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Post by fred on Aug 22, 2011 9:35:18 GMT
WOW! I wouldn't have thought that they take to it that much. But please take it slowly. It is important that degus have time to get used to new things in their diet. I would now wait for a few days before offering them oak again.
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Post by apology72 on Aug 22, 2011 21:49:32 GMT
Hello everybody, last year i picked up some Willow in a pasture walk. It was one of my first food collections, so I was still quite uncertain at the plant identification. In my opinion the willow was a white willow but i decided to put up a photo in the german forum. In our german degupedia <- a page with lots of information about degus there is an extra food sector. There are a lot of information about the suitability of many plants. Whether branches of trees and shrubs, herbs, etc. This page ranks willows in general as unproblematic.My Degus like the willow very much and i could not detect any problems. The weeping willow can be deleted from your toxic-list
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mhb
Burrowing Degu
Mystified and Entertained on a daily basis
Posts: 173
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Post by mhb on Sept 29, 2011 11:23:37 GMT
Sorry, I think I got lost somewhere in the science bit. I have access to a plum tree but couldn't quite draw a conclusion as to whether it was safe or not. Could someone help me out please?
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Post by malteser60 on Sept 29, 2011 11:35:46 GMT
I thought I would add a word of caution here to using willow identified in the field. As we all know weeping willow is ok for degus to use, as well evidenced by all the rodent toys you can buy that are made out of willow.
I was speaking to one of the ecologists here and she said that identifying different willow trees can be very tricky and difficult and it is quite easy to misidentify them.
So word of caution: be very very sure of your identification skills when feeding your degus willow twigs picked from outside.
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Post by fred on Sept 29, 2011 14:26:28 GMT
White willow is already on the safe woods list and goat willow (Salix caprea )will be included in the next update. In the German lists all willows (genus Salix) are considered safe. Are your concerned about identification, or do you have a particular species in mind that could not be as safe as the others?
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Post by fred on Sept 29, 2011 14:29:07 GMT
I have access to a plum tree but couldn't quite draw a conclusion as to whether it was safe or not. Wood from the plum tree is safe.
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Post by malteser60 on Sept 29, 2011 15:19:37 GMT
White willow is already on the safe woods list and goat willow ( Salix caprea )will be included in the next update. In the German lists all willows (genus Salix) are considered safe. Are your concerned about identification, or do you have a particular species in mind that could not be as safe as the others? Err, nope and nope.... I just wanted to point out that identifying willows are apparently quite difficult and tricky. As you know fred I don't have a great track record at identifying trees so I thought I would point this out for other, equally inept, people trying to identify willows. Just to be careful when ID'ing willows and to be extra sure. Mind you I must admit I didn't realise that all Salix spp. are safe so I guess my caution is not needed. Sigh! I will catch up with all this! EDIT: did you know that there are around 400 species of Salix! Are all safe?
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Post by malteser60 on Sept 29, 2011 15:31:59 GMT
To carry on with my ineptitude at trees.... When is the best time of the year to remove branches/twigs? This is not for the leaves but for the branches to be used in the cage. Will removing branches off a tree during winter harm it? Or do I have to wait until the tree is being pruned/needs to be pruned? How does one go about removing a branch stealthily? without damaging oneself? without having to climb up high to get the branch? Of course, if I find fallen fresh branches I'd rather pick up those!
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Post by fred on Sept 29, 2011 21:26:19 GMT
Well Alexia, as I mentioned earlier, you are not the only one with an ineptitude in this matter. My personal excuse is that the plant systematics guy was probably the worst prof at uni, and it made it plain torture . I just googled him and found he has now retired and can't to any more harm (the good news of the day ;D). But back to your serious question. As a general rule I would say that species in one genus should have the same properties. If there are exceptions, as in the case of some maple species, I would expect that this has been noticed. For the three toxic maple species that has been well documented in both scientific literature and pet forums. In contrast to some other wood lists, this one has been properly researched . In “toxic” trees, the poisonous substances are usually found in leaves, flowers or fruits. So far, I haven't seen anything that would suggest to me that the wood of any of our deciduous trees would be toxic for degus. The safe woods list on David's is for branches and leaves; for wood only the list would probably be even more extensive. However, since we now have so many trees to chose from, I think we can make do without these additional ones.
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mhb
Burrowing Degu
Mystified and Entertained on a daily basis
Posts: 173
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Post by mhb on Sept 30, 2011 11:06:25 GMT
Wood from the plum tree is safe. Thank you
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Post by malteser60 on Sept 30, 2011 13:30:18 GMT
Well Alexia, as I mentioned earlier, you are not the only one with an ineptitude in this matter. My personal excuse is that the plant systematics guy was probably the worst prof at uni, and it made it plain torture . I just googled him and found he has now retired and can't to any more harm (the good news of the day ;D). Hmm, wish I had that excuse! When it comes to marine animals I'm a demon at identifying them, my specialty being polychates. I even enjoy trying to ID the more harder groups like Syllids. So I thought, when it came to trees, no problem, i'm good at picking up on key identifying features. Yeah right! I look at the keys and everything starts blurring together and looking the same. then I start to get all worked up and worried, along the lines of 'well, this leaf does look like this one in the book, but it also looks a bit like this other one, and this other one, and this other one, argh! they all look the same!' ;D As for the willow for now I'll stick to toys bought in a shop. Now my next challenge is to figure out whether the birch tree in my garden is silver birch or a hybrid. I have a feeling it's most likely the latter as apparently it's hybrid's that are normally planted in gardens. Question is, can I still give the branch and leaves to my girls if it is a hybrid? And if yes that leads onto my other posts of when I can chop branches off (especially now we're leading into winter)?
