acorns?

[gypsyfarm123]

Ok,today I was out in the woods collecting acorns (I am a hopeless backwoods forager) and I use them in certain recipes (they go great with some wild mushrooms) I usually boil them with two changes of water to take the bitterness out..Well,when I got back with my pail of acorns my chicks must have thought it was feeding time and started following me around the yard.So I thought to myself..I wonder if they will eat them..so here I am sitting in the middle of the yard (yes,I am a weirdo)cracking the acorns with my teeth and crushing them up into bite size pieces and the chicks went CRAZY for them! But now I'm kinda thinking I should have cooked them first. Do you think the raw acorns may upset their stomach's? Should I have cooked them first? Or not even gave them to them at all?

 

[kari_dawn]

I probably would have cooked them...just cause acorns can have some toxicity to them that needs some processing out, but I have found that my chickens have pretty hardy systems from free ranging all day.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Acorns vary in their tannin content by their species. Some have so much that few animals will eat them while others may have so little you could eat them out of hand. If the birds are eating them as-is then I would not worry about it.

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

deer, squirrels, all eat acorns, raw acorns, which is a mainstay source of food. chickens can eat practically anything and shy away from things they shouldn't eat, as long as they have a variety, they is a really good thread listing all that they can eat, or not eat

 

[gypsyfarm123]

I always collect acorns from 'White oaks' since they have the least tannin content, plus the base of the white oak is where a particular 'edible' mushroom grows here in N.J.this time of year so I usually get both at the same time. Although it has been a lousy year for M/R's and come to think of it,I had a lousy veggie crop too. *wonder why*?? Usually I am LOADED w/veggies,M/shrooms and saying to myself "WHY DO I DO THIS!! With all the peeling, chopping, sterilizing pickling vacuum sealing, dehydrating.. BUT I must admit,I MISS It (plus I'm gonna have a lot of mad friend's come the holiday's!) I barely have enough for MYSELF! I don't even have any tomato sauce left! What am I going to do without my pickled peppers!! Store bought? Not a chance..OHH DANG!,,,I'm sorry."This is the "CHICKEN'forum" (ill save that rant for over @ the 'easy garden Sorry, guess I drifted off.. Ok, what I REALLY came on here for was about the ACORNS! I googled (the best I could do on my BB and couldn't find ANYTHING on feeding my girl's (and boy) the raw acorns. They seemed fine this morning,so I guess it did no harm feeding them to em' RAW. But I'm STILL not sure if I should keep feeding raw or not. If I have to cook them, then it really doesn't seem worth the effort...but they went soo crazy for them I kinda feel bad..Is there ANYONE that feeds their chickens raw acorns on a regular basis? Should I just limit them to a couple days a week and them be ok? Thanks for taking the time to read this <<craig

 

[debid]

My chickens eat the acorns from our chinkapin oaks. They search the driveway for the dry ones that have been run over, find the half-eaten ones the squirrels drop to extract the remaining nut meat, and eat the bright green ones whole. We happen to have several trees of this variety around and the ground is littered with acorns this time of year but I've also noticed that they don't eat huge amounts of any one thing while they're out and that includes the acorns.