Fruit Tree Branches: what is the deal?

[LabAgility]

 We read the following passage from the House Rabbit Society:

“Fruit tree branches, such as, apricot and peach are toxic while attached to the tree but not after they’re cut and dried (a month or more). Lisa McSherry and Rusty Fayter, who package The Busy Bunny baskets, share this research. Another tip they offer for your bunny’s safety is to keep your purchases of imported baskets limited to willow, the only basket material not sprayed with pesticide.”

My FIL does landscaping and brought us small sticks from one of his clients that is all organic. They are cherry and plum. We cured them for 8 weeks and just gave Winston his first one last night. Needless to say, he loved it.

I have since read a few items that agree with the above paragraph but have read many more that do not.  It seems far more common for websites not to recommend any stone fruit at all. Can anyone shed any light as to why? Is it the difficulty of proper curing or is the House Rabbit Society wrong?  FWIW,Winston is absolutely fine.

[MoveDiagonally]

From what I’ve always read/heard the stone fruit branches are considered toxic because they release cyanide when fresh. Drying/curing causes/allows the cyanide to dissipate which would make them safe for a bunny. 

I imagine most sites list them as toxic because the majority of people won’t take the time to dry/cure the branches properly (most people will just skim a toxic/non toxic list without reading the details).

[LabAgility]

Thank you! That is what I was thinking.

Rabbits are a hard topic- there is a ton of conflicting information out there.

[MoveDiagonally]

Can I ask what drying process you used? Is it as simple as letting it dry naturally or more complicated?

[RabbitPam]

It is very hard to get good, accurate information on rabbits. That’s why we usually refer to the House Rabbit Society as an authority on them, since they have been around the longest and work hard to keep up to date information available. (As does BB here.)

[LabAgility]

We were pretty simple about the drying process, especially since the twigs/sticks were fairly small diameter. The biggest ones were 1/4 of an inch. We put them out in a sunny location, one row deep and moved them from time to time, not allowing them to be rained on. They felt dry at the end of the 30 day window, however we extended it to be cautious.

Winston does indeed love them! I give him a new piece every few days and he always goes to town on it.

[Author]

Messages