How harmful are lead airgun pellets if they were to be eaten by a chicken?

[OwO]

I accidentally spilt some inside their run while shooting some mice that are eating their food, and I managed to pick up every one I could see and I am going to dig up the part of the ground where I dropped them to get rid of any last ones that might be laying around. I am worried about them eating some of them - how dangerous is this? Is it basically a death sentence if they eat one of them? Thanks

 

[cavemanrich]

I don't really think chickens will eat them. If they did, it would just go thru them. They probably choose to pick better stones, pebbles for grit. Chickens do see very well, and do choose what pebbles, are suitable for grit, as well as limestone for additional calcium.
WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[coach723]

I'm gonna take the other side of the coin. It COULD be a problem. I hope you were able to get all of it picked up. Whether the birds would eat any or not is a question that I can't answer. Chickens have been known to ingest all sorts of things that they shouldn't so I would imagine that lead shot would be eaten by some of them. I'm going to attach some links with info and you can decide what the risk may be. First question is if you are sure the pellets are lead. Some are no longer lead based due to the changing attitudes of the dangers that spent lead ammo pose to wildlife, but some are still lead based. So check the label if you haven't already. Second I would suggest that you use some mouse traps rather than the pellet gun. I use electric traps, mouse goes in, gets zapped, toss it when you check the traps. Safe around birds as opposed to poison or snap traps.
Here are some links. First link, scroll down to Lead Poisoning in Poultry:
https://www.msdvetmanual.com/poultry/poisonings/poisonings-in-poultry
And more info:
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/lead-ammunition-toxic-wildlife-people-and-environment
http://www.veterinaryworld.org/2008/July/Lead - An Emerging threat to livestock.pdf
Lastly, ingesting lead can lead to lead in the eggs:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/dining/worries-about-lead-for-new-yorks-garden-fresh-eggs.html

 

[Chicken Chiquita]

When I was younger my siblings would shoot pellet guns, and there would be pellets in the grass, and what we didn't realize at first, is that when we let the chickens out they would eat them, we tried not to let them, but they still ingested some, as i remember they all turned out fine though. So yes I would pick up as many as i possibly could, but if one ingests one I wound'nt take her to the freak out immediately or something like that. Hope this helped, good luck!!!