# Eggplant leaves...poisonous for NZ rabbits? Yes, no, or maybe?



## sarmour (Aug 29, 2013)

I gave our rabbits (all of them, including some 3 week old kits) eggplant leaves and they seem to have done fine with them. I hadn't checked before to see if eggplant was on the lists of no-no's for rabbits, but was surprised when I stumbled across a post stating they were poisonous.

What gives? Are they truly considered poisonous for rabbits and did I just not give them enough to kill or make them sick? Or is this just someone's opinion due to eggplants genetic heritage ?

Any comments, experiences, or warnings from you old-timers (or new too)?


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## AprilW (Nov 25, 2007)

In a few quick searches of the internet I read that the fruit is safe but the leaves are not. Similarly to how tomato fruit is safe but you do not feed the plant. It could be that you did not feed enough to notice any visible difference, but I've never tried feeding the leaves. If you decide to continue feeding leaves, I would single out one rabbit to feed it to just in case so you don't lose them all.


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## Jack Burton (Aug 11, 2013)

Tomato, pepper, and eggplants are cousins to tobacco. The same alkaloids that are in tobacco leaves are in the leaves of those big three. This is why some people recommend that those with arthritis avoid these vegetables. 

Some cultures cook and eat young pepper leaves. It does give a "bite" to the food.

As a side note, the wild bunnies eat my peppers and eggplants to the ground when they are less than four weeks in the ground. After that they pretty much leve them alone.


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## MaggieJ (Feb 6, 2006)

Jack Burton said:


> Tomato, pepper, and eggplants are cousins to tobacco. The same alkaloids that are in tobacco leaves are in the leaves of those big three. This is why some people recommend that those with arthritis avoid these vegetables.
> 
> Some cultures cook and eat young pepper leaves. It does give a "bite" to the food.
> 
> As a side note, the wild bunnies eat my peppers and eggplants to the ground when they are less than four weeks in the ground. After that they pretty much leve them alone.


They are related to tobacco? 

I knew they are related to nightshade and that is the reason for their inclusion on poison lists. There are degrees of toxicity, but I don't know why anyone would want to give their rabbits anything that might be even mildly toxic.


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## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

Gee I gave my rabbits the leaves and stems off my sweet pepper plants last year until the frost took them. Never noticed any issues.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

egg plant and tomatoes are part of the Night Shade family, the fruit is edible but the leaves are "supposed" to be poison


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## Jack Burton (Aug 11, 2013)

MaggieJ said:


> They are related to tobacco?
> 
> I knew they are related to nightshade and that is the reason for their inclusion on poison lists. There are degrees of toxicity, but I don't know why anyone would want to give their rabbits anything that might be even mildly toxic.


http://eczemacure.info/2008/01/02/avoid-nightshades-potatoes-tomatoes-eggplants-peppers-tobacco/


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## sarmour (Aug 29, 2013)

So...after reading a bit of this stuff on the "nightshade" family of veggies, I shouldn't be eating tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant or any other nightshade relatives, much less my bunnies?

Hmmm. Sounds like bit of imbalance there maybe? Like many things, there are both pro's and con's to things, and on one side something might be mildly carcinogenic, while on the other it's hugely beneficial!

Sigh. It's like voting. Either way you go, you get fried!

No wonder Romans 8:22 says the whole creation groans and suffers!

Me too.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

The FRUITS are safe, it's the leaves. 

As for the leaves, the amount of chemicals in them will vary with the time of year, age of the plant, maturity of the plant, growing conditions (drought/overwatered) etc. Best just to consider the leaves unsafe for the most part. 

If they didn't die, I wouldn't worry too much - but I wouldn't repeat it, lol.


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## sarmour (Aug 29, 2013)

Actually, they seemed healthier after eating them...  

...but, I'm not one to push my luck too far, so...no more eggplant leaves.

Now I'll just have to watch all those nice, big, green leaves go to waste. I'll try to eat the eggplant without thinking about any toxins it might be injecting into my body. 

Kind of like on rare occasions when we eat at McFastfood places.

BTW, did you know that the time period from hatching to slaughter for frier chickens is only 42 DAYS in this country? From hatching to slaughter, there is never a moment when their feed doesn't contain antibiotics and (correction: maybe???) growth hormones/steroids. That's enough to make anyone eat homegrown rabbit, eggs, chickens and everything else!

My son is into genetics at U of Virginia, so I'll give the rest of the bad news in a few more months...


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

Commercial poultry food is not full of antibiotics, hormones, steroids or anything.  The cornish X's are a good example of selection and hybrid vigor - those birds really do naturally grow that fast. We raise them in that time frame too, with no added weird stuff.


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## redneckswife (May 2, 2013)

sarmour, I know the feeling..oldest daughter is in honors program for biomedical engineering (speciality pediatrics for vaccines and cures). Now I get to hear how many ways the human body can produce "error codes" for illness. Great, just what her hypochondriac grandmother(my mother) needed-more ideas for possible illnesses,lol.

2nd daughter is pre-vet medicine. So when their both home they discuss the differences in genetic make-up and/or dna of animals vs. people. Must admit..this is when I say "I'm off to bed",lol.

By the way, I'll eat an animal raised from a family farm before a commercial mass production farm ANY DAY!! Over by my in-laws in Tennessee there are tons of Tyson Chicken Farms..there is a reason they don't let cameras or people in there,lol.

