Can Chickens Eat Whole Peaches?

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

When I was bringing in food scraps from a local food pantry, there'd be a lot of avocados in the mix. The chickens would occasionally eat the "meat" of the fruit, but ignore the skins and pits (where I believe the potentially harmful chemicals are). Never had issues with apple seeds, peach pits, or anything else. Given plenty of options, chickens appear to be quite good at not eating what they shouldn't.

 

[cincyfarmgirl]

Obviously you did not read my post #26 in this thread immediately above your post. I tried to address both of the poisoning and choking issues of chickens and fruit pits like peaches and plums. There is not enough poison in a peach or apricot pit to poison something the size of a chicken.


Accurate details with Avocados! I wish! There is so much conflicting information about them being poisonous and what parts are poisonous to chickens that I don't have any confidence in any of the answers.

I suspect there is a part of the avocado (I do not think it is the pit) that contains a substance that can be harmful to chickens. Are they likely to eat enough of that substance to harm themselves if they can feed off of avocadoes? I don't know. There is so much uncertainty and confusion from different sources that I would not feed them any part of an avocado. To me it is not worth the risk.

Evidently, I did not thoroughly read your post. As usual, it is a mixed bag. Different people have different experiences but certainly if a human, or a chicken, or a goat, etc. gets enough cyanide it would be detrimental. I guess I’ll take my chances on a little. Humans absorb a little cyanide every day and apparently it gets handled and excreted. That is if your kidneys are functioning properly. And I do not feed any avocado because there’s too much uncertainty.
Here is an interesting article about cyanide. It does not relate directly to Chickens though. https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/emergency/chemical_terrorism/cyanide_general.htm

 

[cincyfarmgirl]

When I was bringing in food scraps from a local food pantry, there'd be a lot of avocados in the mix. The chickens would occasionally eat the "meat" of the fruit, but ignore the skins and pits (where I believe the potentially harmful chemicals are). Never had issues with apple seeds, peach pits, or anything else. Given plenty of options, chickens appear to be quite good at not eating what they shouldn't.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Apple seeds anyway don't contain actual cyanide, but a chemical called amygdalin. If crushed or chewed (I believe it's the exposure to oxygen that triggers, but I'm not 100%), the chemical can create hydrogen cyanide.

Again, the quantities in apple seeds is very small and the amount we'd need to consume to garner ill effects to person or chicken significant.