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Post by makeriotsnotdiets on Mar 7, 2012 17:33:25 GMT
finally got around to making my first mix. I've been slowly introducing new things and will soon throw it all into the enclosure. consists of: plantain, milk thistle herb, st johns wort, hazel leaves, lemon balm leaves, chamomile flowers, cornflower, rosebuds, marigold flowers, mint leaves, birch bark, willow bark plus the remainder (not much)of my JR herbs of the meadow. I ordered the majority of this from "futterparadies" for 27 euros (incl. P&P) and there is absolutely heaps of the stuff. will be placing another order hopefully tonight for a few more things. my last veggie drying attempt was a disaster so have no pics of this. also have a seed mix which resembles apology's.
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Post by NightwishRaven999 on Mar 7, 2012 17:47:28 GMT
Anthony this is just wonderful ! I bet the degus are very pleased ;D
Thank you so much for sharing. I would like to use one of the photos you posted for an article. I will pm you about the details.
Well done ! A great inspiration to me.
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Post by makeriotsnotdiets on Mar 7, 2012 18:50:58 GMT
Thanks Jordan. it means a lot. I am very new to goos and nutrition and for the 2 weeks of having them, my time has been spent on constant reading and learning... hopefully i'm going in the right direction.
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Post by Maravilla on Mar 7, 2012 18:55:13 GMT
I am pretty sure you are going in the right direction! This mixture is a wonderful start!!
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Post by davx on Mar 8, 2012 1:01:04 GMT
Fred asked the Futterparadies if they deliver to UK, but prices are pretty high. This was a topic here some time ago. It seems that in the UK it is difficult to find such a divers offer of herbs and dried plants.
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Post by deguconvert on Mar 8, 2012 3:17:25 GMT
I also have to congratulate you on your mix. It looks EXCELLENT! Really wonderful!! How have they taken to it? I bet they've checked it over pretty thoroughly!
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Post by dingdangdegu on Mar 8, 2012 10:09:16 GMT
Hi, I am trying to give me degus more of a natutal diet. I have dried a few things already but want to give them a lot of dofferent foods eventually. I have bought some jeruslem artichoke tubers that I am going to dry for my degus. I might also plant a couple too if degus can eat any part of the plant. Can they eat the stems, leaves or flowers? I have been serching but cant really find an answer. Im also looking at buckthorn bark, wormwood, burdock roots, chaste berries, raw cacoa nibs, senna pods, and sheep sorrel. Can anyone tell me about these please?
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Post by dingdangdegu on Mar 8, 2012 15:04:57 GMT
Oh and comfrey root...
Sorry if I have asked about too many.
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Post by Maravilla on Mar 8, 2012 16:10:08 GMT
Hi, it's wonderful that you are trying to give your degus some more natural food!! They will like it!! Jerusalem artichoke is fine. The tubers we cut in thin slices, dried them and give them as titbits. The leaves and flowers are perfect food as well and are very much enjoyed by all degus here. The stems you can feed but I am not sure if the degus will really like them if there are much better things to eat.
- buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica L.) I found as being toxic. - wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.) I didn't find any information but wouldn't try it out as there are so many safe alternatives - comfrey root (Symphytum officinale) I wouldn't give. I only found it as a medicinal plant for external application
The rest I have absolutely no idea of. Maybe Davx can write more about them. Do you have access to all these plants?
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Post by smithomatic on Mar 8, 2012 17:49:05 GMT
I dont know the science but I dont recommend wormwood, they use this to make the drink absinthe - a highly alcaholic and hallucinogenic drink.. Im not sure if its safe fresh but sometimes they include hole pieces of the plant in the drink, thats the part that makes you hallucinate Try some yourself though! lol, just be careful
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Post by makeriotsnotdiets on Mar 8, 2012 18:59:18 GMT
smithomatic is right. wormwood also induces nausea. (apart from drinking too much) this is what makes people vomit when they over indulge in absinthe.
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Post by moletteuk on Mar 16, 2012 17:51:44 GMT
burdock root (arctium major) is not thought to be safe, I don't know why. Sheeps sorrel (Rumex acetosella) is likely to be OK in small quantities, but proceed with caution as the information I found was for other types of sorrel.
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Post by davx on Mar 17, 2012 10:01:47 GMT
Burdock should be suitable. It is considered as human wild food. Suitable for humans are stems, seeds and roots.
Source: Fleischhauer et a. (2007): Essbare Wildpflanzen [=edible wild plants]. AT Verlag, Baden.
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Post by moletteuk on Mar 17, 2012 11:17:47 GMT
That's good you think Burdock should be OK.
