plants chickens can't eat

[kmatt87]

i read in another post that chickens can't have rhubard, lily of the valley or tulips....
those aren't things i was planning on feeding mine, but if have access to them, will chickens eat them?
I know other animals can't have certain plants and they have a natural aversion to them.

 

[tinydancer87]

I free-range my chickens and have all kinds of poisonous plants in the yard...in fact most plants are poisonous in one way or another.

Brugmansia, Datura, Castor Plants are the three worst ones I have. The chickens seem to know and stay away. In fact, my chickens will only eat stuff like sunflowers (scratched those right up, they were on one side of the shed and the castors on the other--castors untouched.) They don't really eat cucumber leaves or anything that is fuzzy like those. They leave tomatoes alone too. Well, the leaves at least

Datura, Brugmansia, and Castor can kill. Eating any part of the datura and brugmansia causes severe hallucinations followed by coma and then death. Eating castor beans (the seeds, from which the poison ricin is made) as few as three seeds can cause extreme vomiting, GI upset, diarrhea and eventually coma and death.

I did have a young turkey eat a purple datura flower once, it got really lethargic for a few hours and I found it dead the next morning.

The plants are beautiful, and I haven't ever had a problem with the chickens or other turkeys messing with them.

 

[kmatt87]

I free-range my chickens and have all kinds of poisonous plants in the yard...in fact most plants are poisonous in one way or another.

Brugmansia, Datura, Castor Plants are the three worst ones I have. The chickens seem to know and stay away. In fact, my chickens will only eat stuff like sunflowers (scratched those right up, they were on one side of the shed and the castors on the other--castors untouched.) They don't really eat cucumber leaves or anything that is fuzzy like those. They leave tomatoes alone too. Well, the leaves at least

Datura, Brugmansia, and Castor can kill. Eating any part of the datura and brugmansia causes severe hallucinations followed by coma and then death. Eating castor beans (the seeds, from which the poison ricin is made) as few as three seeds can cause extreme vomiting, GI upset, diarrhea and eventually coma and death.

I did have a young turkey eat a purple datura flower once, it got really lethargic for a few hours and I found it dead the next morning.

The plants are beautiful, and I haven't ever had a problem with the chickens or other turkeys messing with them.

good to know. i have tons of things they shouldn't eat in the yard and i didn't want to have to re landscape for them to be able to roam a few hrs a day. I may plant some sunflowers for them though.