Would it kill a chicken if they eat a Black Window Spider? We find them often in our yard and have been spraying for them, but now that we have chicks I'll probably stop spraying. So how worried do I need to be about them finding one and eating it? The spiders are only out at night and the chickens are in at night...
From what I understand the venom in a black widow is only a serious threat when it's injected directly into the blood stream. I imagine your chickens will be just fine, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that if a chicken was to be bitten by one of the black widows it would die. I would think chickens would peck them to death and eat them pretty quickly, not giving the black widows too much of a chance. Maybe the chickens will eat all the black widows. edit: you sparked my curiosity so I did a little searching around, old article from BYC 2007. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=107 good luck.
Any spider doesn't stand a chance around a hungry chicken. Heck the chicken doesn't even need to be hungry, they see it as a treat. Have never had one get sick from eating them. If you are worried about them they are easy to kill, just use hair spray if you are worried about poison, that will take care of them.
TheDonger you beat me to it. I was going to ask the same question. Today my 8 year old daughter was out with the chickens when she started chasing the chickens out of woods yelling no don't eat that. Come to find out she seen them going after a black widow and just knew it would hurt them. I don't think it would but never hurts to ask.
