All this ive found so interesting. It does make sense that the leaves would be ok to eat. I wish some scientist would adore buns and dedicate their life to finding out what trees and plants are safe by investigating their composition and nutrient values. (Not testing on buns though, i would rather they do without). :lol: It seems trees are the most unknown of the forage foods and i for one would love to be confident about what is safe. Ive searching and searched and cant find much. xx You make a great point about what the wildies eat.
I don't know what you would accept as proof.
Both my buns have had to have the fibre component of their diet from tree leaves & twigs because of their different illnesses = eat them in very large quantities indeed for a period of 5-6 years.
Apple leaves & twigs, brambles, hawthorn is Benjie's staple, blackthorn can only be eaten after the sloes have fully ripened until leaf fall & has a strong medicial effect on the gut & gets rid of pin worms, is my personal experience.
About 3-4 years ago some of us with stasis prone buns started to give various tree leaves & found that it reduced the frequency of stasis whatever the underlying illness & put up a thread. (I can't post the link with this computer Tree:leaves should get you in) Megacolon bunsdo particularly well on certain tree leaves - bramble & raspberry.
My exotics vet Marie Kubiac, used Thumper's blackthorn leaves on a hospitalised rabbit who had been in stasis for 7 days with no response. bunny started to eat immediately. She then used various types of forage in the hospital.
Thumper's caecum didn't fill for 10 months until
fresh blackthorn became available in Autumn - to our great surprise he got some limited function. 6 months later when he was on over double the max dose of domperidone I made dried blackthorn into medicinal liquid form & we reduced the domperidone by 1/2.
Offering tree leaves has also stopped many buns who were eating large amounts of cardboard. (not shredding)
Other types of tree leaves fed regularly include hazel, white/crack/ weepingwillow (Benjie eats armfulls of weeping willow twigs in Jan, Feb.) birch including silver birch.
There is a consensus of agreement that evergreen leaves eg privet, holly, & conifers should not be fed to buns as well as oak.
My experience including that of many other members is that most buns know what's good for them. Mine try a small nibble at 1st, then perhaps 1 leaf, & then go for it. Thumper was truely amazing at this as his gut function gradually diminished he changed forage to suit his needs.
The nutrient content of mature tree leaves is said to be about the same as late season grass/hay.
As Tamsin rightly says, most of the nutrients of tree leaves are reabsorbed into the falling sap before leaf fall.
I have never heard of a really sick bunny from eating tree leaves in the run.
On RU we used to stick to known safe leaves when offering them to buns.
(I hope you don't think that this is experimenting on our own buns! Thumper was a "back against the wall situation" by the end of his 1st year - oozing a disgusting stinking "tooth paste consistency" pooh & on the verge of stasis although fed a standard grass rabbit diet. In desperation I gathered an armfull of all the things traditionally fed to rabbits when I was young, & asked him to sort himself out. He did so brilliantly & lived until he was 6.
Next step was to send leaves to buns who had been in stasis for 5-7 days without response to meds. they started to eat but 1 of JJ's buns Bobbie had a rare condition ? duodenal spasm which blocked the outlet of the stomach - & went into stasis again after 2 days.
I only "went public" on here after assurance from Marie that the leaves I was using could not adversely affect a bun no matter what the underlying diagnosis.
Some of the confusion is that USA has different species of trees from us but the same name.
Some is that well meaning folk discover that eg there's a problem with eg old bark, & don't realise that leaves & twigs have no problems eg willow with salycylates & tannins confined to old bark.
Research is very difficult. We find that many buns will eat some types of tree leaf but not others, yet a different bun eats them voraciously.
Some research was done indicating that lignin (the fibre in twigs & leaves) had no effect on the adult rabbit gut motility. This is
not our experience in 50 - 60 stasis prone rabbits. :?
I only know of 1 stasis prone bun on here who went for plum leaves & twigs in large amounts = Poppymoon's Eric.
Blackthorn (prunus spinosa) is a different species from plum. I don't know why they'll only eat them in the 6 weeks window after the sloes are fully ripe.
My only advice is if you're really worried about fallen leaves in the run, offer your buns something which is known to be safe - brambles are the commonest in both town & country.
I hope you enjoy this video of a baby bun actually climbing in a bramble thicket for some old leaves - note it's early spring - the new grass can cause dysbiosis at this time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6zRr_EpyNE
