Using Passion Vine Seeds or Loofa Seeds As Feed?

[immortalight]

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever tried feeding passion vine fruit and/or passion vine seeds OR loofa seeds to chickens. I'm not suggesting feeding them only these seeds, more like mixing them in to regular feed. I have a lot of passion vine fruit and loofa gourds and would love to put the seeds to good use.

 

[fuentemoon]

I dont know about feeding them, but I sure would love to grow them!

I would think loofah would be fine since squash is... mine are super picky about which ones they will eat.

 

[kerbotx]

Good question! I know I've dropped some loofah seeds in the run while banging the seeds out, but no one's ever come running for them... No one wanted to eat the loofah gourds - not the chickens, not the horse, even the squirrels only took 1 inquisitive nibble, and that was a hard nope! But everybody did love the shade the vines provided

 

[ackie]

I saw one of my chickens eat a passion vine leaf the other day.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

Earlier this year, I fell down the rabbit hole looking for information on these same plants. From my hazy memory: passionfruit's fine but loofah's a little tough on chicken systems.

If I recall correctly, everything I found was either quasi-scientific looking but not very thorough, or just posts from people who've thrown passion vine and loofah to their flocks without mapping long-term effects.

My 2¢ would be to proceed with caution and use these more as treats, like mixed into their scratch instead of their feed. And moderation is probably key. Like always, I suppose!

 

[Weetamoo93]

I saw one of my chickens eat a passion vine leaf the other day.

Mine ate all the leaves they could reach on my Passiflora incarnata. I had to put a cage around my pots to keep them safe. They either were less interested or simply overlooked my Passiflora lutea.