feeding peanuts

[marymac]

I have a jar of peanuts that I just opened last night, and they taste kind of strong. Is it safe to feed them to my chickens? Would I need to run them thru a chopper maybe? They are dry roasted peanuts and I think lightly salted.

 

[gritsar]

I have fed whole peanuts to my chickens on several occasions, but never the salted. Chickens have a hard time with salt. Perhaps you could rinse them to remove the majority of the salt, let dry and then feed them?

 

[Imp]

What Gritsar said.

Mine will eat the shells the squirrels drop.

Imp

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I feed my chickens home mixed food (except I am mixing in my last 2 bags of starter/grower), and I include peanuts. I put them in a ziplock bag (I save the bag in my gal. trash can used for food storage) and take a rubber mallet to it to crush them (with the bag unsealed).

Mine are unsalted from the bulk bins at the store. If I had some salted ones, I would rinse them off too, right before feeding them. And I wouldn't give them too many at once in case the salt had penetrated the nut.

Yeah- don't waste a good nut!!!!

 

[Ohhhdear]

I've been using a bag of birdseed for chicken treats. It's mostly millet, safflower seed, sunflower seed in the shell and whole shelled peanuts. The safflower seed goes first, then the millet and sunflower seeds. They'll peck at the peanuts but I think it's the chimunks and squirrels who're benefitting from this bounty! If the peanuts were crushed I'm sure the girls would gobble them.