cucumber plants!

[simon1970]

I have just cleared out my cucumber plants from my greenhouse and was wondering if our hens could eat the leaves, there is a huge pile in my garden.. i know the girls love cucumbers but am worried the plants will harm them..

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[pdirt]

Welcome to BYC!

I don't have any experience with feeding our chickens the leaves from cucumber plants, but I doubt they would like them anyways. I don't think there is anything toxic in the leaves themselves, but they're probably not very tasty. If you wanted to give them prime leaves, discard the moldy ones, but many folks just turn their chickens loose this time of year and let them have at in the garden cleanup, which likely has lots of mold if the cool/damp of fall has set in your area. My point is that most molds are generally not the toxic death-drones that people make them out to be. It's like saying all sharks are bad because they watched "Jaws".