Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Goldenwahintofboss]

I very much hope you wont be following alone Bob! At least a couple of other people following would be nice.

I to am excited to hear your observations and kindness towards God's resilient lovely creatures. I love chickens and charity both. God bless u.

 

[Goldenwahintofboss]

Not a bad idea at all. My neighbours have one like that for their cats. It works on wired electricity. But in the ad it says it can work with a battery too.
Their device it not easy to operate. It gives a portion of feed every .. of time. If not all the feed has been eaten it keeps on giving feed/spilling. Maybe a smaller , two portion device, is more convenient? It can hold fermented food too.
For the picture: The portion feeder ad is in Dutch

I have seen list with so called poisonous food on it to warn chicken keepers with actually good food for birds, but known to be poisonous food for mammals.
Like berries.

Spoiler: Explainer: why are berries not poisonous for birds

Yet birds can eat the berries without any problems. How do they do that?

Poisonous pit
Berries consist of a pit (the seed) surrounded by the soft flesh. In most berries, the poison is not in the flesh but in the pit itself. Birds swallow the berry whole. The kernel is not digested in the bird's belly but remains whole. Later the bird poops out the poisonous kernel again. At this location, a new plant can grow from the seed in the pit. This is how a bird helps the plant.

Humans cannot eat these poisonous berries. Our stomach digests not only the flesh but also the stone. This is how the poison enters our body and we become ill.

I gave my chickens mandarin oranges and they loved them. I haven't seen any sickness. But will heed the warning. What does it do to them that you have seen?

 

[RoyalChick]

Yet birds can eat the berries without any problems. How do they do that?

Poisonous pit
Berries consist of a pit (the seed) surrounded by the soft flesh. In most berries, the poison is not in the flesh but in the pit itself. Birds swallow the berry whole. The kernel is not digested in the bird's belly but remains whole. Later the bird poops out the poisonous kernel again. At this location, a new plant can grow from the seed in the pit. This is how a bird helps the plant.

Humans cannot eat these poisonous berries. Our stomach digests not only the flesh but also the stone. This is how the poison enters our body and we become ill.

I find this very confusing.
Berries - blackberries, raspberries, strawberries etc. do not have a pit. The fruits that have pits are things like apricots and peaches.
As a human who grows and consumes many varieties of both I am pretty confident that I would have trouble swallowing let alone digesting a pit (aka stone) from one of those fruits.
I think the controversy comes primarily from apple seeds because they are much smaller and therefore easier to swallow and digest. They contain a compound called amygdalin which converts into hydrogen cyanide in the body. Hydrogen cyanide is toxic.
I have used apple seeds to add a bit more real almond flavor in baking (commercial almonds have been bred to not have the bitterness which is a shame as it really enhances the almond flavor). I once calculated how many apple seeds I would have to eat to approach toxic levels of cyanide and I forget now but it is a vast amount!
Similarly birds would have to eat a lot of apple seeds to have any ill effects.
I routinely toss an apple core or two to my chickens. I don't know if they eat the seeds or ignore them.
This may be helpful.

https://queenslanderaviaries.com/blogs/news/can-apple-seeds-kill-my-bird

 

[Perris]

I once calculated how many apple seeds I would have to eat to approach toxic levels of cyanide and I forget now but it is a vast amount!

As a kid I used to eat apple pips, splitting the case between my teeth to enjoy the inner part (which I think of as a bit like pine nuts), and got told repeatedly I shouldn't as they would give me appendicitis (no explanation for this idea was offered, of course, so I ignored it). The pips didn't give me appendicitis, nor did I suffer any other ill effects, except perhaps to encourage my sceptical attitude to 'what people say'

 

[RoyalChick]

As a kid I used to eat apple pips, splitting the case between my teeth to enjoy the inner part (which I think of as a bit like pine nuts), and got told repeatedly I shouldn't as they would give me appendicitis (no explanation for this idea was offered, of course, so I ignored it). The pips didn't give me appendicitis, nor did I suffer any other ill effects, except perhaps to encourage my sceptical attitude to 'what people say'

I used to do that too. The explanation I was given as a child was that the pip would lodge in my appendix and block it!

 

[Molpet]

I find this very confusing.
Berries - blackberries, raspberries, strawberries etc. do not have a pit. The fruits that have pits are things like apricots and peaches.
As a human who grows and consumes many varieties of both I am pretty confident that I would have trouble swallowing let alone digesting a pit (aka stone) from one of those fruits.
I think the controversy comes primarily from apple seeds because they are much smaller and therefore easier to swallow and digest. They contain a compound called amygdalin which converts into hydrogen cyanide in the body. Hydrogen cyanide is toxic.
I have used apple seeds to add a bit more real almond flavor in baking (commercial almonds have been bred to not have the bitterness which is a shame as it really enhances the almond flavor). I once calculated how many apple seeds I would have to eat to approach toxic levels of cyanide and I forget now but it is a vast amount!
Similarly birds would have to eat a lot of apple seeds to have any ill effects.
I routinely toss an apple core or two to my chickens. I don't know if they eat the seeds or ignore them.
This may be helpful.

https://queenslanderaviaries.com/blogs/news/can-apple-seeds-kill-my-bird

Berries that are poisonous to humans . Buckthorn and poison ivy comes to mind.

 

[RoyalChick]

Berries that are poisonous to humans . Buckthorn and poison ivy comes to mind.

I didn’t know buckthorn berries were poisonous - you can buy them in health food shops.
Do they have pits?

 

[TropicalChickies]

As a kid I used to eat apple pips, splitting the case between my teeth to enjoy the inner part (which I think of as a bit like pine nuts), and got told repeatedly I shouldn't as they would give me appendicitis (no explanation for this idea was offered, of course, so I ignored it). The pips didn't give me appendicitis, nor did I suffer any other ill effects, except perhaps to encourage my sceptical attitude to 'what people say'

I've always eaten apples whole. Skin, core, seeds, everything except the stem. Mostly because I would just keep absentmindedly munching away until the apple was gone. I still do. My mother had told me that the seeds contained cyanide, so I became determined to build up an "immunity" to cyanide by steadily ingesting apple seeds. The inspiration came from the famous scene in "The Princess Bride" where Wesley aka The Dread Pirate Roberts defeats the scheming Sicilian in a game of death involving iocane powder to which Wesley had built up an immunity.

I was a weird kid. But I still haven't died from cyanide poisoning.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I used to do that too. The explanation I was given as a child was that the pip would lodge in my appendix and block it!

That's almost as absurd as the watermelon that would grow in your stomach if you ate watermelon seeds ...

 

[Molpet]

I didn’t know buckthorn berries were poisonous - you can buy them in health food shops.
Do they have pits?

There's different species of buckthorn, I'm just used to the invasive one on my property. https://www.looduskalender.ee/vana/en/node/17552.html

Maybe they sell sea buckthorn in your stores

Don't think they have a pit but hard seed that goes through the birds and it comes up under every tree LOL