Can you feed chickens uncooked rice?

[Ohhhdear]

I know birds compete with all sorts of people for wild rice growing in swampy areas here. I know wild rice and brown/white rice are different grains, but they're both a grassy plant with hard seeds.
As to rice's digestibility, consider BOSS... if chickens can digest sunflower seed shells, why wouldn't they be able to work through the thin rice hulls (if the rice isn't already polished)?

 

[happylittlehomestead]

Check out this local craigslist posting.

How much rice as chicken feed is too much rice? This would be some seriously cheap feed!

 

[maizey]

The little old ladies were slipping down on mushy rice that had soaked up the dew on Sunday mornings after the weekend weddings.... thats why you throw bird seed at weddings. It also sweeps away much easier than wet rice. If rice killed birds, japan would be a wasteland of dead and rotting birds.

 

[dipence71]

Quote:
Pictures are running through my head and I am laughing my rear end off LOL....

 

[Tropical Chook]

Okay........................I moved to Thailand just over 10 years ago, and I can tell you, the Thais eat rice with every meal. When you dish up food, you only dish up the rice. any other food is placed on the table in bowls, and those at the table help themselves. It's rice for breakfast, it's rice for lunch, and it's rice for supper. What I'm saying is, when it comes to rice, you can trust the Thais. Now, apart from the Thais living in the cities, or those living close to one, everyone feeds their chickens rice. The rice I'm talking about still has the husks on. I live on the outskirts of a city, and this type of rice costs the same as commercial chicken feed because it's the feed of choice here.
When I have asked in the past why they don't feed their birds the same type of rice we eat, they laugh and say it's too expensive. Can you feed them rice? Of course you can. My birds get rice everyday and it has never caused any problems. Any left over cooked rice is given to them, and the also get some uncooked rice each day. They love rice, and no, it will do them no harm at all, and that I guarantee.

 

[GLBRWyans]

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I greatly admire the quote you have chosen to use . One concern I have heard voiced is that once the uncooked rice is consumed , that it will will swell with the intake of water . They might indulge on the rice ; hence they would be at risk for an over-sized crop after feeding and watering . As one poster stated , unpolished rice is probably best and of course we
want to do things in moderation . If it is good enough for Thai , then it's good enough for thy . Although wasn't that the reason they banned it at weddings and such ....... and as another said , if a chicken can digest a sunflower seed a rice hull should be easy . Or even whole kernel corn .

 

[NYREDS]

Wow, Neil, thanks. It's as if the scales have fallen from my eyes.I finally see the truth of it. As a plus I now know how to rid my barn of those pesky sparrows. I'll just put rice where they can get it & the chickens can't. hanks again!!!!!!!

Of course it kills them! They bloat up like toads! Horrible death.

This is why there are no seed or grain eating wild birds in any areas of the world that produce rice. They would get out into the fields, eat the rice and kill them deddern a plastic Christmas Tree. Why do you think that there are no wild birds that would feed on rice living in the rice growing regions of the world. AK, TX, LA not a one! Nor are there any in those areas of Africa, South America, or, for heavens sake, of Asia where rice is raised.

This was all proven years ago. Why do you suppose that for the longest time there were never any sparrows around churches in big cities where there was a wedding or two every week. Rice killed them off as fast as they could fly in from the 'burbs. That is why we now use bird seed. To save the sparrows!

Primitive man in South Eastern Asia had to guard the jungle fowl day and night to keep them from eating rice so that they could domesticate the buggers.
My gosh why do you suppose all those ckickens are kept in buildings all over the rice growing areas of the world. It is to keep them from eating the dam rice!

I don't think that a lot of you realize what a serious uphill battle this has been for since the dawn of time.

I'm really glad that so much time has been spent reaffirming the "common sense" elements of this discussion.

And ya wanna know what is even more detrimental to chicken health- I think internet dunderheads.


I feel better now.

 

[Larrelye]

From Wiki Answers: While rice itself is not harmful to birds, the reason why some birds die from eating dried rice is that it expands considerably when it is soaked in a liquid for a long period of time or cooked under heat. Birds with small stomachs who eat too much dry rice will literally die from popped stomachs, as they cannot digest the dried grains before they expand too much inside their little tummies. Although birds have been eating rice much longer than humans have been throwing it at weddings, dried rice is a human invention. In the field, rice is found in a very different manner and you find at your everyday grocery market. Along the same lines, cooked rice is perfectly safe.

Most sources say uncooked rice is fine. But please do keep in consideration the size of your birds' tummies. Rice, and other grains, DO expand when warm and wet (FACT). If they are full up on dry grains (just like us), the moisture will cause them to expand up to double in size (FACT). Some grains expand more than others. Dry rice and noodles almost double in size. While the rice itself is fine, it can't be good for any animal to have it's stomach stretched to twice normal capacity (OPINION AS I'M NOT A DR).

Cornell University says: [FONT=Geneva, arial, sans serif][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If birds eat uncooked rice, can it swell up in their throats and stomachs and kill them?[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, arial, sans serif]Lots of birds eat uncooked rice in the wild. Bobolinks, sometimes called rice birds, are a good example. While rice is okay for birds, many wedding parties now throw bird seed instead.[/FONT] (my addition: Please note that uncooked rice in the wild is NOT the same as what you see in the grocery store. I don't know what the differences are but as I understand, we would not just go and pick and boil wild rice although I have no idea if that is true)

Snopes says that uncooked rice is fine. But after further research, their research was taken from a company that grows...... wait for it...... rice! What better company to say weather or not their product is good for you and your pets!? I tend to not trust research done by a company for the sole purpose of making that same company look good.

In the 50's my mother's family would kill seagulls by overfeeding rice and bread as I recall her telling us. The way she told the story it seemed like it did not take long for the birds to die. She would recall watching the birds die.

 

[threeduckfarm]

In Korean and as my link shows Thai natural farming, they feed new born chicks a diet of brown rice and chopped bamboo after hatching. In Asian natural farming they believe that brown rice and bamboo makes the chicks intestines strong leading to healthier chickens who are raised on natural foods instead of commercial diets. With the new research out today that it's the pesticides used to coat corn seeds that leads to honeybee hive collapse, I think we'll hopefully see a trend in more and more poultry keepers moving towards natural diets instead of using GMO and pesticide laden corn based diets for their flocks.

 

[dfriloux]

According to Snopes (an online mythbuster) (http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/birdrice.asp), rice does not cause birds any harm. "Uncooked, milled rice is no more harmful to birds than rice in the field, Cheesman said. The Curator of Ornithology at the University of California at Berkeley agrees." "It's a myth. There is no reason why birds, including small songbirds, can't eat rice," said Ned Johnson, a professor of biology at Berkeley who lectures frequently on the food and feeding of birds." It also says: "This silly myth pops up periodically, and it is absolutely unfounded," responded rice expert Mary Jo Cheesman at the USA Rice Federation. Many migrating ducks and geese depend on winter-flooded rice fields each year to fatten up and build strength for their return trek to northern nesting grounds."

I use rice hulls for my chicks' bedding and every time I put out new hulls, they come running and eat any and all the rice they can find! They don't get a lot, but, it hasn't hurt them at all. I've also fed them cooked rice and they seem to love it. Again, no problems.