apple seeds, cyanide and pigs

I think we're all pretty safe from cyanide poisoning. I cook the cores right along with everything else when I make apple butter/sauce/etc. When I dehydrate apples, Buster the Wonder Dog is standing right there, ready to catch the cores (seeds intact) when I toss them to him.

Personally, I find the taste of apple seeds more than a little unpleasant, so I don't see myself utilizing that method of suicide.

Of course, if I have to look at another green tomato, who knows?

Pony!

If you feed whole apples to critters (or, if they help themselves) they will consume a lot less seed than if you feed them only cores.

If you make the cider/jelly without opening the seeds, then I doubt there will be any cyanide in your food.

So the big question is - if you feed the seeds to the pigs, will the seeds be digested? It sounds like the seeds will pass through intact.

I would speculate that it would not be wise to feed the seeds to the chickens since they have the means to break open the seeds.

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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We've got lots of apple orchards around here, the only dead deer I've seen in them expired from an acute overdose of lead.

All things in moderation...

Stacy

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We had a bad experience with our feeder steers and apple cores. Finished making applesauce, fed them all the leftovers, and lost two of three steers within a week or so.

We did find out that (due to their diet and no mineral supplementation) they were lacking some vital minerals in their diet. The vet visits/autopsies were inconclusive. They died a nasty turning, staggering neurologically-related death, and it was hard.

We don't do apple cores any more. Apples, yes, in moderation. But not tons of cores all at once. And yes, we now supplement with a mineral block.

We fed a butcher steer bushels of cull apples from our orchard and he tasted great...no problems. Routinely feed apple peels/cores to our chickens and no problems either. The deer try nightly to strip our orchard and don't see them lying dead under the trees come morning so I'm just not gonna worry about the whole issue. DEE

I eat apples, core, seeds and all. (O.K. I don't eat the stems). The amount of cyanide in apple seeds isn't enough to do damage. In fact it has been RUMORED that the small amount of cyanide in an apple seed can be beneficial. As it is RUMORED, that healthy cells can fight off the cyanide while Cancerous cells can not...therefor the cancerous cells are killed by the small amount of cyanide.

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Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.

weever,

That is some really excellent info. Thanks!

vegascowgirl,

Yeah, I saw some stuff about that in my big google search. Fascinating stuff!

I guess the key to all of this is, that you would have to eat enough seeds all at once. A half cup of seeds is an awful lot. That would be the seeds from .... what .... about 40 apples? Any critter probably cannot eat enough of a fruit at one sitting to kill them. But if they were eating just the cores, then the probably could pretty easy.

It sounds like it isn't cumulative. And that the toxicity is short lived. I would speculate that a ruminent or an animal with a gizzard would be at greater risk than, say, a pig - because the seeds are more likely to pass through the pig intact.

So .... peels are good to feed to critters. Cores are okay in small amounts. The full apple is fine in any quantity to a healthy animal. Does this sound like a good conclusion for this topic?

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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Were them steers by any chance on green wheat or oat pasture at the time? Sounds like grass tetney to me. (magnesium defiency)