Dry bean emergency! What will happen to a chicken that ate dry beans?

[IronEagle]

This morning I found a 2 kilo plastic bag of dry black beans in my pantry filled with bugs. I gave it to my husband and asked him to throw it out. He decided on it would make good treats for the chickens and proceeded to throw it around in the chicken coop where the chickens started eating it. When I came outside 5 minutes later I freaked out. I know that dry beans are poisonous to chickens but he didn't know that.

The piles of beans were quite spread out so my husband thought it would be OK to bury the beans. But the large piles of fresh sand encouraged the chickens to dig in it and eat more. We have spent the last 2 hours sifting through the sand to no avail. Every time I turn over a small patch of sand there are 50 beans there and I have to fight the chicken off of it to collect them.

It feels hopeless and I am devastated.

Does anyone know what is going to happen? Are they going to die? Does anyone have any ideas what I can do now?

Thank you.

IronEagle

 

[Eggcessive]

I'm sorry about your chickens. Has any one become sick? I was reading a couple of old posts that say that eating a few beans may not be too serious, so hopefully, they will survive. In the meantime, can you keep them locked in their run? Maybe giving each chicken a molasses or epsom salt flush would give them diarrhea, and pass the beans on through.

 

[IronEagle]

Thank you for the replies. I am happy to report that nothing happened!

I was so stressed out yesterday on my hands and knees sifting sand trying to remove as many as possible. I would look up to the girls digging and eating all around me and shoo them away from me. I grabbed as many as I could and sadly felt their crops just full of beans. At around 5pm my husband noted that all the girls looked perfectly fine. So I braced for the worst this morning when I opened the coop door. But I am so happy to report that there seems to be no ill effects. Even all of the poops looked normal. I still don't know how long the bean poison stays in their system so I'm still watching.

When this happened I frantically searched the internet for exactly how many beans would be poisonous and all I found was that 1 kidney bean is bad. These were black beans and all I knew was that they should not be eaten, not even 1. In my case I'd say that each chicken ate at least 20 beans (I can't say how many fit into a chicken crop but it was full so I'm estimating 20) and they all survived and seem no worse for ware.

So for any future person googling this subject who may have had an unfortunate accident like I did, hopefully it was not kidney beans! It's a stressful situation but it's survivable.

I'm very happy today.
IronEagle

 

[Eggcessive]

I'm glad to hear that. If anything changes let us know. I would check the crops in the mornings to make sure that they are working okay.

 

[mereschultz]

Are your chickens still ok? It would give me some hope. Mine got into a spilled packet of green bean seeds I was going to plant today. I think I caught them before too many were devoured, but I cannot find any information on symptoms or possible treatment beside one website that said dry beans will cause death, as early as one hour after eating.

If any experienced chicken keeper has seen the damages caused by raw beans, could they share? Even if there is nothing I can do to reverse the poisoning, I would feel better knowing. T