Are apples okay for chickens?

[hrmalexandra]

Mine love apple cores! I would agree on the "too much of a good thing," thought, maybe check and see that not too many have dropped at once onto your hungry girls. I believe someone on here posited the theory that a few apple seeds were a good thing for mite control - the little bit of cyanide made them toxic to bugs but not unhealthy. Thoughts?

 

[bigchicken2]

They can eat apples just not the core. They can eat all kinds of foods. My chickens have eaten the cores before and they're fine. Sometimes we throw apple cores on the ground for the birds and they don't usually die from it. As long as you feed them other things too. If they eat too many cores without anything else they'll die. Some birds eat poisonous things and then they eat other thing and they don't die.

 

[pongoid]

Can you feed your chickens some kind of grass seed or groundcover seed so that the seed that isn't destroyed by their digestion would help feed the lawn not only fertilizer but actual plants?

 

[pongoid]

LOL, I fed my chickens earthworms for the first time yesterday. It was very hilarious! Like murderball for chickens.
They chased each other around trying to steal one another's worms.
At one point I got worried because I have 13 week pullets in with 8 week pullets and the younger ones were getting held down at the neck so their worm could get stolen.

 

[quickchickie]

i gave my layers apples they didnt eat much of them but it give them the runs and i only collected 5 eggs i usually get 12 to 15 a day today i collected 9 so it just might be the weather but weather doesnt give you the runs anyhow no more apples for my girls

 

[gritsar]

If it falls to the ground, whether it be apples, peaches, or crapapples it's fair game around here. The chickens also strip the blackberry bushes clean of any of the fruit they can reach. I usually pick the figs for them because try as they might they can't jump high enough to help themselves. Have to go easy on the figs, so things don't get too loose.
They'd have to eat a ton of apple seeds for them to do them any harm.

 

[shopchicks]

Unless you are feeding your flock solely on apple cores, the seeds will not hurt them. I have heard the same caution about feeding apples to pregnant mares, but the truth is that a horse would have to eat something like 20 pounds of apples in a day to see any effect at all, much less to abort a foal. Flax also contains the precursors to cyanide, and it is safe as up to 10% of the diet for hens, or up to 6 ounces a day for horses, and still the amount of cyanide is miniscule, and is excreted quickly, so it does not build up in the animal's system over time.

 

[COOPster]

I had 2 hens that would actually fly up into the tree and start eating the apples out of the tree. Never had a problem with them

GOD Bless the Buckeyes and Woody Hayes

 

[pongoid]

Sow Thistle?

 

[pongoid]

Quote:
No one answered my question about thistles...but its been 3 days and they seem fine.

Now, they got a hold of a stinkhorn mushroom that I didn't see when I pastured them there. They are fighting over it.

I wonder if its poisonous...its too late now...I guess I will find out.