chickens eating paint off the garage!

[PAXDOMINI]

A couple of the chickens I inherited are eating paint off the bottom edge of the clapboards on my garage.
I don't know if it is lead based paint under the new paint. The garage was built in the 50's.
I imagine they are looking for bugs but they are stripping the paint clean.
I wonder if the paint is effecting the eggs they lay?
Some of the eggs have a whiter hue than others.
Does anyone know if there is a danger in eating the eggs?

 

[magoochie]

Not sure about danger eating the eggs, but I doubt that paint is good for the chickens. Even if it isnt lead based, that is not something I would allow them to keep doing. Is there something you can spray on the garage to keep them away? Maybe like Cayenne pepper or bitter apple stuff like they use to keep dogs from chewing stuff?

 

[PAXDOMINI]

Thanks for the input!

I'll give spraying a try.

I'm not home most of the day so unless I keep them penned up, I can't stop them.

Yeesh! There more work than my 3 teenagers!!!

 

[spook]

I had to place plastic and then shingle up as high as they could reach to stop them from pecking the paint. Buggers! Green paint and bored chickens... Good luck!

(more then likely its not lead based paint, its been a while since they used it. Unless your in a super old farm and maybe)

 

[Judy]

Cayenne won't work, birds have no taste receptors for hot pepper, and some on here add it to their feed regularly, enough to color the feed a rusty color. I don't know whether bitter apple would bother them or not. I would suggest you get the walls covered with something they can't peck off.

 

[Ohhhdear]

My girls developed a taste for the pink foamboard covered with a thin cement coating which covers the basement between the ground and the bottom of the siding.
They just kept pecking and making the holes bigger. I tried leaning boards against the foamboard but they wormed their sneaky ways behind the boards and kept on pecking.

After patching up the cement coat and replacing foamboard insulation, my son drove posts a couple inches from the foundation and stapled wire mesh several inches away from the foundation so the girls couldn't even reach it anymore. Not that they haven't kept making the attempt!

 

[bunrabbit41]

OK, so after surviving 23 years in the Army, raising 5 children on my own, survivng a couple of dozen house bunnies and all of their antics, three cats, and a Maremma Sheep dog, I got this silly notion to return to my roots.

I acquiesed to letting my adult son, who lives with me, build a chicken coop and get 24 chicks and a rooster (the rooster was free).

Somewhere in my educated head I was thinking "surely chickens can't be that much trouble....they never were when my grandma had them"

Ergo, they are another life entirely and yes, they can find fresh paint like bloodhounds. The only solution my son has found is to simply cover it with chicken wire and hope.....alot

So we have 24 very spoiled, pampered Buffies and an Easter Egger Rooster, Carouso, who does his Rooster job well. I have also gotten four little chicks who were supposed to be Easter Eggers, that have now grown to the point that I can tell I have one female Easter Egger, one female Rhode Island Red and 2 Rhode Island Red Roosters. So much for buying chicks from the local feed store.

But alas, we have quite the egg clientel for brown eggs, a circus living in the backyard and a very multi-species family. Did I mention my junior in college is planning to pursue graduate work in "animal behavior?" I cannot imagine where she got that

 

[bakerjw]

FWIW some like the blue styrofoam as well. We had (note the use of the word HAD) some covering a small outdoor Koi pond. They pecked the snot out of it.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Get yourself some chicken wire and stakes as another poster said and cover it, IMO.

I would be very concerned about the possibility of lead in the eggs until it is rectified.

 

[MJLindsey]

Wow, my chickens also ate the paint off the bottom of the garage door! Also, the caulk that was there. Now that it's all gone, I just won't repaint it! I have one RIR that will find any little bit of paint to pick at.