Garden Leaves

[VWillis]

Can chickens eat leaves from garden plants? I know tomatoes are a no no but what about sunflower and zucchini leaves?

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Mine haven't touched my squash or sunflower leaves... yet. But they did start to strip some of the tomato plants of their leaves before I covered them with netting. None of them got sick.

 

[tymimo]

Today I pruned a couple of grape vines and out of curiosity threw a couple of leaves into the run. The chickens began tearing into them. Before throwing the rest of the vines I did a quick search on BYC and found that others feed grape leaves to their chickens. In went the rest of o vines. I'm sure a search of the forum will tell you whether there are any leaves that are harmful but the sense I get is that chickens have a pretty good sense of what is good/bad for them.

 

[redsoxs]

I think tymimo is correct - somehow they seem to know what is good to eat and what to avoid. Not sure if what they avoid they do so out of taste or instinct. With mine there are certain plants they seem to devour - even when it is their first time seeing them - and others they look at, take a tentative peck and then avoid. Beats me. But they never seem to get sick and there must be over a hundred different kids of grasses, weeds, flowers, vegetables, trees, bushes, grains, and vines they have access to on my place.