Oats = bad for chickens

[TJAnonymous]

I've been feeding whole oats to my chickens, along with layer feed, black oil sunflower seeds, and scratch grains.

Today the feed store was out of whole oats so I picked up rolled oats instead. I was browsing online later about the differences in types of oats and came across this article...

https://the-chicken-chick.com/the-shocking-effect-of-oatmeal/

So now I'm a bit freaked out. I'm horrified to think maybe I'm putting my chickens on the verge of death as a result of my ignorance.... Is this sort of thing common knowledge on BYC?

 

[Enten4life]

I can't comment on the article directly, but the chicken scratch I buy has oats in it. I may heed the warning that oats aren't good as part of their staple diet, but I know my birds have been doing well with oats as a snack (cheerios too sometimes).

 

[TJAnonymous]

Every morning I mix up a bucket of layer feed, BOSS, scratch, and somewhere around 4-6 cups of oats. This mix is then tossed all around the chicken yard to give them something to "hunt" for.... So that's quite a bit of oats each day. I've been doing this for several months now. I feed oats to my ducks too.

Of course, I looked up whether oats were safe for chickens prior to adding it to their diet and they seemed to be. This is the first time I've come across this kind of information to suggest otherwise.

 

[RiverOtter]

Wow, what a crazy, over-the-top, shock-jock article. Please note that the scary photos of necrotic guts are linked to an infection caused by keeping chickens in wet, bacteria filled conditions. The only connection to oats is that a diet of 100% oats causes wetter poop.

I'm sure that if you do as the studies do, and feed a diet of 100% oats for life, you'll run into issues. But the fact is that nutritional studies are done by feed companies, with a vested interest in you buying a complete feed from them. What is the complete feed made of? Assorted grains, including oats.

 

[Kiki]

I've been feeding whole oats to my chickens, along with layer feed, black oil sunflower seeds, and scratch grains.

Today the feed store was out of whole oats so I picked up rolled oats instead. I was browsing online later about the differences in types of oats and came across this article...

https://the-chicken-chick.com/the-shocking-effect-of-oatmeal/

So now I'm a bit freaked out. I'm horrified to think maybe I'm putting my chickens on the verge of death as a result of my ignorance.... Is this sort of thing common knowledge on BYC?

It is common knowledge... For some.
For others hopefully this thread will make it common knowledge.

I highly recommend researching what overfeeding treats of any kind to a bird does.

 

[Kiki]

Every morning I mix up a bucket of layer feed, BOSS, scratch, and somewhere around 4-6 cups of oats. This mix is then tossed all around the chicken yard to give them something to "hunt" for.... So that's quite a bit of oats each day. I've been doing this for several months now. I feed oats to my ducks too.

Of course, I looked up whether oats were safe for chickens prior to adding it to their diet and they seemed to be. This is the first time I've come across this kind of information to suggest otherwise.

Oh my. The bucket that you mix of should be 90% layer feed. 4 to 6 cups of any treat is a lot unless you have a ton of birds.

 

[theoldchick]

The article is about rolled/crushed oats oatmeal. Lots of folks feed a warm oatmeal cereal to their chickens and seem to not have a problem. Just remember to feed cooked rolled/crushed oat only as a treat.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Oh my. The bucket that you mix of should be 90% layer feed. 4 to 6 cups of any treat is a lot unless you have a ton of birds.

they have free-choice access to layer feed inside their coop at all times. The bucket that I put together is thrown around their chicken yard (125' x 35') and feeds 35+ birds (and 2 goats who nibble up whatever they can before the chickens get it).

Naturally I know that the layer pellets are the most important part of their diet because it is nutritionally whole.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Wow, what a crazy, over-the-top, shock-jock article. Please note that the scary photos of necrotic guts are linked to an infection caused by keeping chickens in wet, bacteria filled conditions. The only connection to oats is that a diet of 100% oats causes wetter poop.

I'm sure that if you do as the studies do, and feed a diet of 100% oats for life, you'll run into issues. But the fact is that nutritional studies are done by feed companies, with a vested interest in you buying a complete feed from them. What is the complete feed made of? Assorted grains, including oats.

The pictures are what had me worried. I mean, why would anyone possibly feed oats to their chicken if it could do that to them? So you are saying that those pictures are NOT the result of feeding oats, even in a small quantity, to a chicken? The article was stating that even in small amounts, the mucous caused by the beta glucan can cause deadly consequences.

 

[TOR]

http://afs.ca.uky.edu/poultry/using-oats-poultry-diets

https://www.mofga.org/resources/poultry/chickens/

No grain is ideal. Corn is the standard feed in commercial preparations, but we can’t grow it easily is Maine. Of the small grains that are available, wheat can slow digestion but is a good substitute for and is higher in protein than corn; barley is less palatable; oats have less energy and are fibrous; rye inhibits growth; millet is a good energy substitute but is low is protein. “Each one of them has something,” explains Jacquie Jacob, a poultry nutritionist at the University of Minnesota (www.ansci.umn.edu/ and www.misa.umn.edu/). “In small quantities, each one is okay. But if that’s all a farmer is using, then it’s going to be a problem.” The challenge becomes finding a diet that is simultaneously high in protein and essential amino acids and minimizes the effect of the anti-nutritive aspects of each crop