I've given my rabbits pine cones as a toy when I can gather some (no pine trees in my yard) for years. My uncle was very sweet and collected two trash bags ful of pine cones for me. Most of them chew the cones up, so I was wondering - is there any nutritional value to the pine cone?

wiki answers - so take this with a grain of salt- says
(and it was harder to find than it should have been - cause everybody wants to tell you how good pine nuts are!)

basically the cones themselves have little to no nutritional value but the seeds/nuts will have value - and it depends on the type of cone and how mature it is

does that make sense?

interesting

Thanks for looking that up. One person I talked to said fiber could be part of it. I guess it doesn't matter, I give them more for toys than for food.

No need to thank me - I was interested myself - a couple of my clowns REALLY like pine cones - some of the other ignore them totally - i had always presumed they were just toy value so checking it out was actually on my to do list - I just didn't know it

I can't answer your question about nutrition but I do give mine pinecones too, mostly just for toys and entertainment value. I would think they're pretty good for fibre, though. Like Brody said, some of mine love them and some couldn't care less but they all get one from time to time. I have a few big pine trees on my property so I have a good supply of them most of the summer.

toys.... what a great idea. Poor Chuck gets SO bored and he always dumps the toiletpaper rolls into the water crock. Eats the hay, then drops the tube into the crock. always. At least a pinecone won't get soggy and slimy

Ann, I always give my bunnies natural or recycled toys. They LOVE cardboard boxes, we save the boxes "female products" come in, toilet paper tubes, boxes that canned soda comes in, etc. Also woody vines or twigs from safe trees are good. If you spend a little extra money, golf balls are fun too. Oh and crumpled pieces of scrap paper are great too.

Under our pines we find layers of shredded cones. The squirrels tear them up to eat the seeds but then the goats go out and eat the individual bracts and so I am guessing that if our buns can get to the seeds and chew a bit of the rest they will be adding to their nutrition but mostly keeping entertained! Who has buns that can dismember the cones? The spines must deter ours. They just noodle them.
B~

Okay. I just gave everyone toys of some sort. And 1" - 1.5" diameter branches to chew on.

You'd think they'd all died and gone to heaven. WOW. Chuck was extremely happy with his branch. So were the NWZ weened guys. sheesh. Barely noticed they had more food in the pans.

Even Peter (Sr. Nwz buck) started gnawing and tossing things around.

everyone had trays, small box covers, soemthing, to carry around before..but these are a HUGE hit.
rolling balls, soda cans with pebbles...no bells yet. maybe later

EXCELLENT

thanks for reporting back

It's so easy to make a bunny happy!

I'm so glad I started reading from the back of this area tonight, I had no idea that Pine trees were on the safe list for buns. I have MANY White Pines on my property & have only used the cones for crafts before. Hmm ... thinking bribery of my 15 yr old is in order to get a bunch of cones collected. Are the branches & leaves (needles) on the bun yummy list ?

Jane

the tips of the branches would be okay-- don;t go for heavy ingestion of conifer needles/leaves. Conifer plants themselves are a last ditch source of nutrition for wild animals--

I was thinking along the lines of them being the only green thing outside for our long cold winters, that they might be a nummy once a week or so.

Oh sending a 15 yr old to collect pine cones, not such a good idea ... he came back with only a few & a snake he found.

Mine loved bits off the spruce trees and even in winter with ice coating them I could find green sections. I wouldn't feed too much of it though.