So today I went out in my wood house and found that one of the bags of crab apples my husband had collected had obviously gotten moisture in it and rotted quite badly. I took the bag out to the compost heap and went about my chores. Then I went to work. It wasn't until half way through the day I suddenly had a thought... what if the apples fermented and the girls jump in the heap and eat them! Did I just kill them?! Will they be okay??? Maybe just a little hung over? I have two or three of the flock that love getting in there to see what goodies I have in there which I don't mind, I know they want the bread and the bugs and we've never had an issue before but it suddenly dawned on me that now they might have alcohol poisoning!!
few months ago, we had some hens get into a bunch of semi-rotted apples that we had thrown out and they were just fine. -Hope this helps.
I have piles of apples under my trees and the birds pick at them occasionally without any problems. Whole fruit in open air tends to ferment into vinegar more so than alcohol.
