried them. Obviously, they do reduce in volume a lot, but much less than things like dandelion and parsley.
Unfortunately, my goos have changed their mind about how much they like them and turn their nose up at them now I have a big bag *rolls eyes*
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Post by Kat on Dec 8, 2011 18:15:42 GMT
I second blackberry leaves. They dry very well. What did you do about the thorns? I cut them all off the leaves but I took AGES
Kat X
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Post by Maravilla on Dec 8, 2011 19:02:42 GMT
These thorns aren't a problem for degus, no need to cut them off. The big advantage of blackberry is that leaves are often available throughout winter. Best time to collect them is spring as the young, fresh leaves don't have such strong thorns. I collected a lot last year... my goos didn't like them...
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Post by moletteuk on Dec 8, 2011 19:31:40 GMT
I cut the thorns off at first, but now I just leave them on, I've never heard the slightest yelp to suggest they can't handle them.
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Post by fred on Dec 8, 2011 22:48:26 GMT
This looks really great Jordan! Which drying technique did you use for these? What happened with the tomatoes – I am curious because I had two attempts and the one with cubes failed while the one with thin slices worked nicely.
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Post by davx on Dec 8, 2011 23:19:32 GMT
@marlén We had this topic also at deguforum.de. There are several degu owners reporting that their degus deal well with the thorns.
Perhaps it's silly, but I have to ask this question, is it common in Québec to import tomatoes from Italy?
Yeah, I know that. Last year I dried tons of herbs, leaves and also some flowers... I filled the garret and finally I filled the stuff in sacs.
Right, that was also my motivation... and I think the quality is better.
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Post by NightwishRaven999 on Dec 9, 2011 2:25:28 GMT
This looks really great Jordan! Which drying technique did you use for these? What happened with the tomatoes – I am curious because I had two attempts and the one with cubes failed while the one with thin slices worked nicely. Fred, I can relate to your own experiences well My last attempt at drying tomatoes by cutting them into thin slices was a success. But my attempt at drying the cube shaped pieces failed miserably. Instead of drying, they were rotting. I will not try this method again, unless I have a dehydrator in the near future. @ David Not quite. Québec relies mostly on its own tomato production during the summer but relies on Mexico for tomatoes in the winter, autumn and spring. Tomatoes can be grown indoors during the winter and are popular in the large green houses located on the roofs of large buildings...but the produce being grown this way does not yet meet the demand. A growing trend in Québec is to build greenhouses on top of large office building and supermarkets. This is the best way of using energy effeciently while growing exotic produce during the cold winter months. The italian tomatoes are grown here, rather than important from Italy. I tend to go towards this type of tomato because of the seemingly lower water content and smaller amount of seeds. I find it is easier to dry than some of the other tomato types.
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Post by fuzzymum1 on Feb 24, 2012 13:38:35 GMT
I keep coming back to this thread and whilst I supplement my goos' xtravital with flower and herb mixes I have never had the guts to have a go at making a mix to replace part/all of the xtravital.
So far I have:
'foreign finch mix' which is made up of Panicum millet, white millet, canaryseed, red millet, niger, jap millet. (I can buy this loose in my local pet shop and they have other seed mixes too)
To that I plan to add quinoa, buckwheat small amounts of sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and a few oats.
I have ordered a good selection of dried herbs and veggies from the hay experts: Plantain Natures Salad Mountain Meadow Herbs Herbs Plus Herbal Garden Ginko Plus Dandelion Delight Dandelion & Nettle Roots Country Garden Herbs Coneflower Coltsfoot (I will go easy on this one)
Do I have everything covered here? Is there something else I need to add to the mix to ensure it's more balanced?
They get (and will continue to do so) small amounts of fresh veggies - they like broccoli, cauliflower leaves, kale and (when I get it reduced to clear!) some asparagus tips,
I will continue with some xtravital for now but I would eventually like to move over to mixes like this 100%
I also have a nice heap of apple branches that they get fairly regularly since my neighbour heavily pruned their apple tree when they relocated it a few weeks ago.
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Post by fred on Feb 24, 2012 13:53:19 GMT
This sounds excellent *happy* With this selection you can go 100% any time you want. With spring advancing, you will soon be able to find additional plants outside, which you can add to the mix(es).
As long as you feed some XtraVital, which is rather energy-rich, I would leave out the oil seeds and pick the maize and flakes from the Natures Salad to use them as treats only.
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Post by fuzzymum1 on Feb 24, 2012 19:14:14 GMT
This sounds excellent [a href=" "] [/a] With this selection you can go 100% any time you want. With spring advancing, you will soon be able to find additional plants outside, which you can add to the mix(es). As long as you feed some XtraVital, which is rather energy-rich, I would leave out the oil seeds and pick the maize and flakes from the Natures Salad to use them as treats only.[/quote] That's good to hear, thanks, maybe I should do a gradual changeover once I have everything I've ordered and phase out the xtravital sooner rather than later
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Post by Karma on Feb 26, 2012 22:19:10 GMT
Unfortunately here in Calgary, any foraging will have to wait probably until june since we have such a long winter season (although it has been insanely warm this winter!). I'm getting impatient waiting for the ability to collect the plants I know are alright for them to eat.
What would be the best couple of plants to start that I could grow inside? There didn't touch the sprouted millet seeds but I'm trying them again since that was a while ago. I'm going to try drying some carrots and zuchinni that I have in the fridge later today.
They LOVED (understatement) the margiold flowers that I collected right as I got them from the seeds that hadn't blown away yet but the marigolds normally take until late at least to bloom so we are a long way away from that. -sigh- They won't eat dill from my salad mix I buy, eat a tiny bit of spinach once, tiny bit of spring mix, carrot and sweet potatoe. They also love spray millet and a basic cockatiel mix with saffron seeds, various millets and sunflower mix (treat used in enrichment toys I make) plus their regular versele-laga pro pellets and degu nature.
I haven't been able to identify the species of oxalis plant (I think), all my mom knows is that it's a shamrock (pink/purplish flowers) so it's a no go as well -sigh-
What is an easy plant to care for inside that is degu friendly (and would probably like?) Thanks!! Can't wait until I can go collect yummy stuff for them!
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Post by fred on Feb 27, 2012 23:51:28 GMT
You could grow from a mix of all your seeds, not just the millet. I found that the less popular ones are better taken up when part of such an assortment ( deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=food&thread=9785&post=74058 ). We are currently working on a feeding guide for www.degus-international.org which will list a number of greens that can be bought in local supermarkets and will make good natural nutrition during the winter months. For example, most salad is OK. I buy mixed salad leaves from the supermarket and that's very popular with my girls. A veg that dries well is celery; you can cut it long strips and offer them as celery sticks (which is more interesting than small cubes).
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Post by fred on Feb 28, 2012 10:42:25 GMT
A bit more about celery. It has a low sugar content and is therefore more suitable than some other veg. It is excellent value for money; here in the UK I usually buy it for 60 pence at Lidl, which lasts quite a bit. I try to pick the one with the most leaves, which are popular by themselves . Some of it I dry near the radiator, which normally takes 2 days. The celery sticks are one of the girls' favourite treats.
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