Chickens are eating Styrofoam!!! HELP!!!

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SweetLilRachy00 said:
I know chickens have a crop and they will eat gravel and such to help break up their food, but will the styrofoam hurt them? Will it go into the stomach? What about egg production?

Is this dangerous? We are just pretending like it is, until further notice.

HELP!!

(Ps-At least they are well insulated!)
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Would really like to know if Styrofoam hurts them and us by eating the eggs.
 
mary sam said:
Would really like to know if Styrofoam hurts them and us by eating the eggs.
Click to expand...
@azygous once said this advice; “A little bit won't harm your chickens, but a lot is going to cause problems eventually, perhaps gumming up their digestive systems. I'm sure that would be more cost effective than building a fence.

As for eating the eggs, I would bet you get far more toxic exposure from the pesticides and dyes that are in the corporate agricultural food we all are sold than what little might turn up in your eggs from a minute amount of styrofoam.”
 
Styrofoam is inert. No active toxic ingredients. It will pass right through a chicken without doing any harm. As @FeatherTay says, large amounts could cause impaction in the digestive system. For that reason, I keep Styrofoam out of reach of my chickens.

Interesting tidbit - meal worm colonies can thrive on eating Styrofoam. Meal worms are very sensitive to toxic substances, so if they can eat it and thrive, it is not going to poison chickens.
 
Ok, im surprised by how old this thread is and the people who are stating styrofoam aka polystyrene is not toxic. Styrene (what styrofoam is made of) is a neurotoxin and has been linked to many different forms of cancer. Any exposure to such chemicals within specifically chickens but any animal for that matter can get deposited in the eggs and meat and then whoever eats them. While there are no studies, that I can find specifically to styrofoam, this has been documented with lead, pcbs and other toxins. I tossed all the eggs my chickens lay because they are free range (now marked as contanimated) and wont lay off the gdarn foam and god knows what else they find. So i’m going to build a bigger pen for a new bunch, not allow them put and go from there for clean eggs. Here is a little bit of info relating to toxicity for reading. https://www.hobbyfarms.com/chicken-eats-health-toxicity/
 
SweetLilRachy00 said:
I know chickens have a crop and they will eat gravel and such to help break up their food, but will the styrofoam hurt them? Will it go into the stomach? What about egg production?

Is this dangerous? We are just pretending like it is, until further notice.

HELP!!

(Ps-At least they are well insulated!)
Click to expand...
I will try to help by saying chickens will peck and eat anything they see, take away anything they can tare apart, I used some boxes to block a draft and they ate almost half, Remove anything that is not natural.
 
ChicFil- A said:
I will try to help by saying chickens will peck and eat anything they see, take away anything they can tare apart, I used some boxes to block a draft and they ate almost half, Remove anything that is not natural.
Click to expand...
This thread is from 2007, my friend., you'll likely not get an answer from the original poster. :]
 

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