Apple peels for chickens !

[Bunnytamer]

So i was at the polar bear plunge in kennewick , and we were offered a big bag of apple peels ! So we got a big 20 pound bag, and today i put it in the coop with the girls. ( they ate into them right away - even tho slightly frozen )
Is that okay ?

 

[americana-lover]

I give my girls apples all the time! But I have to cut them in half so they can get to the flesh of the apple. ( they dont like the peel! )

 

[kacklinkelly]

Mine love the apple core and devour it. Haven't given them the peels other than what is left on the core.

 

[NancyB22000]

Please be careful giving your chickens apples or apple cores - apple seeds have cyanide in them.

NancyB

 

[Chickens R Us]

Apple seed do have cyanide in them but not enough to kill a chicken. My chickens eat them all the time and so do my dogs, I have 275 apple trees on my property so they eat a lot of them.

 

[chfite]

My chickens also eat many apples that fall from our tree without apparent ill effect.

Chris

 

[NancyB22000]

Oh, that's good to know - I used to give my girls apple cores, then somewhere on here I read that the seeds contain cyanide - since I had no idea what the concentration was, or how much would be harmful to the chickens, I stopped giving them the cores.

I'm curious, though - is there not a cumulative effect? That the more seeds they eat, the more cyanide builds up in their bodies? Like when kids are exposed to lead paint?

NancyB

 

[SD Bird Lady]

I dont think it has a cumaltive affect. It wasn't only 6 months ago there was news reports on apple cider having cyanide content and then something new came up and it was never heard of again. My kids and I drink cider quite often and have never had a problem and I have never seen a squirrel drop dead from an apple tree except if the apples are old and it gets drunk haha

 

[Ridgerunner]

Their body purges it out fairly fast. One study I looked at was that the half-life of cyanide in humans was roughly 20 to 60 minutes. That's humans not chickens and I got that over the internet so I can't say it is real reliable, but I'm not too worried about it.

It's not just apple seeds. Practically any fruit seed has cyanide in it. I have many different fruit trees in my orchard. I have absolutely no problem with the chickens foraging in there. I found a plum pit in the gizzard of a chicken I processed, so they will eat them.

The way I look at it with fruit seeds is that a few won't hurt them. But if I make jam, jelly, or something where I have a huge pile of seeds, I dispose of them in a way the chickens can't get to them. If I dumped a bucketfull of seeds in front of them, would they actually eat enough to hurt themselves? Probably not but I don't know that for sure so I take what I consider reasonable precautions.

But if I use a few to make a pie, that goes on the compost heap where they can get to them. There are not enough there to hurt them.

 

[NancyB22000]

Ridgerunner - that sounds very reasonable . . . moderation in most things is good!

I don't have any fruit trees around, and hadn't really given the matter any thought, until we got "the girls", last September, and I think I'm still in my learning curve - the more I learn about chickens, the more I realize I don't know! But at least I now know more than I used to . . .

SD Bird Lady -
Drunk squirrels - lol! Thanks for the laugh!

NancyB