Has your cony been looking dozy , thirsty , smiley , peculiarly anxious , and suddenly really into Pink Floyd ? Well , fit in to some newspaper reports , it could be lettuce capture your rabbit stoned . But can lettuce really lead your bunny rabbit " down the coney hole ? "
Lucy Ross , nous of training at Pets Corner , one of the United Kingdom ’s magnanimous pet memory board , say : “ Iceberg lettuce – a pop basic among man that can often make it into the pet food cumulus – is dangerous and should never be fed to rabbits,”MailOnlinereports .
They play along this advice by saying how lettuce acts like “ opium for bunny . ” So where did this leap to gamy rabbits and psychedelic shekels come from ?
The emergence seems to be a compound called lactucarium . This milky fluid is secreted by several coinage of bread , specially a specie called wild lettuce(Lactuca virosa ) . The utilization of this chemical has been reveredthroughout the millenias , where it has been used as ananesthetic and sedative , much like a weaker option to morphine . But much like morphia , it was also reported to give a euphoric effect . It even had a brief renaissance duringthe hipster movementas a born high . Even today , there ’s anecdotal report of the great unwashed either drying the lactucarium and smoking it or soaking unfounded lettuce leaf in alcoholic beverage or tea to get eminent .
A case subject field in theBritish Medical Journalfrom 2009 look at the effect when eight people , incognizant of its trippy side effects , accidentally ate wild lettuce in separate context . Among the symptoms were euphory , anxiety , hallucinations , sickness , sweating , giddiness , and minify consciousness .
There ’s very little scientific enquiry into the effect of lactucarium on coney or the quantity of lactucarium in different lettuces , so it ’s difficult to say whether the lilliputian quantities of lactucarium could have a tranquillizing or euphoric effect on cony . But compared to wild lettuce , the sum of this chemical substance in the lettuce you find in your salad or your lapin ’s bowl is negligible . fortune are , you ’ve eaten a large salad in your lifespan and never experienced any mind - alternating trips .
Nevertheless , even if is n’t getting them eminent , it ’s probably right to follow Lucy Ross ' advice and let your rabbit lay off the lettuce .
Main icon credit : Special Collections Toronto Public Library / Flickr . Public field
