North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 08:09 PM 9/26/2006, Alan wrote:
> Seeing as how the plaster is mixed half and half with oily peanut
> butter I'm going to agree with Lucky Pittman that it probably doesn't
> really set up in their guts.  It would be an easy experiment to try.
> Take one of the finished plaster/peanut butter balls and mix it with
> the requisite amount of water.  I'm pretty sure it won't actually set
> up.

Alan,
I think I did that a year or so ago - dropped a couple of the 
'bonbons' in a pan of water - and nothing seemed to happen.
POP is Calcium sulfate hemihydrate, a derivative of gypsum - I'm not 
a chemist, and it's been 25 years since my college chemistry courses, 
so I don't know what sort of reaction it would carry out with gastric 
acids, pancreatic secretions and bile, etc.
Perhaps placing a few in a hydrochloric acid solution approximating 
gastric pH would give a more realistic approximation?

When I've used the PB/POP bonbons in the past, I only saw one dead 
squirrel - and I didn't perform a postmortem exam on it - but 
pilfering of seednut beds and potted seedlings ceased almost immediately.

Lucky