What’s the deal with you chicken people??

[z3lda3]

When they are in a store, or come directly from a hatchery, "assorted mix" usually means the hatchery put the last few of each breed into one box and called them assorted. One chick may be a Cochin and another may be a Brahma, but there will probably not be an Cochin/Brahma mixes. Sometimes there will be specific assortments: just bantams, or just chickens with feathered feet, or just chickens that lay brown eggs, or something like that.


You say avocado means certain death to a chicken eats it? What is your source for that? It is certainly stated on many websites, but as far as I can tell, they are just plain WRONG.

My main source for doubting it: many chickens that have eaten avocado and been perfectly healthy. They did not eat the pit, and they ate little or none of the peel, but they ate the same part of the avocado that people would eat. If the avocado had ugly brown streaks inside, sometimes the entire avocado went to the chickens and they ate it right up (number of chickens ranged from about 6 to 20 at various times.)

Here is a post on this website, from someone with more extensive experience than I have:


And if you want a source that isn't just personal experience, here is Purina's view:
https://www.purinamills.com/chicken...eed-chickens-chicken-treats-to-feed-and-avoid
"Avocado pits and skins are toxic to chickens as they contain a toxin called persin. The flesh of the avocado is fine for chickens."

(Purina is in the business of selling animal feed, which means they want your chickens alive so you buy more feed. They do not sell avocados. So if there is any conflict of interest, they should be telling you to avoid anything even remotely dangerous.)


https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/20133426489
And here is a scientific study that included avocado meal as an ingredient in chicken feed, with that feed used for broiler chicks during a 4 week period (age 14 days to 42 days). Since it was mixed into the feed, they had no choice about eating it. The experiment included several different levels of avocado meal, with the highest being 29.3% of the total feed. (Yes, almost 1/3 of the feed was avocado meal, for 28 days.)

The results include the statement that none of the chicks died during the experiment. I repeat, NONE of them died. The researchers did find that the fastest-growing chicks were the ones with no avocado meal in their food. The toxin Persin was mentioned as one possible reason for this. But despite that, all of the chicks did live and did grow, some of them with very large amounts of avocado meal in their food for 4 weeks.

As for what the "avocado meal" is, the paper says: "After the oil has been extracted from avocado fruits that were unsuitable for the fresh fruit market, a product, avocado meal (AM), remains as a waste product"

If the link doesn't work, here is the header of the paper, so you can try to find it by googling:
Applied Animal Husbandry & Rural Development 2013, Volume 6 22
Can avocado meal replace maize meal in broiler diets?
J.B.J. van Ryssen, A. Skenjana & W.A. van Niekerk
Animal & Wildlife Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa

So I contend that your statement "It's probably the most lethal thing for chickens besides swallowing foreign material. This image is absolutely awful because if a chicken-keeper relied on this source and this source solely, then that means certain death" is NOT true of avocados. Plenty of chickens have eaten avocado, in various quantities, without dying from it.

Well that’s a lot of information! Did you know uncooked green beans are toxic to chickens? And Apple seeds, and apparently alcohol is a no no too. And chocolate which I think is just sad.

 

[NatJ]

So it is like with tomato plants? Mine had eaten about half of our tomato plants, and walked away perfectly happy and healthy. That was a year ago. I only learned later that it was dangerous. But mine were all fine. And they love getting tomato treats.

Probably about the same thing, except the flesh of the avocado might be more like the fruit of the tomato: completely safe, even though some other parts of the plant are not as safe (but still not deadly in some quantities, as the chickens themselves showed.)

 

[NatJ]

Well that’s a lot of information! Did you know uncooked green beans are toxic to chickens?

I have heard that, but never tested it.

And Apple seeds

I've given hundreds or thousands of apple cores to chickens, and watched them eat some of the seeds, and I've never seen a problem.

and apparently alcohol is a no no too. And chocolate which I think is just sad.

I have never deliberately given either of those to chickens.

The thing is, I grew up raising chickens, and I learned from my mother what things they could eat (short answer: dump it all in the pen and let them decide, with a very small list of exceptions.) So when I see lists of things that are supposed to be dangerous, that I have seen chickens eat safely for years, I am more inclined to believe my experience than the list!

I will say there can be a big difference in how you offer things to the chickens. If you just dump the table scraps in the pen and let the chickens decide, or you dump them in a compost pile and let the chickens have access, you get one situation (chickens usually make safe choices.) But if you chop or grind everything up and mix it together, the chickens will have a much harder time choosing certain parts and avoiding others. And if you mix it into their feed, so they have to eat it or starve, you can get just about any animal (including chickens) to eat things that are harmful. So how "safe" something is will depend on how you give it to them, along with how much they eat of it.

