Am I really Truly Poisonous?

[Megan Amber]

So we all have heard and read the lists of poisonous and harmful things to feed your chickens and other poultry. I don't know about anyone else, but some of these things I read AFTER I have already fed it to them, usually weeks after and it's harmless, nothing happened, no one died. Or there is the case where you read not to give it to them ever never and you wonder why? It just doesn't make sense, like the whole rice myth that has proven to be untrue with me, that if they eat rice they explode and die. Not true, at all.

So I was looking for people to share experiences where they feed something supposedly "bad" to their birds and everything turned out fine. The main thing I have done is potato peels, raw, uncooked, feed them to my birds all the time, never lost one to potato peels. Today I will be feeding them rice, another big fat no no. All and any experiences welcome and Thank You.

 

[Den in Penn]

Are you trying to start a war between those who think the lists are Holy and those who think they are ... holey? I don't myself pay much attention to them, but to the chickens themselves. But then mine usually have a choice to eat something or not. If you have them for a while you get to trust their judgment. I suppose that they have tried nearly everything on the place that is on one list or another. Oh and I feed potato peels too.

 

[Megan Amber]

Are you trying to start a war between those who think the lists are Holy and those who think they are ... holey? I don't myself pay much attention to them, but to the chickens themselves. But then mine usually have a choice to eat something or not. If you have them for a while you get to trust their judgment. I suppose that they have tried nearly everything on the place that is on one list or another. Oh and I feed potato peels too.

No no, I'm not trying to start a war at all! I just wanted to read what other people have tried and found untrue for their chickens as well. I agree with all you said, it's a personal choice no matter what, sorry if I cam off cross in my original post.

 

[junecleavage]

I'm curious if it is only cooked rice you feed your chickens or if you feed them uncooked rice. It is my understanding that it is only uncooked rice that can be harmful because it will swell...but only if a large amount is eaten. My girls (and boys) LOVE rice. The other day I gave them left over rice and peas. They torn threw the rice and left almost all of the peas. They came back for them later though. Raw potatoes... I have not had a chicken that would eat them.

 

[appps]

Some are probably old wives tales that belong with golden oldies like putting butter on a burn


Others may be factual but depend on quantity consumed. You see vets on television all the time saying chocolate is deadly to dogs but my sisters border collie ate an entire Easter egg hunt before the kids woke one Easter and was none the worse for wear. Does that mean we should start advising people to ignore the warning and feed their dogs Chocolate? Probably not . It may need to reach a certain level in their system to become toxic and different size dogs may be affected at different amounts of consumption.

So.....Just because someone's chicken eats something with no ill effects doesn't mean another's would. I would not just be saying my chickens eat potato peelings but rather my flock of x amount of large birds gets raw/cooked peelings from about 6 potatoes once a week with no ill effect. Just so we know if its a small dose they are okay with or large.

And for the record my chickens didn't explode the one time I gave them rice. Phew that was lucky!! I hadn't heard of that danger!! ;-)

 

[ChickensRDinos]

I mean....a TON of things are poisonous if you consume enough of it. You can die from drinking too much water. But that doesn't mean that eating a handful of rice is going to cause your bird to instantly die. Even really common animal warnings that chocolate and dogs are sort of blown out of proportion. If your 10 pound dogs eats a whole 1lb of bakers chocolate then yeah its really bad but if your great dane eats a hershey bar nothing if going to happen except gas.

I also hear mixed things about a lot of those things on the huge long lists -- like rice. I personally don't trust the lists on personal blogs. Look for sources that explain WHY something might be bad and how it works and have references.

 

[Megan Amber]

I'm curious if it is only cooked rice you feed your chickens or if you feed them uncooked rice. It is my understanding that it is only uncooked rice that can be harmful because it will swell...but only if a large amount is eaten. My girls (and boys) LOVE rice. The other day I gave them left over rice and peas. They torn threw the rice and left almost all of the peas. They came back for them later though. Raw potatoes... I have not had a chicken that would eat them.

Exactly, only if a very large amount is eaten, funny though if you look at the facts corn swells and absorbs three times as much water as rice does. Yet they have no problem with corn. It is raw, but I only recently began feeding it to them, I will keep you posted on how it goes.

 

[Megan Amber]

Some are probably old wives tales that belong with golden oldies like putting butter on a burn


Others may be factual but depend on quantity consumed. You see vets on television all the time saying chocolate is deadly to dogs but my sisters border collie ate an entire Easter egg hunt before the kids woke one Easter and was none the worse for wear. Does that mean we should start advising people to ignore the warning and feed their dogs Chocolate? Probably not . It may need to reach a certain level in their system to become toxic and different size dogs may be affected at different amounts of consumption.

So.....Just because someone's chicken eats something with no ill effects doesn't mean another's would. I would not just be saying my chickens eat potato peelings but rather my flock of x amount of large birds gets raw/cooked peelings from about 6 potatoes once a week with no ill effect. Just so we know if its a small dose they are okay with or large.

And for the record my chickens didn't explode the one time I gave them rice. Phew that was lucky!! I hadn't heard of that danger!! ;-)

I do in fact agree, when I give them peelings it's from about 12 large potatoes and it's given to roughly 15 bantam's. Wow, what an interesting story about the chocolate, I think that's really my point in that we read the lists, we , or at least I do, become extremely fearful when they eat something on that list and sometimes yes it hurts them quite badly and other times no it doesn't, I also agree that it is quantity that matters, I just thought it would be an interesting read to hear people's opinions and stories, so thank you for sharing.

 

[Den in Penn]

No you didn't sound to me as cross, just curious. I should have put a LOL after the first sentence. The statement that "Its the dose that makes the poison" is very true. Some medicines can kill if used wrong. The lists would be more helpful if the listed the symptoms and the amounts needed to bring them on. For the most part a free ranging chicken won't have a chance to eat enough of any low dose poisonous plant to even bother it. I started to throw into my chickens lambs quarter out of my garden then I read a list with it on it. Well my chickens were still alive a doing well. So either the list was wrong or it is something that has to be very concentrated to make them sick. The list didn't say what it was of how much it would take.

 

[Fat Man]

As stated earlier a lot of it is dose dependent. It would take a lot of potato peelings to make the hens sick.

As far as rice goes, have you every gone to a rice field and seen all the dead birds?