are crab apples safe?

[cheri222]

We have 2 large crab apple trees with hundreds of 1inch crab apples. Normally I throw them in the compost or the boys whip them at each other and we end up with apples everywhere. Can the chickens have them??

 

[Judy]

Sure.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Our chickens will peck at them, but aren't crazy about them. Sure won't hurt them any though.
But don't forget to keep some for making crab-apple preserves. Yummy!

 

[Ohhhdear]

As long as you haven't sprayed the trees with a lot of pesticides or fungicides, then yes! My father in law had a decorative crab apple tree which dropped thousands of small ripe fruits every fall and made a horrible mess in his lawn until his chickens gobbled them up. Only problem was some of the fruit had fermented... you can imagine the state some of those hens were in at night, staggering back to the coop!

 

[mama24]

People can eat crab apples, too! It makes great jelly! No pectin needed, crabapples have natural pectin! Before you could buy pectin, people used crab apples along with other fruits to make jellies b/c the crab apples would jelly the other fruit.

So quit wasting them, let your chickies eat some, and make some jelly!

 

[cheri222]

Ok jelly it is, but i will save some of the apples for them. Thanks for the advice.

 

[woodmort]

Won't hurt them--I have a tree near the house that they gather under as soon as they fall and gobble up what the deer don't get.