Wild Plant Picking! :D

[moletteuk]

The single best thing you can do for the diet of your degus is to feed them fresh plants, and so I made my second picking trip of the year today, I actually really enjoyed it It gets much easier once you get familiar with a few species of plants, and start to get to know your local patch.

After my picking trip a couple of weeks ago I made a small breakthrough with fresh feeding. I brought in a good handful of leaves in a shallow cardboard box to dry by the radiator, and my goos have been so lazy recently, in desperation to give them something interesting, I gave them the box with the plants in. To my astonishment they started to nibble some of the (still fresh) plants! Previously I have given them one or two pieces to see if they liked them, and most things just got sniffed and maybe licked, but then igored until they dried out. Any form of plants like this is good for your degus, but it is beneficial if they eat some fresh as they contain more vitamins and other compounds that we don't even understand and some of the nutrition is more available for the degu body to absorb when it is in its original moist form. Also, some plants contain silicates which are micro-abrasives and wear the teeth very effectively, and they are believed to work best when the plants are fresh.

Anyway, these are some of the things I found in abundance and collected today:

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)


Dock (Rumex)


Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) Look for groove up the main leaf stem to confirm species.


Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria)


Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)


Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)


Cleavers (Galium aparine)


Stitchwort (Stellaria) Related to chickweed


Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) (garden weed)


I also picked a few sprigs of hawthorn leaves and some sycamore leaves that had just broken out, some nettles and some creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)(which needs drying in sunlight to break down a potentially harmful compound). I picked absolutely loads today because everything is fresh and clean and easy to indentify and find at the moment. I will try again some fresh and dry everything else out for storage.

[klbishop]

Wow I wish I could do this!! Not much greenery in our neck of London

[ilikedegus]

I know all those plants - many grow around the edges of my garden (I'm lucky to live on the edge of the country).

There are things I already feed them, and some I had no idea I could feed them on that list!

They do get a fresh weed salad most days, not that they do much with it, Manny will look at it with a "what's this muck?" face.

Apart from the dandelion flowers, they both love those.

Thank you moletteuk, that will be an incredibly useful ID tool for many.

[ntg]

Well I recognise the first one it seems like you got a good haul today!

The silver birch leaves are only small still but I let them try some out and they all munched them up straight away! I still need to try hawthorn on them though... Oddly enough I was looking at dock the other day wondering whether to pick some.

[dusty]

I'm not too good at plant recognition but I might give it a go with these pics. I didn't know they could have doc there's loads in the garden
The girls have decided in the past month that fresh is good, grass, dandelion, daisies all available at my front door. They do like Hawthorn leaves but that means a walk to the park and having strange people staring at you like your nuts

[swiffermuis]

I always pick the dandelions at the bus stop when I go back home from work, it's always quite busy there. People look at me like I'm insane, so next time I'll bring a basket and hop around like a little girl.

I'm not good at plant identification either, I know some basic plants but then I'm still not sure. My garden has got a great variety in flowers and plants, but I have to wait for the flowers to grow before I can properly identify them.

[winic1]

I'm planning to grow a dandelion garden this year. My neighbors are going to just LUUUUUUUUVVVVV me! (Actually, only two of them care whether it's grass or just anything green growing in the "lawn".)

I thought garlic mustard was to be fed in limited amounts only? Don't know why, just seem to remember that because my yard is positively infested with it.

Things are finally starting to green up around here. Problem is, all these weeds are just so darned low to the ground. Old fart that I am, I don't "do" down low very well anymore.

And as soon as the baby bunnies and groundhogs are born, there go all the tasty weeds. As well as what should be my flowers.

[saddlers]

We have an abundance of dandelions about and bizarrely I had never tried them with the flowers before....two fo the girls have sat there chomping on the petals, everyone else...not impressed. I might try drying a few and see whether the response improves.

I also echo that it is great to see them listed with photos, it makes it so much easier...well done!!!

[moletteuk]

I'm really happy so many of you guys are interested and have been carrying on with this or trying it out already It would be really great if we could continue this and update it with what we are finding to pick and how the degus react.
You know the plant indentification isn't so bad if you just go out looking for 3 or 4 things, and while you are out you bring back samples of a couple of other things that were easily available and look them up, and then if they are safe, you add those to your repertoire, it doesn't take that long to become familiar with the common safe plants this way.
If you need help with plant ID, just post in this thread deguworld.proboards.com/thread/16771/flowers-weeds-identification

You are right Winic, degupedia says garlic mustard is ok in small amounts, perhaps it has allium/ garlic type substances in it. Dock is also best when the leaves are fairly young or in smaller amounts due to oxalic acid.

