List of food NOT to feed chickens

[owlmeadowfarm32]

I did not know they could not have spinach and ice berg lettuce

 

[orrpeople]

Mine love ground squirrel...
My dogs will catch one,and my chickens will steal it and drag it all over the yard (you know how they play rugby with treats) taking bites as they go. Now, I do usually try to take it away from them - when I catch them at this game, but who knows how many I have missed!?!?
I mentioned this to a fellow chicken owner who had just finished reading a pioneer journal. She said it was a common practice to shoot squirrels and feed them to chickens for protein in their diet. Guess my girls don't know we are currently living in the 21st century!

 

[gmfwlbrdr]

I think we are all fortunate that our chickens arent 20 feet tall because they would most likely bust our windows out ,and pluck us out of our houses and munch down,cause yes if it moves or not theyll eat it..

 

[Trish1974]

I think we are all fortunate that our chickens arent 20 feet tall because they would most likely bust our windows out ,and pluck us out of our houses and munch down,cause yes if it moves or not theyll eat it..

 

[hippiestink]

I feed a lot of so-called "do not eat" foods. Beans, yogurt, potatoes, even bits of leftover chicken. The only things I don't give are coffee/black tea, chocolate, and citrus. They don't touch the citrus or the coffee/black tea (they go for herbal or green tea though), and chocolate is bad for most animals and can kill dogs and cats.

I say just watch your flock regularly when you introduce a food. Pay attention to their regular behavior and note if their behavior changes after the introduction of new foods. Observation goes a long way, and is really undervalued as a part of animal husbandry.

 

[MeepBeep]

I did not know they could not have spinach and ice berg lettuce

They can have those, most of these list are filled with hogwash... Spinach is a great treat for them that is loaded with protein and it also has the pigments to create a deeper orange yolk... I feed spinach and lettuce and other salad greens by the 32 garbage can regularly...

Moderation of almost all food is what should be considered, not prohibition... Prohibition list should really only contain highly toxic foods, IMO...

 

[chantels1]

And I thought fresh garlic could be used as a dewormer. Glad I have not tried it.

 

[balloonflower]

Garlic is fine in small amounts. I don't worry about apple seeds either--would be near impossible to keep from them since mine live under an apple tree.

 

[MeepBeep]

Garlic is fine in small amounts. I don't worry about apple seeds either--would be near impossible to keep from them since mine live under an apple tree.

Exactly...

In regards to apples, the LDO of cyanide in domestic fowl is 21 mg/kg... An apple seed contains about 0.5mg of cyanide, thus you need about 42 seeds to get to 21mg, your average domestic dual purpose fowl weighs about 2-5kg, meaning you would need about 84-210 seeds to get close to any lethal level of toxicity for your average adult chicken... An apple contains about anywhere from about 0-20 seeds, so lets say 10 on average, meaning a light weight chicken would need to consume about 4-5 entire apples in one sitting before you really have concerns, or for a heavier bird 12-15 apples in a single sitting...

in the end it's unrealistic that a chicken will die from eating apples, sure it 'could' happen, but you probably run a higher risk of the chicken choking on the apples then dying from the cyanide in the seeds...

 

[FloridaGal]

My chickens love plain yogurt. I give them a bit before bed a few times per week, topped with raw oats. Isn't this okay for them?