chickens ate airsoft pellets!

The kids of the previous owners of my house played airsoft in the back yard. I have been picking the pellets up any time I see them, but there seems to be no end to it! My chickens have definitely been swallowing them as I have been finding a few in their poops. Today I found one that had 6+ pellets in it. I was worried about plastic toxins leaching out of them and somehow making it into their eggs.
 
I am not sure how many were consumed. My chickens free range in our back yard almost every day for some part of the day. yesterday, neighbor boy had an airsoft gun and was playing in our backyard. I had no idea what was going on- saw the kids playing, shooting "toy" guns- I didnt know what it was. I feel very stupid right now.

About 2 hours later my daughter walks into the house with a handful of tiny round yellow balls. that was when I learned what the kids had been doing IN MY BACKYARD earlier that afternoon. I was so mad(at myself) the kids didnt mean any harm, of course. the bright yellow balls look like something the chickens would think was delicious.

anyway, we went out and picked up as many as we could see, chickens were confined to their run and are still today.

one "positive" is that this morning I saw some of the balls inside their run- bright yellow things just lying in the grass- could the chickens possibly have already
"learned" that they are like tiny rocks and not good for food?

Ive been googling all morning about this. Apparently plastic balls are actually used in commercial chicken farming as a roughage- hmm didnt know that before.
here are some interested things I came across:

http://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/TM/SWFSC/NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-154_P623.PDF

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/.../animal-feed-and-the-food-supply-105/overview

anyway, I barely slept last night- thinking I might wake up to sick or dead chickens.

chickens appear just fine today- 2 have already layed like normal. I inspected their poop under their roosts this am and no appearance of any tiny yellow balls.

will they regurgitate them from their crop? will they pass thru them? there is no way they can digest them- I know.

I am glad that I have no plans for today- I am going to watch them closely.

any advice, thoughts, suggestions, reassurances would be appreciated

thank you!
Hello. I was wondering what happened with yr chicken. I recently had a 5 month old pass away, she had a few bb pellots in her GI track. Some plastic and some metal. She couldn't digest properly for a time...anyway, it devastated our fam. I let her roam and never saw bb pellots...but, she found some.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom