Feedback on Learning Center "Treats Chart"

[BertandMary]

Great article but why are grapes with seeds a no-no for the hens? Our hens jave eaten seeded grapes for years. Might be just juveniles?

 

[Amiti]

Good question. I have wild grapes and new to chickens. They will surely want to eat them. What should i do?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Many fruit seeds contain a poison, cyanide. Apple seeds are the ones usually mentioned but many seeds have it. That’s why people try to scare you about them. But wild birds and other animals eat these seeds all the time without a problem. They depend on them. Chickens eat them too. How can that possibly be?

The simple answer is dosage. There is such a tiny amount of cyanide in a seed that they would have to eat a huge amount of pure seeds to cause any harm at all. They are just not going to eat that much. I’ve seen plum and peach pits in the gizzards of chickens that I’ve butchered. They eat them all the time without harm when they are in the orchard and the fruit is falling to the ground.

So what should you do? You should enjoy watching them eat this treat that they will enjoy quite a bit. It can be quite funny if they are elevated a bit. I’ve seen chickens position themselves under my grape vines and jump up to snatch a grape. They’ll do the same thing with berries and other things.

If you make a batch of jelly or jam where you have a huge pile of seeds and nothing but seeds you might not want to dump them where the chickens can eat a huge amount of seeds just as a precaution, but even this is highly unlikely to cause a problem. I certainly don’t worry if they eat a grape with a seed in it. The volume of fruit will reduce the number of seeds they eat.

 

[HennieMama7]

I heard you should avoid all nightshades, including tomatoes.

 

[lazy gardener]

Most chickens will get into a knock down drag out fight over a tomato. Don't believe everything you read about "stuff chickens shouldn't eat". On the other hand, if you hear the "do not eat" info, do your own homework. I've heard that avocado is definitely on the do not feed to birds list.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You should avoid nightshade leaves and plants. You definitely should not eat them and neither should your chickens. Tomatoes are fruit though, not leaves or plants. They are OK for you to eat and OK for your chickens to eat. Same with potatoes, peppers, and eggplant, other nightshade fruits, if you will. Not sure potatoes are considered fruits.

I think you fell victim to something pretty common, especially on the internet. Somebody somewhere read something about nightshade plants containing a toxin. When they repeated it they left out the plants and just said nightshades. So a myth is born that ripe tomatoes, ripe peppers (I think mine love ripe peppers even more than ripe tomatoes), and such are dangerous. They are not.

Another very common one is that potatoes are dangerous. They are not but potatoes that have been exposed to the sun and turned green are. Exposure to the sun like that concentrates a toxin in the potatoes. You should not eat green potatoes and neither should you chickens. But regular white potatoes are fine. Mine prefer them cooked but will usually eat a raw potato.

I’ll add uncooked dried beans to the do not feed list. Beans contain a substance that can be toxic, causing illness or even death. Cooking destroys that toxin. Red kidney beans are the worst but they all contain that toxin. Neither you no your chickens should eat raw dried beans.

 

[lazy gardener]

You should avoid nightshade leaves and plants. You definitely should not eat them and neither should your chickens. Tomatoes are fruit though, not leaves or plants. They are OK for you to eat and OK for your chickens to eat. Same with potatoes, peppers, and eggplant, other nightshade fruits, if you will. Not sure potatoes are considered fruits.

I think you fell victim to something pretty common, especially on the internet. Somebody somewhere read something about nightshade plants containing a toxin. When they repeated it they left out the plants and just said nightshades. So a myth is born that ripe tomatoes, ripe peppers (I think mine love ripe peppers even more than ripe tomatoes), and such are dangerous. They are not.

Another very common one is that potatoes are dangerous. They are not but potatoes that have been exposed to the sun and turned green are. Exposure to the sun like that concentrates a toxin in the potatoes. You should not eat green potatoes and neither should you chickens. But regular white potatoes are fine. Mine prefer them cooked but will usually eat a raw potato.

I’ll add uncooked dried beans to the do not feed list. Beans contain a substance that can be toxic, causing illness or even death. Cooking destroys that toxin. Red kidney beans are the worst but they all contain that toxin. Neither you no your chickens should eat raw dried beans.

Well written post.

 

[lolobaba1212]

What is the breed of those beautiful chickens?

 

[triplepurpose]

Nice to see so much information so well organized in one place!

Had one comment tho:

Maybe someone already pointed this out--if so forgive me but i didnt want to read through 50 pages just to find out--but...

I noticed potatoes, sweetpotatoes, and yams are all lumped together with the warning that the greens or sprouting potatoes are poisonous. This is true of potatoes (solanum tuberosum) but definitely not of sweetpotatoes (ipomoea batatas)--the two plants arent even remotely related, and the leaves of the latter are very tasty and nutritious cooked greens and also frequently used for fodder. yet because in English they are both called "potaoes", the confusion is common. chickens can certainly eat cooked sweetpotato tops, and i doubt raw would very much hurt them, tho in my experience they will not eat them and they would not be very digestible.

the term yams is also very ambiguous because it refers to both certain varieties of sweetpotato and to certain species and varieties of yhe genus Dioscorea with edible roots (again, totally unrelated plants). the green parts f various "true yams" may or may not be toxic in some way but thru totally different compounds than the solanine in potatoes.

To some people this may just seem academic, but i notice that people from around the world come to byc for info and reinforcing these kinds of botanical misapprehensions can cause real confusion. people in north america arent the only ones using byc...

By the way, i grow both sweetpotatoes and yams and have in th past grown potatoes... so this is a pet peev of mine...

 

[lazy gardener]

Good post, TP. I do wish that use of Latin plant names was more common in general conversation. It would save a LOT of confusion. The common names for plants can be very confusing, and misleading. If I referred to "poppers", in my general area, folks would know what plant I was referencing, and they would be able to find or point it out if they saw it growing in the wild. It is also known as: Impatiens capensis, the orange jewelweed, common jewelweed, spotted jewelweed, spotted touch-me-not,[1] or orange balsam. If you told me you saw some spotted touch-me-not or some orange balsam, I'd have no idea what kind of plant that was.

By what ever name it is called, it's a handy plant to have around as I can speak testimonially about it's healing properties regarding poison ivy rash, and athlete's foot.