Help with Avocado!!

[Ilovemyladies!]

My neighbor accidentally gave her chickens avocado (she is new to the chicken world, so she didn't know any better) The only thing left of the avocado was the skin. What will happen to them and what should we do to help?! I'm freaking out!!

 

[galanie]

If they did not eat the seed, they should be ok. It is the coating over the seed that is the most harmful.

 

[Ilovemyladies!]

I'm not sure if they did. I hope and pray they didn't

 

[peepblessed]

I didn't know this was a problem. Is it poison?

 

[BigIslandChicks]

Quote:
X2

where i lived before we had an Avo tree right next to the coop. there were avo's all over the ground and I would go out and just smash them with my boot and the chickens LOVE them. they never ate the skin or seed and all of them where fine. Dont freak out

im sure they will be ok. and mine just seemed to know not to eat the bad part - of course their not brilliant and sometimes will eat stuff that will make them sick but i feel like for the most part they have some idea about what not to eat. we have feral chickens everywhere here and lots for avocados and seems like they do just fine. good luck
Aloha

 

[Ilovemyladies!]

Thank you everyone for your help!!

 

[donrae]

I throw the skins and pits out in my compost pile the birds have free access to all the time. I don't give them the meat, of course, cause that's for me! I don't know how much they've actually eaten over the years, but we've had no ill effects. I know folks here freak out about it, but I've never had a problem.

 

[UrbanFarmerGirl]

What exactly is the supposed affect of eating avocado? I see from those posting above that they shouldn't eat the seed. By seed to you mean the giant pit? I have no idea how my chickens would even go about ingesting any part of that. It's just too big and hard. I don't think they've ever tried. I have left halved avocados out for them- they eat only the green flesh that is soft and ripe, always leave skin and seed behind. I think for the most part they know what to avoid- unless it is something mixed in with something else they like (i.e. covered in yogurt), or is a chemical.

 

[Imp]

Avocado, all parts of the avocado tree & fruit, contains persin; which is damaging to the heart. The smaller the animal the less it takes to hurt them or kill them. Birds are especially vulnerable to it.

 

[DaveBeaty]

If I recall correctly, the issue with avocados was that a while back on the board there was a tale of someone's parrot dying after eating avocado. Therefore the thought was that avocados were poisonous to birds. No one wanted to test that hypothesis and risk killing their chicken. I am glad to hear stories of people feeding avocados to chickens, so we can put that fear to rest. It now seems that neither chocolate nor avocados are poisonous to chickens.

Time to start a thread asking about confirmed chicken killer food.