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Post by moletteuk on May 11, 2020 16:30:26 GMT
I can't think of what that could be, nothing springs to mind. Maybe it is something quite local to you, or not local to me anyway. If you are on facebook there is a group called Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland and they are really good at IDing things from photos if you can put a photo on there. You can also use the BSBI map to check distribution of any wild plant in GB, type the name in the taxon name box and it will give you options bsbi.org/maps
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 11, 2020 16:35:03 GMT
I’m just about positive it’s a variety of anemone, the centre of the flower is matches perfectly with other white anemones. What’s throwing me is the size of the plants. I’ll have to look closer because it’s mashed up with flowering currant. The leaves match too from pictures I’ve looked at. I’ll check out that group you mentioned, thank you!
Oh! Are anemones edible for the degus if dried?
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Post by moletteuk on May 11, 2020 16:45:01 GMT
It looks anemone should be safe dried, but I would be careful with it, don't mix it in with anything else.
Could it be an escaped garden japanese anemone, with latin name Anemone hupehensis x vitifolia = A. x hybrida Only thing is they don't have tubular flowers and the yellow would be on the anthers rather than the petals, I think. Anemones should all have lots of stamens/anthers, the sticking out male parts with pollen.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 11, 2020 17:03:33 GMT
The petals are pure white. The centre is a lighter yellow and the sticky out things (stamen?) surround the centre and are a darker yellow. I’m going to need to try and remember my Flickr passwords because I’m really bad at explaining lol
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Post by bouncy on May 12, 2020 13:42:54 GMT
Flickr now charges something like $400 a year to be able to post pictures on forums. Try something like village.photos or just add here as an attachment, and I'll rehost it later.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 14, 2020 10:45:48 GMT
Apparently it’s a type of rubus. Beneden. Is the entire rubus family edible? I know brambles/blackberry bushes are safe.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 14, 2020 10:47:28 GMT
Flickr now charges something like $400 a year to be able to post pictures on forums. Try something like village.photos or just add here as an attachment, and I'll rehost it later. Thank you for the suggestion, I’ll look into that. It’s been ages since I was on Flickr so had no clue. £400?!?! Jesus I posted on the group that was suggested and it’s been ID’d as Rubus Beneden.
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Post by bouncy on May 14, 2020 13:40:45 GMT
Yep, it's a rose relation. I can't see anything suggesting toxicity. Start with the leaves, but only stems if they have no thorns on them (because degus are miniature kamikazes)
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 14, 2020 14:11:49 GMT
Yep, it's a rose relation. I can't see anything suggesting toxicity. Start with the leaves, but only stems if they have no thorns on them (because degus are miniature kamikazes) Apparently the fruit can be edible as well, although I’m confused at just how to tell if it’s edible (I like collecting berries and whatnot for the humans in the house). It’ll give me something to figure out anyways. I’ve already foraged some of the flowers - I’ll dry some leaves as well and try the degus on them. I’m grabbing the flowers now because they’ll only be about for a bit, but I won’t try them on the flowers until the leaves are confirmed okay. The goos are suckers for flowers though, they are loving all the variety right now. Red campion, cherry blossom and double salmon berry flowers are firm favourites. The meadowsweet is coming up as is the ribwort - I’ve already managed to forage at least twice as much as I did last late summer/fall (which was when I started foraging for them). Ive got 6 ziplock bags full of dried Japanese (pink larger flowers) cherry blossom and they go nuts when they see it. They really enjoyed having whole branches with the fresh flowers and leaves - it was the first fresh thing they’ve all taken to... usually fresh gets me confused disgusted looks from them lol. Right, thanks for the continued support, I really appreciate it!
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Post by bouncy on May 14, 2020 16:25:23 GMT
Flowers should be fine, but we generally advise against giving berries. These usually contain a lot of sugar and, as goos are naturally diabetic..........
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Post by moletteuk on May 14, 2020 17:20:59 GMT
I can't see a reason why the leaves wouldn't be OK, the common name seems to be flowering blackberry and it also looks quite closely related to blackberry. Just let them test it out with a couple of leaves first, as normal for a new plant.
Glad you found out what it was!
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 17, 2020 16:50:47 GMT
They love the tridel berry (the rubus) leaves - haven’t tried them on the flowers yet but I’m sure those will be a win also.