Davx, Can I ask a bit more about the philosophy of which plants should be safe? Is it a case of if it is safe for humans, then it is likely to be safe for degus with their more sophisticated herbivore gut? (but being cautious with strong medicinal plants and oxalic acid content)
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Post by davx on Mar 17, 2012 11:46:26 GMT
No it is in fact more complicated. When I started I was very critical and considered many plants as toxic or not suitable I later learnt to use and some of them are in fact good degu food. It is much experience I made or I exchanged/shared with other pet owners. This gave me a coarse feeling of what might be okay and what I have to check before trying it out. Literature for me is still an important source of information. In fact many plants suitable for humans are also suitable for animals, but we have to check which parts are used and how are they used. Also I often check the plant compounds contained in a plant and of course I use my senes, how looks the structure like, how does it smell, is there milky or clear sap, etc. there is so much information a plant can give you, but experience and the exchange with other pet owners is a vital aid. Finally it is a trial and error approach, we start with unproblematic plants and then trying out the more problematic ones, carefully and by observing the degus, how do they react. Even actually I do not feel like going to the limits, some toxic plants are a no go for me, even there are some observation from other owner or from literature, telling me, that the plants were unproblematic. Such an example is Taxus (yew).
Btw. i have to mention that I went deep in literature about plant compounds and how wild animals deals with this substances (e.g. the race of herbivores and plants with anti herbivore startegies and counterstrategies of the mammals).
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Post by deguconvert on Mar 18, 2012 3:27:53 GMT
I am curious to hear more about the saps, Davx. Dandelions have milky sap, I know, and apple trees must have clear sap, as I've never seen one bleed milky liquid . . . and both of these are suitable for degus to eat. (Or do I need to look at the apple tree leaves to know this?) So, what is it about that sap that you are taking cues from? Would you be willing to elaborate on this?
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Post by moletteuk on Mar 18, 2012 11:46:52 GMT
Thanks Dave. Is it possible to tell how good at judging safety the degus are? Do you often find that they will reject a plant you're not sure about? I'm quite intrigued by the conflict between the instinct to find and eat plants that provide nutrients they may be lacking and the other instinct to eat higher calorie foods for short term gain that aren't necessarily healthy long term.
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Post by davx on Mar 19, 2012 0:36:21 GMT
Well what I could observe was, that they know what good food is. Degus generally prefer plants rich in nitrogen (nitrogen is an indicator for protein) and low in fibre and lignin. Also they reject plants if the amount of tannins is too high, e.g. it was the case by oak leaves. On the other hand, I could observe, that they are fond of Calendula flowers, cabbage, wood-sorrel (Oxalis stricta), clover and so on.
It's not a perfect system, I assume, but it is tolerant and it works some kind with rules of thumbs. The bigger the imbalance or deficit of some nutrients, the bigger the need of the animals to compensate it. Of importance is of course a broad offer of different food items/plants and composition of nutrients and I assume that it plays a big role if food is processed. I noticed that degus can deal with nuts like it is known from wild mammals. They do not eat all them at once and I think it is a wrong thinking that they are bad because of their fats. In addition degus are used to deal with nuts, it is a common food item, at least for some degu populations in the palm forests of central Chile. What I observed was, that they fed on walnuts in bigger quantities first, then after a while they lost their interest in cracking and eating the nuts. Instead they buried their nuts in the big sand bath. In the following months they rejected nuts completely, after some months I observed the degus, how they started to excavate their nuts in very small quantities, it was about 1-2 nuts per week for the whole degu groups. Also they opened the nuts and didn't eat all of its content but they cracked and ate for several days on a single nut. Later the demand increased again, but never reached the initial quantities again, as long as they had enough of their stored nuts. In contrast to grains and especially processed food I often have the impression that they eat more than they really need.
My approach was, and what I can recommend, is to start with good fodder plants, with few species, the one you are familiar with. Then it is a process of learning and enlarging the own knowledge, the trust/confidence in the knowledge and own experience as well as the experience of the degus. For me it tooks several years to know a pretty broad offer of suitable plants, to understand what degus select for. In addition it is useful to learn some basics about nutrients in plants (the main nutrients are: fats, carbohydrates and proteins), how is a plant constructed (e.g. cell walls often use cellulose to stabilize the plant, woody plants use in addition lignin, an indigestible plant matter), how do a plant or plant part (e.g. leave) grow, how do a plant deal with herbivores (animal repellants, toxic substances, compensatory growth etc.) and so on. All this is especially important if there is little exchange among experienced degu owners about feeding this way. If this exchange is given, there is vital support from the experienced owners helping the learn process.
Apropos in scientific literature there are studies about how degus deal with tannins and there are also studies about drug tolerance of degus.
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Post by davx on Mar 19, 2012 0:48:48 GMT
Faith, it is not necessarily of importance that the sap is clear or milky. But milky saps often are toxic or slightly toxic. This was also considered for dandelion but there is no serious proof for this and experience with keeping and feeding various animals also showed no sign that the sap is problematic, even when fed in large quantities.
How I use the sap as indicator is quite simple: 1. I check do I know the plant and is the sap milky? If so I use my experience and knowledge and ask me, is the plant a good fodder plant 2. If I do not know the plant and the sap is milky, I use this as sign that remembers me to check if this plant is toxic. I search what other animal owners observed when fed this plant and I search for information if the animals in wild use this plant or is it a common fodder plant for lifestock.
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Post by deguconvert on Mar 21, 2012 3:48:32 GMT
Thank you for that, Davx. It was my understanding that milky sap was toxic as well, which left me rather confused . . . once I started actually thinking about it . . . how could dandelion then be safe? Your check list is of great help . . . gives any/all of us a very useful method of helping to determine safety when we encounter something unfamiliar or new that we wonder about.
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