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Post by davx on Oct 1, 2011 15:38:05 GMT
Identifying close related species is in general often a problem. Today many species are only distinguishable with molecular genetical methods. By the way dandelion is one of the worst plants, because what we know as dandelion are close related species rather hard to identify even for researchers. The difficulty is, that dandelion not only use sexual reproduction, they reproduce also by cloning seeds containing the same DNA as the mother plant (apomixis). But for us that is not of importance, it doesn't matter if dandelion is one species or are a huge group of similar species, it is a safe plant and that matters. The willow species are of course better distinguishable, but we have here in Europe only a small amount of species, in my region I have Goat Willow (Salix caprea) and White Willow (Salix alba) as main species. They are quite different and also the animals differ between this two species, White Willow is generally more liked here. Fact is that close related species in general contain similar ingredients and phytochemical compounds. If a species is toxic often there are also furter toxic species and if one species is a good fodder plant, often there are additional fodder plants. You can use the degree of relationship as an indicator for the probability if another species is also suitable or toxic, depending on the given knowledge. If you are unshure have a look in a book about toxic plants, they mostly list the important toxic species and give a good overview at least for well known species and genera like the willows.
To recap it is not always needed to know and identify plant species to the last detail and down to the species level. There are groups of safe plants you can trust if you know them. Others are more delicate and you have to take care finding the right species.
Yes you can. Hybridisation generally do not alter much the properties of contained plant compounds. If you can chop branches of depends on the amount of branches. In nature branches can be damaged by storm oder animals etc. a large tree can recover if it is not a thick branch and if it is, often the problem is, that fungi and other microbes can attack the wood at the fresh cutted surface. Therefore forester usually protect the cut surface immediatly after cutting with dye (? I'm not shure if this is the correct word).
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Post by Karma on Jan 5, 2012 3:52:43 GMT
Soooooo Prunus pensylvanica would be okay to cut down branches and give them to my goos?
I believe this is the tree I have out front, which is funny because my mom scared us to death because "We could die if we eat the berries" and they are apparently edible!!
I'm confused by all this different info about the cyanide amounts and tolerances. One website (another forum site) had a message from a vet that apple seeds were an okay daily treat for birds and I thought they were very toxic to birds!!
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Post by davx on Jan 5, 2012 6:03:45 GMT
P. pensylvatica is an american species I personally don't know. Therefore I searched for this plant and possible toxic effects. But it seems, that this species has edible fruits (as you said) and is considered as a useful plant of Canada: liafaydjam.blogspot.com/2007/01/prunus-pensylvanica-prunus-virginiana.htmlIt's in french... I assume that the wood is suitable for degus but I haven't checked this in detail yet. Apropos the effect fo cyanides, you have to keep in mind that herbivorous species like degus (but also rabbits, prairie dogs etc.) have to deal with plants prone to cyanide accumulation. The advantage for this animals is that cyanides are bitter and they can detect it. That means they won't eat to much of it, because it tastes bad if the amount of this substance is high. Another mechanism is, that some herbivores have mechanisms for cyanide detoxification or they can at least deal with higher quantities because they have a higher cyanide tolerance. By the way there are experiments with degus and drug tolerance in general (I believe they used substances related to opium or cocaine etc.) and the researchers pointed out that the degus are can better deal with higher amounts of this substances than we humans do.
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Post by animalmadchloe on Jul 15, 2015 19:08:06 GMT
Is this silver birch and is it safe ad one list says yes one says no....
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Post by Maravilla on Jul 16, 2015 7:02:08 GMT
I only know birch that has this typical white bark. Birch also has this typical reddish colour of the wood. And yes, it is suitable. Leaves I would not give in too big amounts (means as single food over some days) but stem and branches are often used as accessories. There are e.g. tunnels made of them.
Which list does say that birch is not safe?
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Post by animalmadchloe on Jul 16, 2015 7:26:21 GMT
I only know birch that has this typical white bark. Birch also has this typical reddish colour of the wood. And yes, it is suitable. Leaves I would not give in too big amounts (means as single food over some days) but stem and branches are often used as accessories. There are e.g. tunnels made of them. Which list does say that birch is not safe? Sorry marvilla, it's my reading I read it with out My glasses lol
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Numa
Newborn Degu
Posts: 6
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Post by Numa on Jul 23, 2023 5:07:10 GMT
Do anyone know if ''Trixie Wooden Sticks With Straw Natural'' are safe to give to Degus? I can't find any information on what wood this is.
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Post by bouncy on Jul 27, 2023 10:36:02 GMT
They're usually apple. Trixie products are degu safe
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