Aussie Finch Forum

Thought I would pot Half a dozen old lettuces for the birds to have a munch on.No nutritional value,just something different,Hopefully they enjoy it.Better then throwing it all out I suppose.

What a good idea. I keep hearing that it's not a good idea to feed plain old lettuce to my birds but I haven't seen any evidence to support that theory.

Story .... when my kids were younger they had Guinea Pigs and I had a vegie garden full of lettuce that had gone like the ones above ( to seed ) anyhoo rather than throw them out I gave the lot to the G/pigs ...


Kids came home from school to find the G/pigs flat out on their backs and some what comatosed , the kids begged me to take them to the vet to which I said no and my kids being my kids loaded the G/pigs up in the billy cart and took themselves and the G/pigs to the vets up the road ...


Vet phones me ( which is when I found out kids were gone ) and very tongue in cheek asked me what they had eaten today ....I told him and his reply " Arghhh well that explains things , theres no need to worry , your G/pigs have eaten too much lettuce and are high as kites " ...yep theres an amino acid in lettuce , from memory that has the same euphoric affect as smoking pot .

Sooo the stoner G/pigs came good the next day . Might pay to watch out for strange behaviour in the aviary tonight , bloodshot eyes , excess thirst , birds staring at their feet or just looking unusually happy , may even get some unexpected clutches ...............True story.

I can just see it now, finches lookingat their wings, & talking like Chech & Chong, saying how big their hands are, & then saying "Dave,Daves not here man"

Now you have me worried.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... uce-a-drug

dont go telling everyone or lettuce prices will do through the roof

The problem is with the sap near the stem, smaal amounts of lettuce won't hurt, but I never feed it to the birds just in case, & because it's basiclly water in a leaf.

back in the dark ages , the traditional lettuce was a little differant from todays like deb said. the stem was dried and smoked for the high like thc in weed. these days that has been bred out of the common lettuce but for a little g/pig it wouldnt take much as there probably is some small traces of it, but VR its only a worry when they dress up in a pink tutu and start singing my mama's talkin to me she tells how to live , but i don't listen to her because my head is like a sieve.... ...pete