potatoe peels

[hoosiergal]

Should you feed potatoe peels to your chickens? I have heard pro's and con's to both answers.


hoosiergal

 

[chickflick]

Uncooked potatoe peels are toxic to the chickens!

 

[hoosiergal]

thanks for the info. that is good to know about the toxic stuff.

 

[Buff Hooligans]

It's the uncooked green potato peels that have toxins that can make your chickens (and you) unahppy.

 

[kwynn's birds Alaska]

I feed mine potato peels. I've never had a problem...I do know that green potatoes are toxic

 

[Wynette]

I tried to feed them to mine before i knew about the toxicity and they wouldn't eat them anyway.

There's a chart on what & what not to feed in the Learning Center (click on the blue linke next to BYC Home at top of page).

 

[redhen]

so its only the green ones that are toxic?, thanks

 

[greyhorsewoman]

I've been feeding potato peels to my chickens for YEARS, long before I ever knew they were supposed to be toxic. Depending on what else is available, they may not be the favorite thing on their menu.

My current batch of blk stars really like them. Has anybody personally experienced any adverse reactions? My mother fed potato peels to our chickens when I was a little girl, so I never gave it a second thought.

Never thought about the 'green peels' either ... though I don't think we get that many potatoes with green peels. I personally prefer red potatoes.

 

[Maryallison77]

So I have never even seen any potatoes with green peels, but if I ever run across any I surely will not give them to the chickens. I learned something new!

 

[digitS']

I'm going to recycle my response to the same question last Winter:

If the concern regarding potatoes is the toxic substance solanine (Plants Poisonous to Livestock, Cornell ) - you should know that cooking does not destroy this toxin.

The peelings and sprouts have much higher concentrations of solanine than the starchy parts of the potato.

The "greening" of the potato occurs when it is been exposed to sunlight. This also indicates that solanine may have begun to develop in the potato.

So, neither raw nor cooked green peelings and sprouts should be considered safe.

And yes, I've fed cooked potato peels to chickens many times.

Steve