 

[KayisforKale]

Well that’s a lot of information! Did you know uncooked green beans are toxic to chickens? And Apple seeds, and apparently alcohol is a no no too. And chocolate which I think is just sad.

Mine eat apple seeds... Not many, but they eat the occasional seed when I give them apples. And the two year old threw a handful of mini m&ms into my run when I was not home, and apparently my chickens went bat crap crazy for them. I do NOT recommend doing that, but they apparently need a bit more than a tiny-tot's fistful of mini chocolate candies to perish (just in case yours ever find a few small pieces). But yeah, all in all, I refuse to allow them near chocolate or alcohol or anything rotting. My big rooster, however, does like to jump up onto our picnic table and drink from my coffee cup, though. I just shoo him away and chug it so he cannot take in anymore as I cannot imagine that caffeine is good for them.

 

[z3lda3]

Mine eat apple seeds... Not many, but they eat the occasional seed when I give them apples. And the two year old threw a handful of mini m&ms into my run when I was not home, and apparently my chickens went bat crap crazy for them. I do NOT recommend doing that, but they apparently need a bit more than a tiny-tot's fistful of mini chocolate candies to perish (just in case yours ever find a few small pieces). But yeah, all in all, I refuse to allow them near chocolate or alcohol or anything rotting. My big rooster, however, does like to jump up onto our picnic table and drink from my coffee cup, though. I just shoo him away and chug it so he cannot take in anymore as I cannot imagine that caffeine is good for them.

I read somewhere not to give chickens moldy bread. My question is, why would you??
I know chocolate is bad for dogs too but.. with my kids running around my dogs have had their fair share!

 

[KayisforKale]

I read somewhere not to give chickens moldy bread. My question is, why would you??
I know chocolate is bad for dogs too but.. with my kids running around my dogs have had their fair share!

Our dog, too! We do not even have time to pick up our dropped brownie chunks before the dog comes along and scarfs them up!

As for moldy bread, it goes straight into the trash or into the compost pile. No animal even shows interest in such things.

 

[z3lda3]

Our dog, too! We do not even have time to pick up our dropped brownie chunks before the dog comes along and scarfs them up!

As for moldy bread, it goes straight into the trash or into the compost pile. No animal even shows interest in such things.

I’m glad you said that, I was literally just wondering if moldy bread could be composted lol.
Oh yes! My dogs are the fastest vacuum cleaners!

 

[NatJ]

I read somewhere not to give chickens moldy bread. My question is, why would you??

You would give moldy bread to chickens if your parents taught you to do it, tracing back several generations to farmers who gave the chickens everything the people did not want to eat (no point in wasting it.) And the more times you do it and the chickens gobble it down and stay healthy, the more likely you are to keep doing it.

If the bread is a solid lump of mold, I would throw it in the trash.

But for bread or cheese with a small amount of mold, I have given those to chickens quite a number of times. I have never seen any bad effects. (I have also not seen bad effects in myself when I eat a bite before I realize it has mold. And I'm not the only person in the household to have that experience.)

Moldy food is relatively rare in my household, but it's definitely happened a few times.

As for moldy bread, it goes straight into the trash or into the compost pile. No animal even shows interest in such things.

For bread that is slightly moldy, I've seen plenty of interest from chickens. They gobble it down just as fast as un-moldy bread. I do not know what would happen if it is completely covered in mold, because I have not tried giving that to chickens.

 

[NagemTX]

When I first moved mine out, I was out there every hour on the hour to make sure they were alright. Now I know that they no likey-like light until the sun comes up.

Mine have flood lights all the time. The coop is dark tho. The flood lights have saved their a**es a few times. I leave them on because I have some that roost in the trees and if they get targeted by a coon they need to be able to see to evade untill I can get out there.

 

[BantyChooks]

Fun Fact: The Partridge isn't actually a Chantecler. It was developed at the other end of the country by someone else and when he presented the bird to the poultry association it was decided to lump it in with the Chantelers.

Well, that’s definitely its origin story, but they’re bred to the same standard and have been for a long time. There are definitely people that refuse to recognise partridge or even buff, but it’s controversial and you can sometimes get kicked out of groups for saying PCs aren’t actually Chanteclers.