Chickens & Coffee???

[Rangely]

We have a compost pile that the chickens think is the greatest smorgasbord ever invented. Typically, I throw my spent coffee grounds from the percolator into the compost along with all the other scraps. Coffee grounds are a pretty optimal compost. Well, the grounds are interspersed with other yummies and I'm sure the chickens are ingesting some here and there.

Question is: Is coffee good, bad, or neutral for chickens?

 

[McCord6]

I heard people using coffee grounds on chickens. I DO know that coffee grounds are GREAT fertilizer for gardening, which I do use in my flower pots.

 

[stephhassler]

Well, I don't know if it is good or bad, but I can say I haven't seen any ill effects. I add coffee to the compost pile and the girls have free access to the pile. I have been doing this for two years and have seen anything good or bad from the coffee grounds - as far as the girls go, that is.

 

[mmtillman]

Same here...we put coffee grounds in with the daily compost and the chickens get it daily...so far no ill effects....I figured it might make there shells a really pretty brown??

 

[mandelyn]

My youngest pullet actually drank out of my coffee cup before I shoo-ed her away from it, and she was fine from that! Not any more spazzier than normal.

Would they actually eat the grounds? You'd think they'd go for better stuff than that.

 

[SallyF]

I read something in the Mother Earth magazine about mixing coffee grounds and crushed eggshells and putting it around cabbages to repel worms. Well, I tried it this summer and you would have thought I was spreading chicken ice cream around those cabbages. They ate the coffee grounds and the eggshells and then they ate the cabbages. Absolutely no ill effects on the chickens, and there certainly were no cabbage worms because there were no cabbages either!

 

[Uzuri]

I'd say they must not be getting enough for trouble, because http://www.multiscope.com/hotspot/caffeine.htm

Same effects as on people, actually, just that we're a whole lot bigger than they are. Anyway, coffee's just like chocolate in its problem ingredients.

 

[farrier!]

It seems my daughter has been throwing out the coffee grounds to the birds rather then putting them into the compost pile.
Other then a dog attack we have yet to loose a bird.
Between the Vizslas and the birds we dont have anything left to compost anymore!