Now if I could just find a source of meat (chicken,turkeys,etc.) from a family farmer nearby that would sell to individuals(rabbits excluded of course)...


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## sarmour (Aug 29, 2013)

I certainly can't speak for growers/farmers in the USA, but in Brazil, at least in the place we lived down south there were hundreds of chicken, turkey and pig farms around us that export to the whole country here and around the world. Some of the growers themselves told us their feed had both things I mentioned in them, and so much so they wouldn't eat from their own production!!

Some did raise specialty turkeys and other things that were strictly controlled, so am not sure about those. I have read in the past that many "regular supermarket fryers", have so much growth hormone still in their meat, that it is a major problem in many rivers, where the urine from those consuming the meat eventually ends up, and is causing precocious spawning in the fish. Not to mention in those eating the meat. Maybe's it's just paranoia, not truth?

One of the reasons we decided to raise our own meat rabbits was because of the fears of friends that were professional chicken/turkey farmers. Must be something to it, so it would be nice to know more about it. 

Maybe mygoat with all those years of experience can shed more light on the differences and controls for that kind of stuff in the US and in other countries? I would like to hear.

For what it's worth, this is a small excerpt from a Wiki on Poultry Farming:


> "Poultry producers routinely use nationally approved medications, such as antibiotics, in feed or drinking water, to treat disease or to prevent disease outbreaks. Some FDA-approved medications are also approved for improved feed utilization


The same article states that hormone use in poultry in the USA is illegal and unnecessary, but that antibiotics and other things are routinely used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming

There's probably something to both sides in this discussion from the little info I've read. Guess some homegrown, corn fed chickens and eggs and a few rabbits couldn't be a bad idea and certainly could avoid suffering from questionable practices, especially in some other countries.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2767.pdf

There are allowed antibiotics for treatment purposes and yes, some places choose to feed non-theraputic levels of antibiotics but from what I recall, this is not common in the poultry industry. I'm by no means a pro, but I did want to clarify that these birds really do NATURALLY grow that fast WITHOUT the aid of antibiotics or steroids. Steroids especially are not used. Some industries use antibiotics as growth stimulants - hogs come to mind - but I believe it's less common in poultry houses because their growout time is so short that the withdrawal time must be obeyed. Or in layers, it's shed directly into the eggs. It's usually used for treatment of clinical disease as needed, or some that are used to prevent known problem disease, and then a withdrawal times is observed. Excess use of antibiotics in feed is expensive.


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## sarmour (Aug 29, 2013)

Thanks Dona, that does shed some light. Makes sense that if you don't need hormones to get that kind of growth, then it would increase the profit margin to not have it.

As to the antibiotics, all the growers pretty much said the same things: the feed had it. The hormones could have been limited to turkeys and hogs, but I'm certainly not sure.

It does make one paranoid though, when the growers themselves won't eat from their own produce! Yikes!

Just one more comment. If it was just the antibiotics...it might not be so bad. But since Brazil uses almost all it's soy production (largest soy producer) for animal feed (4th largest poultry producer in the world), I'd be even more concerned about the tremendous growth in their use of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides for those crops used in their feeds. 

Something's causing cancers all over the world...it just can't be good to GE the grain, then pour all those chems on them to make them more profitable. I'm sure my concerns are multiplied many times over in these forums.


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## HeatherBunnyMom (Jan 9, 2022)

sarmour said:


> I gave our rabbits (all of them, including some 3 week old kits) eggplant leaves and they seem to have done fine with them. I hadn't checked before to see if eggplant was on the lists of no-no's for rabbits, but was surprised when I stumbled across a post stating they were poisonous.
> 
> What gives? Are they truly considered poisonous for rabbits and did I just not give them enough to kill or make them sick? Or is this just someone's opinion due to eggplants genetic heritage ?
> 
> Any comments, experiences, or warnings from you old-timers (or new too)?


Thank you for this post. A bunny showed up on our doorstep Christmas and never left. Now he lives inside with us. I never knew bunnies were so funny and social. I heard some noise in the kitchen and somehow bunny got my eggplant from counter to floor. He ate the whole top and part of bottom, I thought I was going to have to rush him to the vet. He is so proud of himself! I took it away and gave him a pile of spring greens and lots of water. I am grateful for post like this. Thank you Bend Oregon


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## a7736100 (Jun 4, 2009)

HeatherBunnyMom said:


> Thank you for this post. A bunny showed up on our doorstep Christmas and never left. Now he lives inside with us. I never knew bunnies were so funny and social. I heard some noise in the kitchen and somehow bunny got my eggplant from counter to floor. He ate the whole top and part of bottom, I thought I was going to have to rush him to the vet. He is so proud of himself! I took it away and gave him a pile of spring greens and lots of water. I am grateful for post like this. Thank you Bend Oregon


Your bunny must have been someone's pet to be so tame. One time a bunny showed up at my door when I didn't know much about rabbits. It bit me on my ankle and didn't let go. So you're very lucky.


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

a7736100 said:


> Your bunny must have been someone's pet to be so tame. One time a bunny showed up at my door when I didn't know much about rabbits. It bit me on my ankle and didn't let go. So you're very lucky.


Sounds like the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I'll never forget the first time a rabbit bit me. I felt... betrayed. I was just so shocked that the cute little fuzzy bunny had such big nasty sharp pointed teeth!


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I have a big scar on my right hand that was caused by one of our rabbits that had developed a taste for blood.


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