Dandelions - or are they???

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Susie570

Susie570

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As I was plucking dandelion heads and leaves for the buns a day or so ago, I realized that what I was picking did not look EXACTLY the way I expected them to. I had a bit of panic wondering what I may have, accidentally, been feeding rabbits (innocently thinking it was dandelion). I went to the internet.

Here is what I found

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygTuv5bLDrY[/youtube]

As it turns out though, they are edible as well. I'm not sure if they are as 'safe' as dandelions are for rabbits (anyone??).
 
They are in the same plant family so I would ASSUME they are safe, although I have never fed them. Anybody else?
 
The plant she's talking about is
Hypochaeris radicata ?

Wikipedia says safe and edible to humans, but has a warning for horses that graze too much:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochaeris_radicata

The most common plant species that have been found and identified in pastures where affected horses were located include: flatweed (Hypochaeris radicata), sheep's sorrel (Rumex acetosella) and couch grass (Elymus repens). The type of nerve damage sustained in horses with Australian stringhalt suggests a mould toxin (mycotoxin) or a fungal 'poison' found in the soils may be a cause for this condition. Mycotoxins can directly affect the long myelinated nerves in the hind limbs.[3]
Click to expand...

Another similar plant I see a lot of is hawkweed:
Hieracium caespitosum

I can't find any reports of toxicity, and it's in the same family as a lot of rabbit edibles. Hmm... Let me go see if my buns will eat any...

Mucky quickly scarfed down a few leaves of another similar plant.
Pilosella Aurantiaca, or orange hawkweed, even though she had a pile of dandelion and willow in front of her.

I found them on a UK list of rabbit-food plants:
http://rabbits-uk.wikia.com/wiki/Feeding/Plants
 
Never seen it here. Also you find dandelions equally growing, flowering, and seeding from mid spring to late fall here. There is not a dandelion season and they certainly don't stop after May to be taken over by this look alike. Mine are just getting warmed up.
 
Wow, neat Akane.
Dandelions mainly bloom in spring here, with a second lesser blooming occurring in fall.

They produce sporadic flowers all summer, but nothing like when the fields and lawns are covered in yellow dandelions during their big spring bloom.
 
We have lots of both dandelion and (what I now know to be) 'cat's ear' growing in the lawn. I suppose my only concern is that, initially at least, they look so similar to each other, people are probably unwittingly giving cat's ear and thinking it is dandelion. This isn't an issue if they are equally safe.
 
That's pretty funny, the other day I asked my daughter to go pick a few dandelions and give some to the rabbits. She came up to me with a hand full and asked me "dad is this enough" I said yeah and I told her to give me a few so I can feed a couple to the weanlings in the grow out pen. when she handed them to me the first thing I noticed was how yellow they were. what she picked wasnt dandelions at all, they were >>> dandelion imposters <<<That what my daughter called them. I had no idea what they were, I thought I just had bright yellow, HD dandelions growing in My yard. I didnt know if they were safe or not for the rabbits so they didn't get any fake dandelions that day. Thanks for the post!
 
Every field here will be an even amount of yellow flower and white fluff across the whole thing year long if there isn't weed management going on. Yards will also be quite yellow in July but I think part of why yards remain so yellow is that every time they are mown the flower and any producing seed head are removed so the plants pop out another flower asap. There are dandelion specific killing services for those people who want perfect green lawns all summer. They bothered us when I was a kid in our house in town and now we just keep getting stuff in our mailbox of the 2 competing companies in this town. They just kind of stare at you like your crazy if you tell them you like your dandelions :lol:
 
I have fed those false dandelions/cat's ear and also orange hawkweed quite liberally when they are easy to pick. The leaves can be very succulent! The rabbits love them. But it's harder to get them because they grow so flat to the ground, buried in the grass. We also have another dandy imposter called Carolina False Dandelion. It grows more in the half-shade here along the edge of the forest. That stuff gets TALL and the rabbits love it just as much.

Our dandelions have a "season" too... There is a huge push in the beginning of May, where the roadsides and yards are just full of yellow balls. But after that week or so of dandelions galore, it's just ones and twos here and there for the entire rest of the spring and summer. Kind of sad. I wanted to go on a picking spree to make dandelion wine this year, but the kids were sick and we were busy. Now I would be hard-pressed to get a cup full of dandelion flowers all on one day.
 

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