Aberrant or deformed forage...do you feed it?

Here's one for the Book of Weird. :lol:
I've noticed lately that I'm seeing some very dodgy looking dandelion leaves in my yard. We do not spray pesticides and as far as I know there aren't many non native plants seeding the area. Our property contains things like yarrow, dandelions/sowthistle, some kind of long grasses that I think might be timothy or some other hayseed, plantain, bluebells (I keep well away from these as I know they are poisonous to bunnies and sadly my greater plantain grows right in with them so I don't feed it ), wild rose (sparsely) low and high bush cranberry, salmonberry (also poisonous) and a large variety of mushrooms and fungi that include amanitas in the wetter months. That's not the whole list but you get the idea.
I should add that we have been told to try to cull the bird vetch that has shown up in the Interior in increasing numbers for about the last 3 years, but I don't see any in our yard at all. It is not native and is taking over, apparently.

So today, I go out to forage as I do each morning and this is the second time I've come back with some oddly developed dandelion leaves in as many weeks. Here's photos:

This first one, I've seen this before. Sharpish thorns/spines in the soft body of the leaf, not soft spines on the outer edges as they normally would be. These are almost painful to touch, not like nettle or rose but somewhere in between.






And then this one...a two headed leaf! :shock:



And no, we have no nuclear power nearby, however the firing range for the army base is within 50 miles of us and there are rumours they have dumped radioactive material on their land, but it would take an act of God to have it be in our ground water here for the distance it would need to travel and across a small river as well. (However there are some who speculate that despite all that, this is why the prevalence of cancer is so high in our immediate area.)

It's not normal, is it? My question is...would YOU feed stuff like this to your bunnies? :? Personally..it creeps me out too much to do, but then I am paranoid about a lot of things. There are precious few plants this year though, the wildfires have a lot to do with it, plus our climate is wonky at best in the last few years. If it got to be a choice of feeding bizzarro dandies like this or none at all, what would you do?

And as an aside, is there any dandelion leaf or flower you would not feed, barring the puffs of course...too young, too old, too moth eaten, etc? I always wash the flowers well to rid them of as many thrips as possible, but sometimes you just can't shift a few of them. I usually let the flower sit on a paper towel for a bit and the little nasties crawl out on their own.

Many thankies for letting me tickle your brains today. Ta! xxxx

:shock: the two headed leaf is a little weird but if they eat it I wouldn't worry

Have you cut open the other leaf could it be a bug of some sort that's all I can think :? But then I don't look that close as they help themselves most of engine I don't have to forage as they just grow in my garden wherever they want and the buns are allowed to free range if they behave themselves

Ahh...I hadn't thought of bugs in the leaf itself. That might explain why some are already chewed through in a central spot rather than from the sides.
*foreheadslap*
Thanks, Mrsmcarey...no I didn't cut it open but it's already thrown away. I do wish I could grow food for them myself but I have a purple thumb!

Me too :roll:

I tried Basil, Corriander and Nasturtium, the only thing to survive were the Nasturtium and the Rabbits won't eat them :roll: but they were very pretty :thumb:

They love Corriander and Basil but they all died

Oohh...I used to eat nasturtiums when I was wee. I loved pulling the back off the flower and getting the nectar out of it. I think I devastated a whole bed of them though and my dad (who was the gardener at the time) was not happy.
That and the time a friend of mine and I went through the veggie garden and pulled up and ate pretty much everything but the beets. We were then forced to eat those as punishment. :mrgreen: Fresh out of the ground beets with the dirt still on...yummy....NOT!

As a little kid I used to pull up the carrots the minute I saw tops, then being the silly little girl I was, put them back in the dirt to "cook" for a while longer. Oh, my dad would be furious! :shock: :evil:

This sounds like a case for parsnipbun !!

I dont think she is about much at the moment, but if she appears again at a later date I expect she will be able to answer your questions.

I would feed those dandelion leaves. They are fresh, green and healthy looking. The spikey bits look like insect damage but it is minimal. It wouldn't make an M&S quality bunny snack, but I don't think they will be bothered.

I wouldn't feed anything that looked sickly, yellowing or splodgy brown. Weedkiller makes plants grow in an uncontrolled way, so they tend to look long and curly before they go brown and die. I avoid picking in areas that look as though they may have been sprayed. I don't even like the dogs to go on grass verges or fields that look like they have had weedkiller on and we wash their feet when they get home. A lot of hay fields round here were sprayed last month so that the harvest was weed-free. The council sprayed the edges of the verges about 2 months ago and the dogs are always a bit off colour afterwards.

As a little kid I used to pull up the carrots the minute I saw tops, then being the silly little girl I was, put them back in the dirt to "cook" for a while longer. Oh, my dad would be furious!

:lol::lol: that sounds so cute well at least you like your veggies :lol: