Brown Anole Lizards

[payanek]

Anyone have experience feeding their chickens brown anole lizards? or lizards in general? Lizards are pretty big and from what I understand chickens don't really "chew" so would it lead to any impacted crop problems.
The brown anoles run rampant here and I just caught one and threw it in the chicken run. They went crazy for it and one chicken swallowed the whole lizard.

Here's a link for reference on a brown anole:
http://invasions.bio.utk.edu/invaders/sagrei.html

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Aloha &

I don't think the lizards would cause impacted crops unless the chickens were eating them by the bowlful. They can eat all sorts of reptiles & rodents and the grit in their gizzards breaks it all down.

 

[payanek]

cool thanks grit is provided free choice
its just kind of hard to imagine all the bones and everything being digested inside the chicken

 

[roosters97]

Why?..........People......killing reptiles.

 

[Kung Foo Chicken]

My big girls eat toads so I don't see why not.

 

[JupiterFarmer]

Quote:
Highly invasive exotic species that is kills other kinds of lizards.



Ima watch this thread because I've had my chooks eat those lizards before but my father swears that eating lizards make cats stupid. Darn old guy advice

.... they love it though and I saw a boost in our native green anoles when I did it! My silkie cross didn't have a problem with munching down those pests

 

[payanek]

Quote:
Highly invasive exotic species that is kills other kinds of lizards.


exactly...they are killing the green anole population here locally. I haven't seen a green anole in years.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
There may be something to that. I remember my mom saying that one time a cat she was watching for a neighbor ate a lizard and had some sort of brain damage afterwards. It would walk in a diagonal with its neck bent and its head held sideways. This was about 55 years ago in South Florida, who knows what kind of lizard that was? She felt so guilty that the neighbor's cat she was supposed to be caring for had to be euthanized that she gave away her own cat at the same time.

I've watched my guinea hens catch & eat the brown anoles here and they don't act any more stupid than usual. And the green native anoles are rare here too. There's a local exotic pet store owner who pays kids to catch the brown ones for him to sell.

 

[chickenzoo]

There is such a thing as " Lizard poisoning" in cats. I don't remember exactly what caused it, but we had a cat that developed it a year after we moved to Florida. She would hold her head sideways and walk in big circles, never a straight line and would drool some. She lived to a right old age, but always took awhile to get anywhere. The vet called it "lizard poisoning." I do believe the anole lizards had something to do with it.

 

[payanek]

funny thing happened... the first night after eating the brown anoles the chickens didn't roost in the coop. I checked on them at around 8pm and had to escort them back into the coop and onto the roost. Tonight, however they were all back on the roost when I went to close their door for the night.
Maybe the lizards had something to do with this?