# hickory



## FoxFire (Jul 15, 2007)

I've been trying to find info on the web, and even did a search _here_ and have come up blank.. is hickory wood good or bad for rabbit chewing? 
does it matter if its fresh or seasoned (it came from a tree that was struck by lightening last summer and has been chopped up waiting for some kind of use) 
the problem with hickory is it gets tougher with age, or so it seems.... 

there are also a ton of hickory nuts (along with tons of trees), the squirrels love them, but ... are they also safe for rabbits? i havent found any info on that either :grumpy:

thanks.


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## AngelnSnuffy (Jul 15, 2007)

Gosh, I'm not sure at all, I wouldn't think it'd be a problem, but I'm not sure at all about hickory.

Hopefully someone will be along soon with more info for you!


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## Spring (Jul 15, 2007)

I looked too, came up with nothing. Nothing has been mentioned on any safe/unsafe lists about hickory. I would just avoid feeding the nuts or wood just to be on the safe side. 

Hmm.. that's odd. I looked in my books and on the net, nothing!


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## FoxFire (Jul 15, 2007)

yeah, so far i've avoided letting them chew it... which is kinda sad because there's so much of it and they do love their chewing. i thought it would be a neat way to save some money on the toys. but to be on the safe side, no hickory for them. 
is hickory that rare? isnt it in the pecan family? i dont remember if pecan wood is safe or not....


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## FoxFire (Jul 15, 2007)

ok according to this list hickory has had no known problems with animals eating it - http://www.sniksnak.com/plants.html
but i still wrote to a forestry website and asked them, so i'm going to wait for their reply.

evidently if you reword things you get better search results.... all i did was type "hickory toxic" .... :?


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## FoxFire (Jul 16, 2007)

ok i got my reply back.. the owner of the website (local ecology and forestry in Florida) says that the young shoots and twigs are a minor source of winter food for cotton tails.. so now i want to know if.. cotton tails and domesticated rabbits are all that similar? or is a cotton tail just a hare? i know there are some differenced betweens hares and rabbits (hare kits are born with eyes open and ready to eat solids and move around on their own, they dont burrow but build nests on top of the ground) but .... should i still avoid the hickory or are small amounts every now and then ok? 

also one other confusing thing.... i've read that pine and cedar beddings are bad for rabbits because they eat it and it damaged their livers.... but then i heard a couple of people contradict that information and say rabbits CAN chew on pine woods, and their toys are made of pine.... what do you guys do? sorry if it seems like i'm asking obvious questions, but i'm finding too many contradictions in the information.


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## jedichef222 (Jul 18, 2007)

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think I read somewhere that the harm from pine / cedar bedding comes from when it reacts to their urine. Perhaps this would explain why some say chewing on the wood toys is ok? 

I haven't heard anything one way or the other about hickory.


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## FoxFire (Jul 19, 2007)

thanks for that info. it makes sense to me. and seems i've read that somewhere else before too.


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