Chickens are eating Styrofoam!!! HELP!!!

[The Sheriff]

Use styrofoam bowls with caution when serving oatmeal!

 

[Lucky Clucky]

I just discovered that my chickens have been eating a sheet of pink foam insulation that I glued to the underneath side of their raised hen house. None of the comments above have addressed the issue with the effect on eggs. My eggs this week have very thin membranes (the yolk breaks as the egg falls into the bowl after being cracked open and the whites are very thin. I whipped some up to make an omelet. The omelet had the appearance and lightness of a souffle. I am not going to eat these eggs. I am throwing out a weeks worth just to be safe as I am concerned that the polystyrene may have broken down, been absorbed and is incorporated into the eggs. My chickens seem fine, otherwise. My husband did a little experiment and collects some of the chicken droppings. He put them in a plastic cup and added about 2x water, mixed the concoction and let it sit, thinking that if the styrofoam was still intact (not digested) it would float to the surface. No luck-this makes us think the chicken GI tract breaks down and probably absorbs the insulation. I will get my chickens back on their regular diet and wait a couple of days to eat the eggs.

 

[Phoenixxx]

The house I live in has the white styrofoam around the outside of the foundation. I can't keep my chickens away from it, no matter what I do! I chase them away in such a way as to strike the fear of death into them, but turn my back for a minute and guess where they are again... I'd like to just remove all of the exposed, above-surface stuff but it's not my house (rental). Covering it isn't really feasible, either.

I, too, am concerned about the chemical-leeching aspect; I got chickens on purpose so I know I'm eating organic, non-GMO eggs. This styrofoam business is really defeating the purpose of that!

 

[out-of-my-coop]

I was wondering if you had heard back about whether what the eat effects their eggs ours have been pecking at black plastic and styrofoam?

 

[Epent12]

Mine has eaten styrofoam since years but they're all okay,

 

[grassfedchicken]

i had the same problem with them eating our house's exposed insulation, (storage container diy house), so we covered it with 'house wrap' paper. now we keep everything styro away from them at all costs.

chickens love styrofoam too much!

 

[Mark1975]

Let's use some common sense. Styrofoam is a petroleum based product (polystyrene). There is no possible nutritional value to it at all. Toxicity is very possible. Even if it does nothing but pass through their system, it could still lead to nutritional deficiencies. No one would even think to feed Styrofoam to their cats, dogs, horses, cows, or any other live stock. Just because chickens will eat it does not mean that they should be allowed to. Some people say that they need it for some unknown reason. Seriously, Styrofoam has been around for less than 100 years. Chickens have been around for a lot longer than that. If they really "needed" it, how could they have survived without it?

 

[tatertot]

LOL I felt the same way when my flock ate a styrofoam cup...I don't like them to eat it but it didn't hurt them

 

[4LadyFriends]

Hi, I know this post is from several years ago, but did you ever find out about whether the chemicals from the Styrofoam pass through to the eggs? I'm assuming they do, but I'm having a difficult time finding info on the subject and would like to know how long to avoid eating my chickens eggs. They ate the Styrofoam yesterday.

 

[bottledchaos]

One of the girlies was looking a little off this week, looking weak, not foraging, sitting around so we dragged her inside and discovered she was rail thin. (She's also molting so we didn't notice the weight loss, just thought it was feather loss). She drank water like crazy but only picked at her food, and she had diarrhea pretty badly. She got unlimited supplies of crumbles, scratch, nyger seed and suet cake. As well as oyster and grit. Today she finally started eating purposefully. Her first solid "business" appears to be full of blue foam insulation. I found the chunk I think she'd gotten into and the amount missing is pretty spectacular. I'm worried that she might have blocked herself to the point that it's a health concern. Her crop isn't hard, has anyone's chicken eaten a large amount of foam and recovered? I'm grateful to hear that so far no one has a story of death-by-styrofoam. My big plans are to keep an eye on her and do my best to fatten her up.