Comprehensive list of poisonous plants and trees

[defenestration]

I don't the the tannin in acorns would end up being that much of a problem. Chickens can take tannin a bit better than humans can—squirrels and many birds eat acorns just fine, after all—and a cursory Google search shows that while adding tannic acid in a scientific manner to the diet of a growing chicken will cause issues (growth retardation, immune system weakening), it doesn't appear to be fatal in any sense.

Furthermore I'm not sure how a chicken would be able to get through the shell, and even if it could, why it would eat a bunch of stuff that (presumably, if it is indeed toxic) tastes extremely bitter.



In any case, I'd like to add potato plants of any age, as well as green potatoes, and tomato (the leaves, not the fruit) to your list of toxic plants (these are both Nightshades and contain solanine—I see you already have the third common Nightshade, eggplant, on the list).

 

[chooks4life]

Now THAT'S a long post! Gah. Took me AGES. I hope it's of use to someone and their animals!

The misinformation I posted in correction of was likely to lead to people and their animals missing out on some of the most healthy plants out there. I know whoever made the original list was well intentioned; but a lot of that was grey facts or complete misinformation.

Back in the wild-west unregulated days of early pharmaceuticals, when almost anyone could make a drug and sell it, less scrupulous scientists were being hired by less scrupulous pharmaceutical companies to make studies proving what they wanted rather than finding the truth. They would test herbal cures by overfeeding an animal on a healthy plant, and nothing else, until it died. Therefore they could recommend a new drug instead. Nothing is healthy in overdose: not air, not water, not food of any kind.

These studies led to a lot of people abandoning the remedies their ancestors had used for centuries with great success, and taking on man-made drugs instead to do the same thing, or so they promised. (They have largely failed). It was all just a commercial powergrab which people are thankfully now waking up to the fallacious reality of. A lot of those so-called facts are 'junk science'. I urge people to do their own research but also to try the safe remedies; I have used them for years and never had a failure. I was a skeptic, but the proof is astounding.

Best wishes.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Noooooooooooo! I just spent so long correcting the last list of misinformation mixed with fact! Now another... And it's huge! Argh!

Thanks for the link, it will help some people, as some of those plants are definitely poisonous, however many of them are harmless, and many others are very important herbs! Plenty don't even have any effects or toxic properties listed yet they're condemned as toxic/poisonous!

A lot of this is due to biased, outdated junk science... Some of the plants listed in that list are life saving. 'Diarrhoea' as listed as caused by some others, as the sole 'strike' against the plant, is never of the life threatening sort, just an initial 'flush/purge' which is vital to saving many lives as it shifts all manner of nasty infectious or toxic or parasitical burdens that will otherwise kill. Even modern doctors are returning to herbs and natural medicines because science is only managing to prove their efficiency and our inability to thrive on most man made alternatives, now that more honest studies have become the norm.

Modern doctors now will tell you hurrying to stop diarrhoea kills many children and adults, because it is the natural way for the body to quickly remove something dangerous, be it virus or poison or whatever. Same for livestock! Diarrhoea is only a problem when it doesn't stop after a length of time relevant to the animal's body size. It is actually a natural and healthy process in some circumstances. Babies in particular die too frequently from overly afraid and under educated parents rushing to use drugs to stop the runs when the runs were the body's attempt to clean itself of a toxin.

I don't think I'm up to spending how long it's gonna take to correct that list for some time to come... Please, people, don't believe it out of hand, please do your research thoroughly, or you'll end up afraid of nothing, repeating false information to others because you never found the truth, losing livestock, pets, and family members because you never tried some lifesavers listed erroneously as 'toxic or poisonous' with the only 'proof' behind it being garbled much repeated excerpts of ancient anecdotes of flawed studies trying to prove drugs are better than what your ancestors used successfully for centuries...

 

[flickerloo]

I am a gardener, by profession, and I spend a lot of time working with ornamental and often-toxi plants. Toxic does not necessarily mean poisonous. One of my most regular jobs is on a very large property with huge gardens and a large chicken coop. The gal who owns the chickens has been keeping chickens for a long, long time. My general instructions are to put all yard waste into the chicken run. I think their chicken yard is bigger than my front yard!

Anyway, I have expressed concern at times over the past three years about potential harm to the chickens. But the woman believes it's no problem at all. She has not lost any hens to plant material. And all her girls are very healthy. And so I've observed that when I dump a load of material, the chickens jump on it, rip it apart, eat the young, tender whatevers, fight over the slugs and worms that I put in with the weeds, and then scatter the rest. I've never seen them eating tough, older plants (like rhodies or azaleas). I've also seen them taste stuff and reject it.

I do actually feed them some things, but the rest is just piles of waste for them to sort. And I do discard plants in a different brush pile that I am personally uncomfortable giving to them, including euphorbias, foxglove, nightshade.

Probably not a great idea to intentionally feed them tender shoots of harmful plants, but most of the items on this list are mostly like more toxic and irritating than deadly. All good stuff to know, but don't panic.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Commercial hatchery bred birds can lack instincts and eat dangerous things. If your birds have come from a sawdust and concrete environment, or one whose yards are exclusively dirt or grass, they may not know what's safe.

