Sweet Potatoes or Yams?

[angelbabyamy]

I canned 25 pounds of yams today and am wondering if I cook the peels down, are they safe for chickens? I know that you can't give them potatoes, but does it apply to yams and sweet potatoes?

 

[chooks4life]

You can give chooks potatoes, raw or cooked. And you can also give them to horses, and sheep, and goats, and most animals that want to eat them. They're an alkalinising food, a liver support (particularly when raw), fattening when cooked, and beneficial in many ways. My animals go nuts for cooked potato, and many are game to work on the hard job of eating a raw potato, and I've grated raw potato to heal an animal's liver cirrhosis before. My sheep loves both raw and cooked potato. Some people with Hep C manage their disease by regularly consuming raw potato. It does a lot for the liver, even when the organ's in an advanced state of failure.

Most plants and foods you're told are bad for poultry just aren't, really. I think the majority of plants that are blamed for deaths are just being scapegoats for a mystery death. Mostly, not one proven death is listed, nor toxins involved in the harm that is claimed to be caused by that 'toxic' plant, and no other justification is offered either. Some are 'mechanical deaths' i.e. anything nontoxic that killed through becoming blocked up in the intestines, for instance, is then declared toxic. But anything can kill that way; if the guts are blocked, adding any food on top isn't too likely to help.

Certainly any time I read a 'toxic plants' or 'serious no-no' foods list, for any species, I laugh or shake my head in disbelief, as my own animals and those of other people that I know enjoy many of these 'fatal' plants without any harm; the same has been true throughout history. As an example, dogs, if valuable enough i.e. a good hunter/herder etc used to be fed raisins by the peoples of various cultures, and my first dog, who lived to a ripe age, loved raisins. And raw grapes. Now, we're being told they're highly toxic to dogs, even fatal. It's entirely possible that sprayed grapes are toxic/fatal, (ask any non-organic grape farmer about the warning labels on his sprays, but chances are he'll refuse to answer, because they're that shocking); also some animals are sensitive where others are not, but it's strange how some people feed them to their dogs without issues and some people can't, yet we're told ALL grapes and raisins are toxic to dogs, "even one can kill".

I think a lot of modern strains of domesticated animals and plants are not as healthy or mutually cohesive as once they were. All domestic animals join us in having high levels of sensitivities, allergies, etc as compared to their wild counterparts. Chances are, too, that a lot of the fatally toxic plants were only classed as such because they'd been sprayed or otherwise exposed to artificial/synthetic chemicals. Now we have gluten and lactose intolerant animals, and we're being told that they were always that way, but my own research into older methods of animal husbandry, an my own experiences, has led me to believe that's not true.

I wouldn't worry about the potatoes, they should be fine, unless of course the potatoes are green, when they're poisonous to most animals just like they are to people when in that state. Best wishes.

 

[Neffy]

I canned 25 pounds of yams today and am wondering if I cook the peels down, are they safe for chickens? I know that you can't give them potatoes, but does it apply to yams and sweet potatoes?

Sweet potatoes or yams yes they are not actually potatoes but potatoes no this reply before is bad. There’s so learning and potatoes and it is toxic to humans and two animals. If you eat raw potatoes you could get botulism but also you shouldn’t feed them the leaves or any part of the plant. So do peppers and other nightshade plants but certain parts of peppers are OK just not the seeds or white part. Look up everything on Google before you feed your duck anything because you shouldn’t base what you do to your duck on someone’s answer on theInternet who may or may not know what they are talking about seek a reliable source and double check it

 

[ChickensForEggs2500]

From my research, chickens can't eat white or green potatoes, but they can eat sweet ones in small amounts. The toxic ones are members of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) while sweet potatoes/yams are part of the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). Please correct me if I'm wrong!

 

[moawahine]

In Hawaii, we traditionally (before commercial feed) fed chickens cooked sweet potato and yam peelings.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Potatoes aren’t poisonous to chickens. It’s the single most repeated falsehood about chickens.

Green skinned potatoes (caused when potatoes grow when exposed to sunlight) is toxic...unless cooked. But green potatoes are few and far between unless maybe you’re growing your own with less than ideal hills.

 

[Warwickchickenhill]

I canned 25 pounds of yams today and am wondering if I cook the peels down, are they safe for chickens? I know that you can't give them potatoes, but does it apply to yams and sweet potatoes?

Our flock has been eating sweet potatoes often this winter keeps them busy !!!

 

[333113]

Don't forget to plant a few slips for them in the spring. If you protect the roots and a foot or so of plant growth, the sweet potato plants will withstand regular trimming by ducks or chickens.

The past few years I have planted a raised-bed row next to my chicken and duck runs for extra shade in the summer. The poultry keeps the leaves inside the run "trimmed" (maybe I should say, "eaten"), while enough is left on the outside to grow sweet potatoes for winter.