So my idea was to plant a muscadine vine on a trellis near part of the run. This would provide a source of shade and a source of treats. Are muscadines poisonous? Or, do chickens gorge themselves? Would they end up eating so much that they'd explode? Like if you feed a fish too much fish food it will get impacted and die. Does this happen to chickens, or do they overall know when to stop eating?
I've not seen mine eating the leaves but, then again, they grow like mad so it would take a lot to miss any. Mine have never had any problems eating them.
mine eat them. i have wild musc's on my entire back property line. they grow like crazy too. be ready for canning once they come on full force; they make awesome jelly .
I know this is an old thread but I just trained my muscadine vine to grow over my coop. The grapes make wonderful sweet wines as well, for those interested. I live just down the way from one of the largest muscadine wineries. My chicks will get the leaves/vines but I hope to keep most of the grapes for the humans so I'm running the vines up high
Another late comer to this thread, and I'm too far north to grow this grape, but I can tell you that I have read literature from the University of Georgia's research department showing that muscadine grapes have incredible antioxidant/anti-inflammatory effects, and that feeding the skins and seeds to chickens is very beneficial to chickens--actually mimicking the effects of antibiotics without the bad side effects.