Instinct can be bred into and out of animals, as we have proven with non-broody hens and the various other modified instincts. Some chicks lack instinct to cope with a mother; loss of filial instinct, like loss of maternal and paternal instinct, is caused by artificial breeding methods and rearing in artificial environments for too many generations. Loss of instinctive understanding of environmental dangers and the right reactions to them is achieved the same way. Hence hens may fail to run from a fox, or be curious about a venomous snake, or not react to a hawk stooping.

Instincts are not static or permanent though some are so strong they can give the illusion that they are, and fool many; if an instinct is not engaged, required, reinforced etc for enough generations it can fade, be transmuted into a new expression, or be replaced with a more relevant instinct.

Normally citrus trees present no threat, but if you see any cage-bred bird tucking into the leaves, perhaps keep an eye on her. It's incredibly unlikely that they will give you trouble with your hens though.

Also, some plants are not a threat until they are a certain number of years old, or there has been a thunderstorm, or the soil is imbalanced, or it's been overpruned, or it's flowering or fruiting, or there's been a dry spell, or a long wet spell.... Etc. Some plants kill the animal over a year after eating them. Prevention is better than cure, and the best prevention is allowing your birds to maintain instinct and breed on their knowledge. Local knowledge isn't helpful to a bird transported overseas for example.

One great precaution against many types of disease or toxicity is to make sure that their diet is sufficient. A cheap, commercial ration is often deficient in many nutrients which they need and crave nonetheless. A survival ration is a better description of these feeds as they will keep an animal alive for long enough to produce the expected amount but often the animal sustains permanent harm during this short lifetime of malnutrition, and is unlikely to reach old age.

A nutritionally desperate bird will eat all manner of stupid things. Research 'pika' if you don't know what it is. Birds from hatcheries often have mild to severe Pika and are the prime candidates for self-poisoning and death by eating inedibles, lol.

I prefer to allow my birds, if from hatcheries, to regain their lost instincts by exposing them to the natural dangers of the outside world while keeping an eye on them. Well, these days I prefer to avoid hatcheries but if you get birds from them, be aware that they will not be 100% instinctively.

A bird that was raised in a cage that is suddenly freeranged, that comes down with something, is often a case of an experimental taste testing gone wrong. Chickens can relearn lost instinct rapidly, especially because they have an instant feedback system that confirms to them that what they're tasting is good or bad to eat. That's why you see them peck things then spit them out. Humans also have this function to some degree but it's largely retarded in us like many of our instincts. We're pretty cage-bred ourselves.

Be wary of internet information but also don't trust anyone's 'facts' without question just because of 'x' amount of experience or age. We're all learners. Everyone's got pieces of the puzzle, not the whole picture.

Best wishes.

 

[annaBsChick]

PoultryDVM has a pretty comprehensive visual interactive list of toxic plants which I found to be quite useful.

 

[Novaleigh]

WOW! Great list! And to think I was going to plant a China Berry tree in my yard.... well, not anymore!

 

[blipit007]

Great list! Long... but great. Kinda makes the newbie like me look around my yard in a panic lol!

 

[Tahai]

http://www.canaryzoo.com/poisonous plant list.htm

This site may be of use. It tells what part of which plant is toxic to which animal and what symptoms occur.

 

[chooks4life]

Highly doubt marijuana seeds killed the roo unless your family member was smoking hydroponic from an unscrupulous grower or seller. I have known a few people in the business and one kid we boarded for a bit was using battery acid, concrete powder, fly spray, hair spray, and basically anything and everything to make the buds he sold worth more because of the toxic effects. This had nothing to do with the marijuana but the seeds in there would have been dangerous.

Marijuana seeds are often fed, legally, to animals. They are in fact an incredibly nutrient rich source that is well worth including in their diet... If you can legally get it where you are. Now they're being sold for human consumption too, but dehulled so you can't grow them, which is stupid, because the endosperm contains the most nutrience... Like eating white bread as opposed to wholegrain. The oil is sold to be consumed and used as a beauty and therapeutic product too. So much for toxic.

I think the vet just couldn't figure out what was wrong with the roo, decided it was poisoned, and blamed it on weed seeds. Pet chooks are at an enormous risk of poisoning because they often live in suburbia and that entire environment is swamped with anti-biological toxins... He probably ate a bug-sprayed cockroach or moth or something. Weed seeds are used as poultry fodder especially, but also fed to all livestock, pets, and humans. Now they are only legal dehulled but in old times they were of course fed whole.

If all farms grew "marijuana" (hemp or various things it is confused with, but synonymous with nonetheless) --- like the law used to be --- they would have a smaller 'footprint' ecologically because of how multipurpose the plant is. It has uses far beyond 'getting high' not least of which are medicinal uses for which it should be legalized immediately, never mind its textile, nutritional, and other uses. No, I'm not a smoker, but neither am I caught up in the propaganda against that plant, which was initially deliberately misclassified as marijuana to allow its illegalization because it posed such a threat against the petrochemical byproduct industry, namely plastics, especially in textiles. It used to be law that every farm had to grow hemp because of how useful it was.

It is not actually 'marijuana', which is a toxic plant nobody smokes or uses, but to which it looks similar; but it's called marijuana since the commercial textiles industries weighed in to banish it as competition, so that's what it's recognized as and that's what we'll call it.