Rock salt & chickens/ducks?

[kodiakchicken]

Quote:

OMG - I laughed so hard at that mental image!!!!

 

[2chickenrich]

I'm so glad to see salt won't hurt them ,my husband has been so worried I would feed them table scraps with salt and they would get sick .

 

[dancingbear]

They won't eat enough of that to hurt them.

A few handfuls of a salty snack won't hurt either, but I wouldn't feed them a lot of it.

The Chicken Health Book, by Gail Damerow, mentions the risk of salt toxicity, if they get too much.
Somebody had asked about giving the birds a bunch of peanuts or something, and I mentioned this, but not in detail. I was just thinking how salty peanuts can be sometimes, and if you fed a large amount to your birds, it could be potentially harmful.

This can happen to people and other critters as well, it was a warning against letting them have high amounts of salt, not just a bit here and there.

If it was my comment, I didn't mean to cause unnecessary alarm!

 

[mayer chickens]

We lost the lovely Sly Buttercup last week due to her eating commercial rock salt. Our coop is located in front of our school and the school's custodian used rock salt on the sidewalk directly in front of the garden where the hens free-range. Buttercup just stuck her head out the fence and gobbled up a bunch of salt (looked like shiny crystal treats I suppose...or maybe even grit). She was fine in the morning and dead that afternoon. Our local vet (and member of our Chicken Team) spoke with Animal Posion Control who confirmed that yes, ingesting commercial rock salt is toxic for chickens. She then did a necropsy and sure enough, Buttercup had a significant amount of crystals in her stomach. We are heartbroken.

Keep the rock salt away. Not worth the chance of losing one of your chickens.

 

[5crazies]

Any recent input on this topic? We got a lot of snow and ice last weekend and put salt down on our sidewalks. Our chickens look like they want out of the coop to explore but I am worried they'll eat the rock salt.

 

[mobius]

To get the run door open, it is very tempting to put down salt or ice melt (calcium carbonate?) where it has snowed, but even with nothing too definitive here, not worth the risk. I will take out a kettle of boiling water n the morning and/or shovel a bit. Putting down straw helps the chickens move around on the rest of the snow. Helps me get around on it too! That won't hurt a thing.

 

[aart]

Any recent input on this topic? We got a lot of snow and ice last weekend and put salt down on our sidewalks. Our chickens look like they want out of the coop to explore but I am worried they'll eat the rock salt.

I keep the snow cleaned up as much as possible, which is often because I'm retired and have mobilty issues, keeping the paths clear and easy is important, so too much of an ice pack won't form...and use sand when it gets slippery so salt won't poison the soil and/or any animals.