Chickens and Poisonous Plants

[Juise]

Everywhere I drag the tractor, the chickens eat everything it covers. I have been using it to clear areas I want weeded out, and it's great! Mostly so far though it has been over tall grasses, (which they happily peck the seeds off!) Lambs Quarters, Dune Grasses, and lots of Milkweed, which they devour without apparent harm. So... if there ends up being a nightshade or lily of the valley in there, will they eat it and die?

 

[Dawn419]

We let ours free range during the day and they don't bother with my Lily-of-the Valley and most nightshade family members.

We have our garden fenced off from the chickens but have a few odd-ball, outside the garden tomato volunteers. The haven't bothered the plants at all but I suspect it's going to be a race to see which one of us gets the ripened fruit first!

 

[Yonaton]

They know what they can and can't eat. Just to test it, I caught a nice green katydid and one of those useless black with red stripes grasshoppers (poisonous), both were pretty much the same size, and dropped them both in amongst the one month old chicks in my coop. I was confident enough knowing that most birds are *born* with the knowledge of what they can and can't eat, to do this.

They all instantly tried to get the katydid and ignored the black grasshopper like the plague.

I've also done this with plants/seeds. I'm absolutely certain that they know what they're doing far better than we do. I've known this for many, many years without having to experiment, but I did it so that I could actually write what happened and express the findings with a good certainty

 

[Juise]

That's fantastic! Thank you

 

[ryanhodapp]

I wish mine would eat more weeds. They dont seem to like elephant ears, the low growing leafey weed that gets the little green spike on it. Mine dont eat the milkweed growing all over the fence either.