Chickens eating paint

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kdwag

kdwag

Chirping
7 Years
Jul 14, 2012
413
8
91
Northwest Ohio
My chickens have become obsessed with pecking the paint off of the fence posts and side of the barn. I believe we used laytex paint but I can't believe this would be healthy for them and am not sure why the interest all of a sudden. I do my best to shoosh them away but there is a lot of fence and barn siding LOL Any suggestions?
 
Lead was discontinued in house paint about 40 years ago. You could hose off the loose paint, but they would eat it off of the ground.

My chickens have eaten everything they can find. They ate a plastic planter that was made of some cast material. They eat styrofoam, if any gets dropped. If I sweep wood chips out of the door of the shop, they eat them. I cut some PVC material. The process made some rather large chips, and blew them out the door. The chickens ate them. They still look and act like chickens; and lay eggs daily.

I would not worry about them eating the paint. Maybe it is just time to paint again, and be done with it.

Chris
 
ya know i have seen mine to the exact same thing. there's an old shed by their coop and all the paint that is their level is pretty much all gone. they have pecked off everything that is chipping away. i'm not sure what it is about the paint that they like, but i'll see a hen pecking at it occasionally. doesn't seem like its hurting them much as its been about a year and havent noticed anything wrong.
 
I am a little worried about this :(

I painted my coop today, along side my 7 yo daughter, so there is fresh paint drips all over the ground where she painted the door... and now the chickens have been pecking at the wet paint... Do I need to be worried? What about the eggs they lay, still ok to eat or should I not eat them for a few days?
 
I know this is an old post but I have painted the floor of a chicken coop bright blue. Now the rooster pecks the floor and ends up with blue poo. I really hope that isn't a problem.
 
lol.png
Is he offended by your color choice?
 
Last edited:
Lol. I'm beginning to think so. Lol. However I really think he is just scratching around the floor of the coop cleaning up dropped food. Hard to catch that guy in the act. But since they moved into the new coop I haven't let him free range. So the only explanation for the light green with blue specks poop must mean he is eating flecks of paint. Possibly he likes the distressed look better.
 

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