Feeding Water Hyacinth to rabbits

Had anyone tried growing and feeding water hyacinth to rabbits? I just Ordered a couple of plants and will be trying it out soon.

Interesting.
Are you ar all concerned with waterborne illnesses?

William Bronson wrote: Interesting.
Are you ar all concerned with waterborne illnesses?

No I have not thought about that at all.

I have heard it talked about, but never known anyone to actually do it.  I do know my cattle and goats would wade out to eat them from the pond.

I thought about feeding water hyacinth to my rabbits as it is an invasive here in California.
Historical side note; It was given away during one of our State fairs as a pond garden plant...where it escaped.
It was promoted as a cattle feed...then a proposal was considered to import hippo ranching to eat the Hyacynth.
Sounds like a Cat in the Hat book plot.
Now, enterprising folks are making bucks removing it. Many parts of this plant regenerate and it is a prolific seeder.
Job security.

Originally I was planning to snag some from the river,
cleaning starter stock with a salt water rinse and raising it in our rain/troughs.
However further research from Feedipedia changed my mind.
-Toxicity and palatability issues due to calcium oxalate crystals.
-Hyacinths absorb and concentrate all types of water pollutants,
-There are also possibilities of hitchhiking water snails contributing liver flukes.
Another note-Even though it is clogging our waterways and harbors-
Evidently, Water Hyacinth is illegal to posses and transport here.

I believe it is being used as cattle feed in some parts of the world where it is invasive, they did seem to be processing it but that might just be for storage,

I think the calcium oxalate might not be a real problem if you are raising rabbits for food.
Health problems might not materialize before they reach slaughter weight.
In addition,  a calcium supplement could reduce any undue uptake.
Drying down the plants into hay might kill the snails and the parasites.
Growing your own solves the pollution problem, but the illegality issue remains.

Maybe try duckweed or azolla instead?