Pepper plants, can my girls have them or not?

[Mommysongbird]

Hi, my dad has some pepper (banana and some bells) plants still growing in his garden, they are about 4 ft tall right now, but only have a few peppers on them. Can our girls have the WHOLE plants?? Or not??

I seen that they should NOT have WHOLE tomato plants, so I was not sure. I checked out the 'treat page' but didn't find anything about the pepper plants or even peppers in general. I will check again, but if you know for sure, can you pass along the info??

 

[Kassaundra]

I don't know the official answer, but can say that my girls have eaten peppers and pepper plants and have had no bad reactions. The peppers I fed to them the plants I let them in a finished garden space w/ a few pepper plants that they ate to the ground.

 

[Illia]

Peppers - yes


Plant - No. No Nightshade greenery should be given, but it isn't exceedingly deadly.

nightshades include potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, ground cherries, tomatillos

 

[Mommysongbird]

Okay, thanks. I was just wondering after I saw a post about NOT giving them tomato plants. I have a few of those that I was going to give and then I saw that post. Have just been giving them the end of season tomatos from them. Nothing else to do with them since they NEVER bloomed or had fruit during the summer, now fall has come and there are blooms all over these tomato plants.

 

[Mommysongbird]

Quote:
Oh, okay. There are a few peppers on them, very tiny, I will just pick them and give them those. What about just the leaves??

 

[Chinchilla2]

Quote:
I'm thinking the plant itself should not be eaten but there is an old wives tale out there that says hot peppers = more eggs. Considering it is one I have heard for ages and I can remember my great grandmother feeding her chickens cayenne peppers, I think it's prolly safe for the birds to scarf down the peppers themselves. I know mine really enjoy jalapeno, cayenne, and habanero peppers.

 

[rarely bored]

My chickens sneak in my garden as much as they can and they have never eaten the peppers or the pepper plants. However, they love broccoli plants and brussel sprouts. I see other people's chickens eat the pepper, I have no idea why mine leave them alone, especially since they are the sweet Italian and bright colored.

 

[chickn moma]

wondering if chickns can have banana peppers?

 

[BellevueOmlet]

Give them peppers, onion, tomato and cilantro and you'll get salsa eggs.

 

[ignatz]

I'll say it *again*...the chickens know *exactly* what they can and can't eat. They did it for a looooong time before we came around and decided they needed heaters in their coops and oyster shells, and froofroo treats, ad nausea. I mean, does anyone actually, *honstely* think the chicken species would die off if we weren't around?