Flower arrangement dying - can I feed it to my Chickens and Ducks?

[Lorus6]

My husband bought me an arrangement of tulips and lilies. Now that they are wilting I was going to discard them, but my husband asked if they could be fed to the chickens and ducks. I have no idea. Anybody?

 

[Allyhoward18]

I have no idea whether they are harmful for the chickens or not but the chickens will know, they are pretty good at knowing what will harm them and will only eat what they are allowed to (although this is mainly anything they get their claws on ) so throw it in and see how they react, I know chickens don't eat geraniums

 

[welasharon]

There is a possibility that they may have been sprayed with something though. I think I'd pass.

 

[Folly's place]

No way! Tulips and lilies are pretty toxic to many species; definitely not food. And I would guess that hothouse plants see lots of pesticides too. There's a limit to what you can recycle in the food department; "when in doubt, throw it out" is a message to live by. mary

 

[henless]

Definitely not!!!!

I'm a florist. When the flowers first come in, we cut them and place them in a preservative to help them "open" up. We also put an antibacterial agent in the water to prohibit bacteria growth. All this gets soaked up into the flower/stems and could hurt the chickens. We also spray the leaves with a foliage cleaning agent, since some of the flowers come in pretty dirty. Just like cabbage/lettuce usually has dirt on them at the grocery store. Unless it's a handpicked from the pasture bouquet, I would not feed it to any animal.

 

[Lorus6]

I am so glad I asked!! I did NOT give these flowers to my chickens.
Thank you everyone for answers!!