Passion Fruit Leaves... Can they eat it?

[viperdrake]

Hello guys i have redfoots and leopard tortoises and i have a huge passion fruit vines all over my backyard fence... and i started wondering if my torts could eat it... well, can they?

here is a link to pics of the passion fruit vines
Passion Fruit Vines

 

[ascott]

I searched and searched and find nothing that says the leaves are toxic...I do see that some folks in australia feed rinds and leaves to cattle????

All appears aok. Maybe someone else will know for certain...

 

[viperdrake]

I searched and searched and find nothing that says the leaves are toxic...I do see that some folks in australia feed rinds and leaves to cattle????

All appears aok. Maybe someone else will know for certain...

same here ive searched and what i did come up with was that there are certain varieties of the passion that the rinds and leaves contains small amount of Cyanide wich worries me a bit, the subspecies that i have in my back yard is the passiflora edulis, i do have seen wild iguanas eat the leaves in my backyard thats one of the reasons i wondered if i could also feed to my torts :S.

lets see if someone can help us ascott

 

[ascott]

lets see if someone can help us ascott

Sounds like a fabulous plan....I am in

 

[jaizei]

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/passionfruit.html

http://www.rain-tree.com/maracuja.htm

Passionflower leaves are classified as "Generally Regarded as Safe" by the FDA. They are the subject of various European monographs for medicinal plants and are generally regarded as safe even for children and infants.

I was ready to say that if iguanas are eating them that I wouldn't worry much about the tortoises eating them, however I came across this:

The most recent threat to tortoise conservation appeared in the summer of 1996, when dead and sick tortoises were discovered on Santa Cruz near farms where visitors commonly go to observe free-ranging tortoises. Altogether, nine dead and eleven sick animals were discovered in a limited area known as El Chato. Examinations of the animals, their blood, and their feces have failed to pin down a cause, though a variety of bacteria and fungi are present, some of which (or none of which) may be pathogenic. One curious observation is that stricken animals fed almost exclusively on passionflower fruit (passiflora edulis) and that perhaps there is some chemical in the plants that is poisoning the tortoises. Even herbicide or pesticide poisoning has been suggested (the animals range over farmland), but no clear cause for the problem has yet been determined. Research continues.

So if anything moderation may be very important.

---

If anyone has access to the November/December 2009 issue of The Tortuga Gazette, it shows that it includes an article called Turtle’s Gardenassionfruit (Passiflora edulis) by M. A. Cohen

 

[viperdrake]

Thanks for the info!!

and wow... poor torts... with whats happening to those torts im thrown off, will not feed them the leaves or fruits until they are done with their research...

and the iguanas in the backyard do seem to be immune lol, they'll eat it like its popcorn at the movies.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/passionfruit.html

http://www.rain-tree.com/maracuja.htm

Passionflower leaves are classified as "Generally Regarded as Safe" by the FDA. They are the subject of various European monographs for medicinal plants and are generally regarded as safe even for children and infants.

I was ready to say that if iguanas are eating them that I wouldn't worry much about the tortoises eating them, however I came across this:

The most recent threat to tortoise conservation appeared in the summer of 1996, when dead and sick tortoises were discovered on Santa Cruz near farms where visitors commonly go to observe free-ranging tortoises. Altogether, nine dead and eleven sick animals were discovered in a limited area known as El Chato. Examinations of the animals, their blood, and their feces have failed to pin down a cause, though a variety of bacteria and fungi are present, some of which (or none of which) may be pathogenic. One curious observation is that stricken animals fed almost exclusively on passionflower fruit (passiflora edulis) and that perhaps there is some chemical in the plants that is poisoning the tortoises. Even herbicide or pesticide poisoning has been suggested (the animals range over farmland), but no clear cause for the problem has yet been determined. Research continues.

So if anything moderation may be very important.

---

If anyone has access to the November/December 2009 issue of The Tortuga Gazette, it shows that it includes an article called Turtle’s Gardenassionfruit (Passiflora edulis) by M. A. Cohen

---

---

found a couple of editions of the tortuga gazette but none where the one we needed

here are the links if anyone wants them
Jan/Feb 2008
July/August 2008
Sept/Oct 2008
Nov/Dec 2007

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

I doubt if tortoises would want them. Like most shrubs, the leaves have a waxy cuticle on them to resist dessication, which makes them unpalatable to smaller herbivores.

 

[viperdrake]

ok, so i kept searching and found this
http://www.ibg.uu.se/digitalAssets/88/88637_Sadeghayobi-Elham.pdf
its a research about how galapagos tortoise are viable fruit seed speaders arround the galapagos island, it says that they eat a lot of guava a passiflora edulis it doesnt mention any ill effects on them, searched a bt more and it seems that this passion fruit is all over galapagos islands, i mean redfoots are not galapagos tortoises... but maybe they are not harmful to tortoises.... i still cant remove the idea of cyanide in them lol i read that in here http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/site/plants_19.asp?catID=330

 

[viperdrake]

Ok, so i contacted one of the editors for The Tortuga Gazette, about the article and he replied this
"I wrote the article about the Passion Vine. You need not worry about your tortoises eating the leaves. The cyanide you mention is present in very young, unripe fruit - passion fruit at this stage of development should never be eaten.

I can send you a PDF of the article by email as soon as tomorrow. If you give me a postal mailing address, I will send you a copy of the issue in which the article appeared. That, however, may take some time, as I need to dig the copy out of a storage box."

so here it is... its completely safe , i hope she sends the PDF at least