Uh...my girls just killed a toad :(

[cassie]

I'm a new chicken owner...but aren't you supposed to at least cook chicken bits thoroughly before giving them to chickens to prevent diseases? Do you cook the lungs? Eggs I can understand..they basically consume an egg as they develop inside it..but feeding chickens actual chickens seems different.

Chickens are scavengers. They will eat anything they can find or catch. That includes each other.

 

[Beccazon]

In all my years of raising chickens, I’ve never had to step in. For one thing, they free range. I don’t have time to follow them around all day Imto see what they’re catching and eating. We have toads, so I assume some of them have been eaten. Chickens seem to know what they can and can’t eat. It’s instinct. If they didn’t, they’d have died off by now.

I think that is true to an extent. But chickens are domesticated now so "dying off" would be pretty difficult. And I doubt that chickens have an innate sense of whether something has eaten poisons, in a "kill every thing plant or animal we do not like" society. Obviously free-ranging is a bit different. I doubt anyone follows their free-rangers around all day. But if something is noticed, they likely deal with it as necessary. IF necessary. Mine do not free range, way too many predators here. They cannot be expected not to play with or sample living morsels. In our area I might as well have their coop and run in the dead center of a 10k acre corn field dotted with homes people don't want mice and moles in so they aim to rid them...hence needing to be observant and not allow possible poisons into my girls' diet. We do have people who free-range around here also. And I'm sure not all mice are tainted! But I do think it is fair and sound advice, at least in heavy crop farm regions, to suggest removing a mouse from a flock when they are known to be targettex by poisons on the property.

 

[ocap]

I'm a new chicken owner...but aren't you supposed to at least cook chicken bits thoroughly before giving them to chickens to prevent diseases? Do you cook the lungs? Eggs I can understand..they basically consume an egg as they develop inside it..but feeding chickens actual chickens seems different.

the chickens that I processed had no signs of disease or parasites so....

 

[Beccazon]

I'm a new chicken owner...but aren't you supposed to at least cook chicken bits thoroughly before giving them to chickens to prevent diseases? Do you cook the lungs? Eggs I can understand..they basically consume an egg as they develop inside it..but feeding chickens actual chickens seems different.

Most backyard chickens are less "yuck" filled. The "cook chicken til it is jerky" hysteria (IN MY OPINION...not a scientist here!) is brought about by nasty meat produced in huge facilities and harvested from chickens raised in squalor and disease for mass sales. Basically, money talks so conditions of animals and the plants they are processed in suffer. Part of our decision to raise our own. I know what they are fed, know their daily health, know where they are processed. Don't get me wrong, I don't eat raw chicken lol. But the chickens do not care if it is cooked and are unlikely to find cooked treats out free rangingso feeding them from your own stock you should feel comfortable cooked or raw.

 

[Rammy]

Mine have killed alot worse than a toad. Yuck.

 

[ChickenFlamingo]

I had a cat that caught a mouse in the chicken coop once. The chickens chased her down and took it away from her!

Sounds like my set up. I have three cats. One catches a mouse and 'plays' with it. Second cat steals mouse but continues to 'play'. Third cat jumps in and takes mouse. Meghen, my top hen, has enough of this 'playing' nonsense, whips the poor mouse from the three cats and finishes it off.
It's like Pass the Parcel and the chicken wins the prize.

My chickens also catch toads. In winter I could understand how they caught them because the toads would be hibernating, but I'm amazed/impressed they can catch them in summer because a toad can move pretty quickly.

 

[Beccazon]

My coop is divided. About 2/3 is chicken space. The other 1/3 is ducks with a small area sectioned off to house my insanely tiny 2 bantams. The run is divided as well. With the ducks getting a bit more space due to the pool. The 2 sections run parallel and are separated by chain link. I saw the toad chillin' by the pool blending in to the dirt. Ducks didn't see him and he stayed still. I guess I assumed he would skidattle when the ducks moved out of strike distance. Apparently he did. Directly into the chicken run! Poor dude. Bad choice. So next I saw him was when I looked to see what the ruckus was and it was chickens chasing each other fighting over his limp ickiness. Poor guy shoulda stayed under the porch where he has lived for several years. At least I assume it is that towed because my porch told has not been seen in two days LOL

 

[sylviethecochin]

I just searched "hen poison toads" and came up with this little gem.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/ewww-that’s-gross.1265199/page-3#post-20322508

Given what I've seen mine eat (poop, engine oil, rotted sawdust, dead fish) I'm highly skeptical of the "chickens instinctively know what's poisonous" thing. I think it's something that has to be taught by a parent bird, or learned through experimentation on the chicken's part.

 

[IronFeather]

I was out by the goat pen and saw this little tree frog hopping along, all kinda wobbly, and realized it was missing a back leg. Poor little deformed guy. Then later I was in the chicken coop when another little tree frog came hopping through the wire. One of the chickens snatched it right out of the air and down her gullet it went. Hmmmm...comes the dawning. LOL!

 

[LozzyR]

My oldest Isa girl caught a frog once. It was far too big for her to swallow it and as her beak had been blunted, she couldn’t gouge bits out of it. She just ran around in circles with it dangling from her mouth whilst the other two tried to snatch it from her. It must have died from blunt force trauma when she put it down and pecked at it. Then she lost interest and wandered off! I felt so sorry for the frog but it was very funny to watch them running around like a herd of tiny velociraptors! I did try to take it from her but she wasn’t having it.