Tropical chicken owners please - what about ginger leaves???

[Gullygarden]

My yard has a lot of flowering white ginger in it. I generally am trying to get rid of it, so sometimes its in the compost heap where the chickens hang out. My old hens never bothered with it, but my new 9 week old group are eating it. Anybody know if this is ok? they are eating young shoots. Hey, maybe we can eat those too? Anybody??


I guess there aren't going to be serious problems. They've eaten them for several days now along with free ranging on grass and other stuff. Hope I'm right!

 

[Gullygarden]

Am I really the only one on this forum that has decorative ginger in my yard?
:-(

 

[The Kibble Goddess]

Nah, I've got some salmon flowered ginger. My girls don't seem interested in it.

 

[Gullygarden]

mine are still shredding the new shoots.

 

[abbey808]

When my pullets were younger and curious, they would jump up and down and shred the lower hanging leaves of my ginger plants. I am not sure if they were actually eating it or just having fun playing with the leaves. We have a lot of tropical plants in our yard that were already here when we moved in. I wish that I could be of more help, but I am not very knowledgeable about plants. I haven't really seen my girls eating the plants. They seem more interested in scratching in the dirt. We haven't had any ill effects yet, my girls seem happy and healthy.

 

[Gullygarden]

Thanks. I know mine were actually eating the shoots. So far they are fine, but there is some unusually runny poo, so I will try probably try to get the shoots out of the run. They have plenty else to eat!

 

[southerndesert]

Hot weather and lots of drinking will also cause runny poop....

 

[anderson8505]

I usually check Florida Department of Agriculture site when I have plant concerns. You should verify the species of plant you have by comparing photos, etc online. I had a species of ginger that my horse ate without any problems (except that it made me unhappy) and most ginger plants are edible.

 

[chick-in-florida]

i never heard of ginger being poisonous. my chickens have pretty much eaten everything in my yard. i have ginger but it's around my pond and they don't seem to notice it. they'd rather be digging for bugs.