Bananas killing chickens?

[NotTheMomma]

Mine have the overly ripe bananas, the tiny bit of banana left in the peel when I'm eating one, and they have access to the banana peels, though I don't feed them to the chickens. The peels are for the roses, dontcha' know.

I've not had any problem medically with them, though they don't like bananas.

BUT, people that raise parrots, lovebirds, etc., feed them bananas and no problem. I was in the grocery store last week, and a lady was buying all kinds of produce that had been reduced. I was looking for any apples reduced for the horses, or green beans for me to can. She asked if I was looking at the produce to feed my family, and I told her only green beans. If there were any apples or carrots, I like them for the horses. She said she was buying all hers for the parrots, but wouldn't take food from someone that needed for the family.

Sweet lady she was!

Anyway, I can't imagine this rich, well to do lady feeding her parrots things that would kill them. After all, they weren't $2 chicks, they were $2k birds!

 

[NotTheMomma]

Meant to say, I think the banana and the deaths were just a coincidence, and nothing more.

 

[Tailfeathers]

Hmm, interested thread. I've got a couple of roosters that I've been wondering if I should sell or go through the process of putting them in the freezer.

I think I'll put them in a pen tomorrow and toss in a couple of bananas. Peelings too for that matter. If they die that fast it's better than any other way I've ever found!

Ok, just kiddin'! Sorry, couldn't help myself...

God Bless,

 

[kidd42]

Our girls have eaten bananas since they were two weeks old, they are now 19 weeks old and have not had any issues. In fact they love them.
Point to consider, chickens are tropical birds and in the wild they eat everything that they come upon. I'm sure that if bananas are in abundance in the tropics they are eating them there.

 

[ruth]

Quote:
I acutally like that idea. I might try it myself and test this theory. I've got 13 roos in a pen and my DH can't seem to get around to processing them and there's another 20 that need to go in the pen soon.

It would be a lot easier if it did work. Of course, in my case, I'd have to toss a truck load of bananas in there. That many bananas falling on them might kill one or two.

 

[dlhunicorn]

 

[tropicalchicken]

We grow bananas here on our own land in Hawaii and when we have bananas we have lots of them, I am not talking about a hand of them, but a whole bunch and generally several bunches come off at the same time. So our chickens eat all the extra ones, including the peels. No pesticides to worry about, and I sure don't have the time to peel a whole bunch of bananas for them either, so when they get ripe, out the door they go to my chickens and my rooster. They eat them peels and all, til everything is gone, then fight each over for an remains that might be found. They eat the watermelons until everything is gone as well. I hope it doesn't kill them, but they have been eating them forever and I have forty some odd chickens, so someone should have died by now,oops better shut up or I'll jinx them.

 

[Chicksdigit]

wow I like bananas I buy bananas all the time, and when they get brown and soft I take them and slice them up into pieces about 1 1/2 inch long and give them to the chickens have been doing this every week for a long time. I have 3 I was going to give them tomorrow but I think I will hold off. It just isn't worth them dying and me not knowing what killed them. I never had any Idea Bananas would hurt them.

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

We just discovered our chickens know the word "Banana". we lure them into the coop with the promise of "Who wants a banana?". This week we said it, but being in a hurry, gave them a scoop of conveniently located corn scratch. They looked so heartbroken. They sort of whimpered about "no banana. Oh woe is we, there's no banana here" and looked plaintively up at each of us, so sweet. We had to go get them the promised banana.

Now we have to show them a banana first.

They still love corn scratch, too. They'll come if you call "who wants a scoop of corn?" But don't call it a banana.

 

[silkiechicken]

You'd have to eat a lot of bananas to get K poisoning.

The LD50 according to wiki (Lethal Dose that kills 50% of the subjects) for pure potassium chloride is 2600mg/kg. Your standard bannana would have anywhere between 400-600mg in it... so if you were an average lean 4.5lb rooster, you'd need about 5000mg of potassium to have a 50% chance to kill him, or to have consumed about 10 whole fruits within a reasonable short time period.

He probably died of something else.