do chickens eat pine shaving

[farmnut]

I recently put pine shaving on the floor of the coop. the chicken seems to think this is food. They are eating it, and even go inside in the middle of the day to eat. they have a full bowl of feed, but seems to perfer the shavings. is this ok?

 

[esjro]

I switched from ABM bedding to pine shavings recently, and the ladies ate the shavings for about a week. After that they stopped. I didn't notice any ill effects, but maybe thats because they eventually stopped eating them.

 

[swtangel321]

Mine like to dig and peck around in them, Maybe they find tiny tiny peices of food !!!! I was thinking today that it was kind of weird !!!!! But noone seems to be having any problems.

 

[Attack Chicken]

Mine pecks at it but not sure if shes eating it.

 

[cmom]

I agree with the other posts. I have seen my birds peck in the pine shavings but they have never shown any ill effects from it.

 

[onthespot]

When i put pine shavings in with my cochins they ate quite a bit of it for a couple of weeks and pooped some stuff that looked like cardboard. I heard that they can get shavings in their vent and causes horrifying infections if that happens so I took mine out and put in bermuda hay in their nestboxes.

 

[Firefly]

I've used pine shaving since moving the ladies out to their coop, and I have never seen them eating it. Like others have said though, they sure do like to scratch around in it!