Chickens+Compost Pile+Nightshades = ?

[gatrapper]

Hey Y'all,

I have a compost pile that the girlfriend and I are always tossing food and garden prunings into. There are cuttings from my tomato plants in there as well as rotten tomatoes in the pile. Will they still be toxic to chickens even after they have started to break down into compost?

 

[pdirt]

AFAIK, no, tomatoes won't be toxic. Potatoes, likely. Potatoes aren't toxic themselves, it's green potatoes. So you may want to keep potatoes and potato skins out of your compost. Green potatoes have high amounts of the alkaloid solanine, which is toxic to humans, birds...all animals as far as I know. Leaves and I think also flowers of potato plants are toxic as well.

To test a potato to see if it has turned green (if it's not already obvious): scratch the skin of the potato with your fingernail, if you see green, don't eat it either raw or cooked. If you compost it, make sure it is a compost system your critters can't get into.

 

[gatrapper]

What about beans? Someone told me that beans aren't good to feed chickens unless they are cooked.

 

[lazy gardener]

Kidney beans are toxic unless cooked. I assume that all beans from the same family would be as well.