I think parks and wild places along rivers and railways can be good sources in cities and towns, klb.

I'll try and get some more and better pics if you guys think they are useful

[klbishop]

im growing a few bits in my work garden so fingers crossed. dont trust that all the plants near here wouldnt cause extra eyes and limbs !!

[ilikedegus]

If you're going for Cow Parsley then please make sure you can positively identify it.
There are similar species which are deadly (I'm thinking particularly of hemlock, which has pink spots/blotches on the stem).

Oxalic acid in dock is why I never thought to feed it to furries.
However my 2 remaining boys almost killed an indoor Oxalis plant by chomping it and that didn't do the degus any harm (contains oxalic acid - not sure how much!).

[winic1]

On things like the Gallium and Stellaria and Cardamine, do you think the exact species matters? Are there species of these genera (genuses) that should not be eaten?

I know I have similar plants here, but probably not the same species.

[Maravilla]

It is now my forth season I go out picking plants.
This is the amount I feed to a group of 4, it lasts for about 2-3 days: dandelion leaves and flowers and some roots, different types of grass, yarrow leaves, buckhorn, deadnettle, ground elder, daisies, clover. The other day I collected 1,4 kg for my 15 hungry noses (actually it looked far more).

Some groups go just crazy about all the fresh things, others do eat less of it and let the plants dry.

[ntg]

Do you just give them the roots fresh as well Maravilla?

[Maravilla]

Yes. Dandelion roots can be given fresh or dried. I do not even wash them, I just remove most of the dirt. Even the bought dried roots (at least here) are quite dirty so I don't see any reason for cleaning the stuff.

[ntg]

And here I was meticulously cleaning and drying some the other day. That's good to know though, I'll give them a go with fresh roots, thanks!

[ilikedegus]

winic1

Maybe some of your local species were traditionally eaten by humans?
Not sure if you can find out but it would be a guide.

[Maravilla]

May 8, 2013 9:07:09 GMT ntg said:

And here I was meticulously cleaning and drying some the other day. That's good to know though, I'll give them a go with fresh roots, thanks!

There is a saying here "dirt/mud cleans the stomach" . As long as it is not tons of soil (when the soil is wet or so) I do not see any reason for cleaning it meticulously. The very first summer we were looking for dandelion with roots for drying them for the winter, we cleaned both roots and leaves separately. Then we bundled the leaves and put them for drying below a roof in my parents' garden. We had to throw everything away as it did not dry but got spoiled.

[Jus]

Aw this looks great!i really wanted to go out foraging and got excited about doing it this summer Neil I looked at the thread regarding the legality if foraging. Ami right in thinking you need land owners permission, and if its public land I.e. owned by the council you can't forage. So it's publicly owned land only? Which in the UK is only commons? Was a bit confused about the whole thing and wasn't sure where it would be okay to forage other than the town moor, which is mostly just grass and scrub. Can anyone offer a bit of advice! Or even better, name anywhere locally?

[moletteuk]

@winic Don't forget this list of safe USA plants octodons.ch/index.php/Herbs There are 3 galiums listed on degupedia as safe, although they don't seem to be all that well like Galium aperine, chilense and verum are all safe, so that seems like a good indication the family is likely to be fairly safe. I'm not sure about similar cardamines. All the lists say that chickweed is safe, I've inferred that stitchwort is safe, there are lots of plants in this group that all seem very similar. I think you just need to cautiously try things. My degus wolf anything down except plants, which they seem to be cautious about and even do their own testing, they sometimes only eat a little for 24 hrs if it's something new, and then proceed to eat more.

@jus I've replied on the foraging law thread.

ilikedegus quite right about the cow parsley, there are lots of similar species, of which hemlock is very poisonous. They seem to cope with small but regular quantities of oxalic acid quite well, dock is quite a popular food and widely used in Germany, parsley is also common and really well liked, it's just something to bear in mind and make sure they are getting enough calcium.

The only time I really wash things is if it's from a possible dog walking area and the plants were too good to pass up.

Also be aware of weedkillers and lawn treatments that might make some town plants unsuitable.