My Experiment

How much and what kind of fruit were you giving them to start? Mine eat a little here a little there but not a lot so I don't think it is having much of an affect on them.

 

Good job experimenting and I bet that each chicken is different, but you hear so many things both ways on so many things, that it is almost something you have to try yourself to find out. I also heard that bananna will kill a rooster. I only have one rooster so I haven't tried it, but I bet a lot depends on the bird, the amounts and so on and so on. Do you have a roo that ate bananna?

 

My chickens get mandarin oranges, pears, apples, and whatever else comes to hand. They forage gooseberries, toamtoes and tomatillos to their hearts content. I get about .9 eggs a day from my hens of laying age. Part of the drop from 1 is I have two little cochins that are constantly broody. So, for your experiments purposes you should look into what else your birds are into or surrounded by.

 

Quote:I'm pretty sure that bananas are fruits. I realize they are berries, but berries are also fruits.

 

It's not wise to get between the birds and their watermelon. The types of fruit we avoid are the citrus variety.

 

I have seen my rooster eat a banana. Our chickens love to fight over black bananas. They also got half a watermelon yesterday b/c it sat in our fridge too long, and they routinely get apple and pear cores. So far, the only things I won't throw them from our table are very fatty meat or things with lots of garlic and onions in them (because of egg taste). Pullets get things with garlic and onions in them like leftover chili since they aren't laying yet. So far, they'll eat anything but let raw carrots sit a while. We don't have much of a compost pile any more.

I haven't seen any difference between when when they get lots of fruit (high garden season, they get any wormy veggies or fruits) and when they get just a little (spring and later fall). Weather seems to play the only large role in how well they lay. We do supplement with cat food in winter when they aren't out eating bugs.

Where have people heard that bananas aren't fruits? They are the fruit of the banana plant and fit the definition of "fruit" perfectly. From Webster:
Fruit: b (1) : the usually edible reproductive body of a seed plant; especially : one having a sweet pulp associated with the seed

Banana:
1 : an elongated usually tapering tropical fruit with soft pulpy flesh enclosed in a soft usually yellow rind
2 : any of several widely cultivated perennial herbs (genus Musa of the family Musaceae, the banana family) bearing bananas in compact pendent bunches

They could also be called berries, I suppose, but not for any special reason:
Berry:
1 a : a pulpy and usually edible fruit (as a strawberry, raspberry, or checkerberry) of small size irrespective of its structure b : a simple fruit (as a grape, blueberry, tomato, or cucumber) with a pulpy or fleshy pericarp c : the dry seed of some plants (as wheat)

 

I love a good experiment. But I haven't heard that about fruit. Is there a reason that the fruit is supposed to inhibit laying?