Is styrofoam toxic for chickens?

[NHchicks]

Mine have been munching on a pile of styrofoam that I didn't realize was in the yard (the snow is starting to melt now). I'm picking what I can of it up as it melts, but I wonder if it's toxic for them.

 

[silkiechicken]

Well, after a few lbs of stryo has probably gone through my flock over the years as they find some and quicky eat it up... I'd say it goes right through them.

 

[Teach97]

same here...

 

[gritsar]

The only way it can be deadly to my flock is when DH discovers that they ate the entire sheet of styrofoam insulation covering the outdoor faucet outlet.

 

[noodleroo]

It hasn't hurt mine. But I do tell them that 'good chickens wouldn't do that; not good ones'...

 

[elmo]

I'm sure it depends on how much they eat. I wouldn't want to test the upper limits of that by experimentation. Just do the best you can do at cleaning up the styrofoam. That's all you can do anyway.

 

[NHchicks]

Thanks all. I had a fatality this morning and I'm ruling things out.

 

[BrewedInNh]

Quote:

 

[ella]

Quote:
I'm sorry.

Can't say it's an impossibility, but it seems unlikely. I also had a flock strip our foundation of Styrofoam with no apparent ill effects.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

I don't know what the attraction to styrofoam is, but I haven't found a chicken yet who would pass at the chance to dine on styrofoam when given half a chance.


I made the mistake of building a chicken tractor with a sheet of exposed insulation on the interior. It took three feathered eating machines just a few days to eat a big hole right through the insulation (because it was on the interior of the tractor, I didn't see what they were doing until they had eaten a nice size hole in the insulation). I had to pull them out of the tractor for a few days, till I could cover the insulation up with some thin plywood -- let's see them eat THAT!


Another time, a styrofoam cup flew into their chicken yard from a neighbor's place, and they had eaten the better part of the cup before my wife found it and took it away from them.


But all of our feathered styrofoam eaters have survived the experience.