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can bunnies eat dock leaves?

biscuitblossom

Warren Veteran
After reading the thread about gathering wild food for bunnies I was looking at lists of bunny friendly plants......several say dock leaves are ok and now Ive found one that says theyre poisonous :?

Anyone know for sure??....theres loads in my garden you see!
 
Hi Biscuitblossom
I think they are ok as long as they are NOT in flower, but not 100% I'm should someone on here will tell you for sure.
 
Dock leaves are a NO

They have high tannin and oxalic acids which are bad for the kidneys. This is the same as with spinach leaves which you also shouldn't feed to rabbits.
 
I gave my rabbits spinach leaves last week :shock: I know you can't give too many due to the iron content but i thought they were ok.
 
All my books say they're fine when not in seed. My rabbits love dock leaves, and I haven't seen any bad side effects.
 
According to the book 'Greenfoods for Rabbits and Cavies' by F.R. Bell (a book sold by the RWA) docks CAN safely be fed to rabbits, however according to the book Rabbitlopaedia docks are toxic when in seed. My local rabbit rescue centre feeds docks to the rabbits there. So its very confusing!:?
 
my rabbit loves dock leaves but after eati ng them has blood in his we does anyone k ow what i should do tanks x:D


this wouldn't be blood i should think, if the wee is tinged slightly red it is from the dock leaves themselves, some foods make rabbit wee look as t ough it has blood in them, such as red lettuces, i think it might be the same with the dock leaves, if the wee is completely dark red then that would be a time to see a vet, i do believe that beetroot leaves also cause in some rabbits the pinky stained wee aswell.

There is a video on youtube to do with feeding rabbit veggies etc and it explains about some foods causing the appearance of what looks like blood in wee, i can't remember the full name of the vid but if you search in youtube rabbit veggies/diet you should come across it.
 
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