I have a couple of quick questions.
Ground ivy ( Glechoma hederacea) - I’m getting contradicting information from my internet searches. I’m assuming it’s safe given in small quantities but I wanted to check
And I know comfrey (Symphytum tuberosum) is fine, I believe it’s a yellow plant (no more than 10% of overall diet) but are the flowers safe also?
Thank you!
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Post by bouncy on May 17, 2020 17:01:08 GMT
Comfrey is fine. I seem to remember ivy is a big no-no, but I'll try to confirm.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 17, 2020 21:34:06 GMT
Comfrey is fine. I seem to remember ivy is a big no-no, but I'll try to confirm. Thank you
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Post by bouncy on May 17, 2020 23:11:38 GMT
Double checked - definitely do NOT give ivy!
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 18, 2020 8:30:10 GMT
Double checked - definitely do NOT give ivy! Thank you sad days because I’ve found an amazing patch of them just growing. I usually use the degu international ingredients database as a bible of sorts, but there’s so much information in German (they love their degus don’t they?!) that sometimes it gets confusing.
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Post by bouncy on May 18, 2020 8:56:31 GMT
That's OK. Tbh that's my starting point for information on plants, but I speak German There's enough ivy in my garden to feed my lot for a year, so I know exactly how you feel. I picked a whole load of buttercups, only to find they're also toxic fresh
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Post by moletteuk on May 18, 2020 10:26:40 GMT
I just found some tuberous comfrey myself the other day, it's quite a scarce plant where I live. I can't find anything specifically on the flowers, the roots and leaves are mentioned for the active ingredient. It's definitely a small amounts only plant and the younger growth has higher concentration of the problematic alkaloids. I'm not finding much on ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), it has been used as a salad ingredient for humans, non toxic to dogs but has been known to be toxic to horses. My poison plant books says it has been known to cause breathing difficulties in livestock. Probably a proceed with caution in small amounts if you want to. I'm pretty sure our old plant expert on the forum, Davx, fed some actual ivy (Hedera helix) with no ill effects, not something I would recommend though. ( bouncy ground ivy is completely unrelated to ivy ivy)
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on May 18, 2020 10:47:44 GMT
I just found some tuberous comfrey myself the other day, it's quite a scarce plant where I live. I can't find anything specifically on the flowers, the roots and leaves are mentioned for the active ingredient. It's definitely a small amounts only plant and the younger growth has higher concentration of the problematic alkaloids. I'm not finding much on ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), it has been used as a salad ingredient for humans, non toxic to dogs but has been known to be toxic to horses. My poison plant books says it has been known to cause breathing difficulties in livestock. Probably a proceed with caution in small amounts if you want to. I'm pretty sure our old plant expert on the forum, Davx, fed some actual ivy (Hedera helix) with no ill effects, not something I would recommend though. ( bouncy ground ivy is completely unrelated to ivy ivy) I’ve seen posts on degu international where people were including ground ivy in their mixes. I have all my plants colour coded green yellow and red so that I don’t actually overfeed any particular plant. This is the first I’ve considered anything with ‘ivy’ in the name - we have plenty of the other ivy you mentioned growing around here, but I haven’t been interested in it. I may just give it a miss to be safe... I worry that the degus will poison themselves but i think that their breed didn’t survive in the wild with a toxicity book to refer to before meal times. They’ve got to have some instinct don’t they?? I also read about ground ivy that it doesn’t seem to be much appreciated by the degus. I guess it’s just one of those plants 🤷🏻♀️ Thank you for the help!
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Post by moletteuk on May 18, 2020 15:02:17 GMT
I never think to look on Degus International, are they still on the go? I would be happy to give the ground ivy a try if you know other people who are into natural feeding it are giving it. It's a pretty scrawny plant anyway, so it's not like you are going to have masses of it.
Yeah, I was never tempted to try ivy, not worth it.
It's tempting to think that degus must have some instinct about which plants are edible, but it's probably not fool proof with certain toxic compounds, since livestock animals seem to manage to poison themselves now and then. I think the more you feed degus forage, you would think the better their nose gets at detecting and recognising things that haven't agreed with them before or just picking out the smell of unfamiliar things that will trigger them to be cautious. I certainly used to see my degus doing their own testing, having a nibble one day and then waiting to decide to give it the seal of approval until the next day.
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