My chickens eating tomato plants

[BellaBelinski]

Hi all!

Three of my chickens have eaten one of my tomato plants, leaves, green tomatoes and all. I've been reading that the plant itself is poisonous. They all seem to be alive and kickin. No signs of illness. They' re as happy as can be. One of them has diarrhea though (but no wonder with eating all those tomatoes). I was wondering how long it would take to show any signs of illness if it would to affect them in any way? Has anyone had the unfortunate experience of having a chicken die after eating a tomato plant?

 

[chfite]

My chickens eat tomato plants and tomatoes all the time that the plants are growing. I have a bed where the tomatoes come up as volunteers every year. The chickens graze there everyday until frost.

Chris

 

[stargirl]

I've heard of lots of things being poisonous to chickens, but it seems to me that they sort of know for themselves, & only eat what is safe. I've never seen a thread on here where chickens actually suffered or died from eating so called poisonous plants. I wouldn't worry!

 

[BellaBelinski]

Thank you Chris and Stargirl for your input! I guess the only things I will worry about in the future are my tomato plants (and cabbage plants, carrots, broccoli, lettuce). This is our first garden with chickens. Next year we plan on putting a picket fence around our garden! Live and learn.

 

[BellaBelinski]

Thank you so much! Please see reply above.

 

[FuhrmeisterFarm]

Hi all!

Three of my chickens have eaten one of my tomato plants, leaves, green tomatoes and all. I've been reading that the plant itself is poisonous. They all seem to be alive and kickin. No signs of illness. They' re as happy as can be. One of them has diarrhea though (but no wonder with eating all those tomatoes). I was wondering how long it would take to show any signs of illness if it would to affect them in any way? Has anyone had the unfortunate experience of having a chicken die after eating a tomato plant?

I realize this post is a bit old, I was looking up the same question and wanted to say first that I hope all was well with your chickens then and now.
For others wondering about this; Tomatoes are members of the nightshade family along with Potatoes and Egg Plant. They all contain a toxic compound called Solanine. This is compound can become concentrated in potatoes that sit on top of the soil and have exposure to sunlight and turn green. A youtuber that I watch said her pigs will not touch raw potato peels, she cooks the peels first because of the Solanine and then the pigs eat them without issue. We gave raw potatoes peels to our chickens several years ago and they did not touch them at all. Out of an abundance of caution I will not be feeding the plants, leaves or green tomatoes to my chickens. I wish this was not the case because it makes me sad to just toss the plants but the chickens and what they provide is much more valuable.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I realize this post is a bit old, I was looking up the same question and wanted to say first that I hope all was well with your chickens then and now.
For others wondering about this; Tomatoes are members of the nightshade family along with Potatoes and Egg Plant. They all contain a toxic compound called Solanine. This is compound can become concentrated in potatoes that sit on top of the soil and have exposure to sunlight and turn green. A youtuber that I watch said her pigs will not touch raw potato peels, she cooks the peels first because of the Solanine and then the pigs eat them without issue. We gave raw potatoes peels to our chickens several years ago and they did not touch them at all. Out of an abundance of caution I will not be feeding the plants, leaves or green tomatoes to my chickens. I wish this was not the case because it makes me sad to just toss the plants but the chickens and what they provide is much more valuable.

I do understand that they're all part of the nightshade family, but I wanted to say that I have never seen any negative reaction by my pullets to any part of the tomato plant - leaves, stems, fruits - at all. Lord know that they've sampled them all.

Levels of potentially dangerous chemicals vary in all plants. For instance, apple seeds contain cyanide. OMG, right? But it would take around 1,000 apple seeds a day to harm a chicken. I toss apple cores at the girls, who devour them, and there have been no problems.

I would definitely not offer my girls green potato skins. (I've come across potato chips with a green edge, and yuck, they are not tasty.) But if I did, I'm pretty sure that they would turn their beaks up at them. Chickens do seem to have pretty good instincts as to what they should and should not eat.

 

[Altairsky]

My chickens have access to my vegetable garden and they will eat potato leaves, tomato leaves, eggplant, devil's trumpet leaves - which is leathal - I've read in this forum of chickens that ate whole digitalis plants - also lethal - with absolutely no issues.
Chickens aren't stupid, they won't eat any herb in such amounts that are bad for them. They know better than us humans.
However, if we, humans, keep our chickens in a confined space with nothing to forage, we also should NEVER feed them potentially poisonous foods because a confined chicken is a bored chicken, and bored chickens might eat things that a foraging chicken would not touch.