Are these weeds safe for rabbits to eat?

[DogCatMom]

It's prime weed-foraging season in my neighborhood. We finally received some rains in March, and the subsequent sunny days have encouraged many weeds to spring up, making up for lost time.

As I walk my Bernese Mtn. Dog around our block (just a short walk, but if I'm foraging, it can take 20 to 30 minutes), I see "new" weeds as they emerge from the soil. I harvest only from the strip between the sidewalk and the street, and I prefer to harvest from the more neglected-looking yards/gardens, since they're less likely to be using pesticides or, indeed, to be managed at all.

So far, I've fed Parsley Graybuns (12 lb AmChin) the following foraged weeds with no ill effects:

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) pictures here
Narrow leaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata) pictures here
Little mallow, aka cheeseweed (Malva parviflora) (although my "mallow" has feathery leaves rather than solid ones)
Chickweed (Stellaria media)

But I'm unsure about the following wild plants and can't find them on the usual "toxic/non-toxic plants" lists, which seem to include only intentionally cultivated plants:

Common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)
Red-stem filaree, aka storksbill (Erodium cicutarium)
Scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis)
Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola)
Curly dock, aka sour dock, yellow dock, narrowleaf dock (Rumex crispus)

Thanks for any help!

 

[akane]

Senecio vulgaris is toxic to livestock
Erodium cicutarium is completely edible but the second part of the name means similar to the genus of poison hemlock. DO NOT MISTAKE THE 2.
Anagallis arvensis seeds are toxic, leaves are used medicinally but due to a compound is not considered safe for small mammals.
Lactuca serriola young leaves are edible but too much has the effects of a mild opium and can cause other side effects. After flowering it is usually too bitter and too high in the milk which is both medicinal and causes the health problems in higher amounts.
Rumex crispus for reasons not stated this is fine for humans but toxic to livestock.

 

[squidpop]

Rumex crispus- We call this dock where I live and it grows everywhere. Farmers try hard to keep it out of their hay and horse people really complain about it. Its in my hay and I'm always trying to pick it out but still my rabbits get it sometimes and they love it. It also sprouts up in my rabbit outdoor pen and I try to weed it out but it grows really fast and I've noticed they do eat it- none of them have died - I think it might be sort of like spinach- small amounts not toxic but maybe larger ones are- I wouldn't feed it on purpose.

 

[arachyd]

My rabbits get dock, curly and otherwise, often when it is growing and they have no ill effects from it. It may be toxic to other livestock - I don't know - but it is not toxic to rabbits. Prickly lettuce in small amounts should be ok. The only one on your safe list I don't know is cheeseweed, the others are fine. As always make absolutely sure of the identity of the plant as many can look like safe ones but are not. There are also differences in how individual rabbits handle different plants. Some are fine with members of the brassica family but I had 3 rabbits react 3 different ways to a very small amount of cauliflower leaf from the same plant. One got a bad case of diarrhea, one was fine and one died of GI stasis. Feed tiny amounts of anything new.

 

[MaggieJ]

Thank you for providing the Latin names, DCM. It makes it so much easier to give you an informed answer.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus)
Narrow leaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata)
Little mallow, aka cheeseweed (Malva parviflora) (although my "mallow" has feathery leaves rather than solid ones)
Chickweed (Stellaria media)

These are all safe and excellent.

Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola) is a safe green for rabbits. I have fed it for years at all stages without issues. Akane's comments on its opium-like qualities are correct (pioneers used to make a sedative from it) but I have never seen a problem in my rabbits and I have fed it by the armload.

Curly dock (Rumex crispus) is often listed as toxic to livestock, but that is because it is a nitrate/nitrite absorber and later in the season can accumulate toxic amounts. Feeding the young leaves to rabbits in spring is safe... or at least I have been doing it for years without ill effects and old-timers recommend the young leaves.

I am not as familiar with the other plants listed, although I have heard that common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) is toxic. One tends to know most about plants that one encounters in one's daily activities.

I feed questionable greens like dock in a mix with others that I know are perfectly safe, rather than feeding them on their own in large quantities.

 

[DogCatMom]

I visited a friend in Livermore (approx. 50 mi/80 km southeast) this afternoon. At the end of the visit, when she was showing me out to my car, I noticed a small area of her garden that had a few weeds. We had a funny conversation...

Me (happily): "Oh! You have sow thistles!"

Her (not happily): "Yeah. I spent yesterday on the main yard, but didn't make it over here."

Me: "Great! My rabbit just loves sow thistle; could I pick them?"

Her (puzzled exceedingly): "You feed them to a rabbit?!"

Me: "Yeah. He gets fresh foraged weeds from Mommy, maybe one-fourth to one-third of the recommended amount of rabbit kibble [she has a dog], and always has hay and fresh water available. The weeds, plus overgrown green veggies, rose branches, blackberry branches, and sometimes other fresh foods are really the bulk of his diet."

Her: "I never thought of that...."

Then I went on to explain that he's a Big Rabbit (12 lb), etc.

I ended up with a decent-sized paper bag containing sow thistles, mallow, more sow thistles, one curly dock *leaf*, and one young prickly lettuce plant. I pulled all of these up by their roots, since I was helping Friend do some weeding, and cut off their roots with my kitchen scissors when I got home.

I fed the curly dock leaf, his very first, by itself to Parsley. He considered it cautiously, rubbed his cheek against it, touched it with his nose, tentatively nibbled the end of it with his teeth, and then went into what I call "paper-shredder mode." This is when the plant in question disappears into the rabbity teeth just like paper does into a paper shredder. :lol:

So he likes curly dock. I'll try a few more leaves tomorrow; I know where there are some young plants on my block.

Next was the prickly lettuce, of which I had an entire young plant (10" stem, approx. 6 leaves). I pulled off one leaf. He went through the same testing procedure as he had with the curly dock leaf and went into paper-shredder mode. Zzzzip--that leaf was gone.

Then he got the big handfuls of sow thistle and mallow as well as the rest of the prickly lettuce plant, plus the evening kibble in his food tray (which hangs on the wall of the ex-pen). I made sure the hay was sufficient and the water was clean, and he was a happy rabbit. The green veggies are almost as important for their entertainment value as for their nutritional value; I haven't yet found anything Parsley will play with, other than shredding the shallow cardboard boxes we put his hay into. He Absolutely Adores shredding the boxes! He doesn't eat the cardboard; he just "decorates" the ex-pen with it. He's so fun to watch when he's into Total Shredder Mode....

 

[MaggieJ]

LOL. Nothing like natural feeding for giving you an new appreciation of weeds. :lol:

 

[arachyd]

Next time you're foraging and pull something good up by the roots don't cut them off and discard them. Trim what you need and plant the roots and a bit of stem in your yard. Many of us have a section of yard for rabbit greens.