Who are the active mods?

[Markpd]

I was looking here Gerbil FAQ > Food > OK foods for Gerbils, and saw the following sentence - Other:
Millet (good for shiny, healthy coats, but can cause hyperactivity—feed with caution!) See: www.egerbil.com/millet.html, which just seems to be plain wrong. For one, Foxtail millet is a direct descendant of wild foxtail millet which is one of their natural foods! Also, even if some other millets cause problems, their is nothing mentioned about hyperactivity and millet on that linked page.

I was going to contact RitzieAnn about it, but it appears she hasn't been active for over 5yrs!

So who are the active mods?

[edit] And although I see Shooting Star has been active more recently, she has still been MIA for ~9 mths [edit2] she's back now [edit3] In case anyone's confused, I (nor betty) were a mod when I posted this thread . 

[Pim]

I would ask betty but I'm not sure if she could fix it herself or not.

[betty]

Yes, unfortunately I don't have any editting controls myself, I am just on here a lot


Shooting Star is the go to for me too - so hopefully you tagging them earlier could well bring them back and they can comment on the above themselves.

[Markpd]

Ok thanks betty , I knew you weren't a regular member, but I wasn't sure how far your powers went. What powers do you have? Flight?

[betty]

I wish - but right now I wish I had the power to control spider mites - they are ruining my cucumber plants!!!!!

[Markpd]

darn! , afraid I can't answer you on that one, I've only really been a gardener for about 3yrs so haven't come across that one yet, slugs I could tell you a whole load about trying to keep them at bay!

[gerbilord]

ooh I'd love some suggestions - I keep finding them in my guinea pig run, which isn't the same as a plant but still a pain!

[Markpd]

In a Guinea pig run? Well that complicates things, probably best not to put a beer trap in the run then! lol, but you could put one or 2 just outside, rather a waste of beer, but it works, make sure you empty it every couple of days (assuming slugs are caught). Btw instead of beer you could use sugar, yeast and water, but I don't know the proportions yet, you'd have to Google it. Don't believe the BS spread by a few that Beer traps will attract slugs from hundreds of meters away, utter rubbish! 2m if you're lucky!
Btw, don't bother with sheep's wool pellets (tried it, doesn't work), also heard (but not tried it) that eggs shells is a waste of time, coffee grinds might repel them, copper tape or copper metal does repel them (when not tarnished), mini electric fences work! lol. Slugs don't like open or bare flower beds/areas, they like to hide in damp well covered places. Hope that helps!

[Markpd]

Further to my op, the FAQ [edit, at time of posting] regarding food doesn't seem right regarding Dandelions.

The supposed cancer risk from Dandelions due to Caffeic acid, this idea comes from egerbils.com as well as the old FAQ here, which in turn came mainly from a study in 1991 it seems, in which they fed vast amounts of caffeic acid to rats and especially their mice, and it gave many of them tumours. But they were feeding the mice 106-156 mg/day of caffeic acid in their diets.

Dandelions contain about 0.22-6mg/g caffeic acid according to 2 studies I read (Optimization of extraction technology for determination of caffeic and chlorogenic acid in dandelion, Wang et al, 6/2020. Polyphenols Content and Antioxidant Activities of Taraxacum officinale F.H. Wigg (Dandelion) Leaves 12/2014).

For the mice in that study it would take at least 33g/day of Dandelion to achieve that! I'm told they typically eat ~7g/day! lol

[edit 12-21 Thanks to LilyandDaisy for helping to sort my maths out, lol, and info on typical food consumption by mice. Although my original Dandelion feed figures were massively out, fortunately for me (and our gerbils ) my point is still valid. It would take an impossible amount of Dandelions to feed mice enough to cause them tumours like they got in the 1991 study], same goes for gerbils with an average daily feed of about 10g/day.

I appreciate that egerbils didn't have access to these papers (that site went dormant in 2012/13?), and I couldn't find older papers that mentioned their caffeic acid content, though I haven't read them all! lol
Anyway, I think Dandelions should be removed from the unsafe list [edit, now done] and placed into the safe list as an occasional treat only, no idea how 'occasionally' though! Suggestions?

[gerbilord]

I've given dandelion leaves before as a treat, I've never seen any problem with it, and I feed dandelion leaves almost every day to the guinea pigs. Like anything it should be fed in moderation, but I wouldn't say it's "unsafe", but I'm no expert on the subject.

[sugarspice]

I saw a spams in the guest section of the forum, think we need a staffs in there

[betty]

Dandilion leaves are actively promoted for jirds - but not so much the flowers. I haven't really looked into it fully as often a comment isn't accompanied by enough data that my nerd brain requires to be totally happy to feed something new.

For example new, middle and older leaves can have very different compositions in some plants - like you can feed winter ivy leaves (says a rabbit book) but not summer ones; and one comment said that fresh hazel leaves have something in them that mature hazel doesn't - and another comment said and certain leaves shouldn't be eaten after the plant has flowered, etc.

Why don't they give these stats for EVERY plant in these books/lists - or are we to assume that if they DON'T say it, the whole plant and time of year is fine?

[Markpd]

It's a minefield!

But Dandelion's have been quite widely studied recently, I wouldn't be surprised if it included some on the flower, although I only recall seeing some about the leaves and roots.

Btw, have you heard from Moonstone?

[betty]

Nope.

[Markpd]

'scuse my memory, but you said you had contacted him via his website right?