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OK, here's the skinny on potato skins.
You can give your chickens potato skins. Raw, cooked, white, yellow, red, doesn't matter. What DOES matter is if the skins are GREEN. NEVER, EVER feed anybody or anything green potato skins or the flesh immediately underneath.
Potatoes are a member of the deadly nightshade/morning glory/tomato family. These plants have a toxic chemical called solanin. When potatoes are exposed to sunlight they concentrate solanin in the skin; that's what makes it green. There is always a bit of this chemical in potatoes, but when the skins are green, it's concentrated and in large doses can cause all sorts of harm, from digestive upsets to birth defects to death.
Solanin is the chemical concentrated in tomato hookworms (those huge nasty green worms birds won't eat). That's why monarch butterfly caterpillars look like tomato hookworms so the birds won't eat them. I heard of a recent case of a mom who told her son to pick off the tomato worms from her plants because she didn't use insecticide in her garden. He missed some and she punished him by making him eat one, thinking "oh, it's just a worm". The poisons concentrated in the tomato hookworm killed the boy.
Sweet potatoes are from an entirely different plant family. The leaves and young shoots are edible and used in salads. They're not the same plant as the yam, though in the USA they're often called the same thing. Sweet potatoes are much healthier for people and animals than regular potatoes.
I had wondered about the "why" also. Thanks for the info on that and the tomatoe worm...not that I would EVER eat that!
