(News Article discussion) Lead in BYC chickens/eggs

[Dandichook]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum! I wasn't sure where else to put this.

This news article came up on my feed today from what I know to be a reputable source:

Backyard hens' eggs in Australia contain 40 times more lead on average than shop eggs, research finds

Now, I don't live in Australia, and I know many of our members don't, but many of us are living in more urban or suburban areas that have been occupied for many years where there may be lead contaminating the soil. Our old home was over 90 years old and had definitely been painted with lead paint and there were old pipes still under the crawlspace made of lead (not in use!!) And I realize now that the soil there was very likely contaminated with lead. We didn't have chickens at the time, but our neighbors did. I suspect many of us might be in a similar position without knowing it.

I don't want to fear-monger, but draw attention to a potential problem, as it had never even occurred to me that lead in soil could be an issue. I thought it might be useful to have a thread discussing how to find out if you have a problem, and how to deal with it if you do.

Has anyone here run into this before? If so, what did you/are you doing to mitigate the issue?

What ideas could we explore for those who might live in such an area, who would want to protect their birds from lead-contaminated soil and themselves from lead-contaminated eggs/meat?

I might bring this up with my SO and look into testing our soil, since we both garden and run our quail on the ground. Most of our garden soil is from off-site, but the birds are definitely rooting around in the native dirt here!

 

[aldarita]

I totally understand your concern. I live in the country and have had chickens for 10 years. My problem was the water. We have a well that never got tested. I got tested myself and the results came back with high levels of arsenic and copper so we installed a reverse osmosis system for drinking water in our house. The reason I'm telling this story is to recommend to get tested, this will ease your concerns. However for the chicken owners that live in such areas as yours, getting tested will be the first step. As to how to remediate if there is lead on the ground, I have no idea but I'm sure there are ways to do it

 

[Dandichook]

I totally understand your concern. I live in the country and have had chickens for 10 years. My problem was the water. We have a well that never got tested. I got tested myself and the results came back with high levels of arsenic and copper so we installed a reverse osmosis system for drinking water in our house. The reason I'm telling this story is to recommend to get tested, this will ease your concerns. However for the chicken owners that live in such areas as yours, getting tested will be the first step. As to how to remediate if there is lead on the ground, I have no idea but I'm sure there are ways to do it

Thanks for sharing! Private well water should definitely be tested periodically just in case. I think you're right and getting tested is the first step. I'm not so concerned for us, as our house was built well after the period when lead paint and pipes were used, but you never know.

I did a bit of digging and turns out it's really simple to get tested, for those who want to. For US residents, you can go to the EPA National Lead Laboratory Accreditation Program and find an accredited laboratory for testing in your state.

Most state extensions and universities also offer soil testing for homeowners and gardeners which can offer enormous amounts of information about your soil at reasonable prices ($10-50ish, from the ones I saw). You basically send them a soil sample in the mail. Couldn't be easier. And gardeners might find combining that with an assessment of soil nutrients useful too!

For remediation, the best thought I have for chickens would be to cover the soil in the run and coop with deep litter method. Mulch, bedding, etc. Most sources online seem to indicate that bare dirt in lead contaminated soils is really bad, but if you mulch it heavily it limits likelihood of contamination (to, for example, kids playing in the area.). Might be tough keeping the chickens from digging though.