Weed and feed help!

[SunHwaKwon]

This is a subject wrought with ignorance and misinformation. So as you don't need to doubt what I'm about to tell you, you should contact your local university extension office of state lab scientists, and ask them about herbicides and safety for chickens.

First, herbicides, while considered a pesticide just as insecticides, are not the same. Insecticides cause deaths in chickens very quickly. Herbicides do no such thing.

While you do not want to put chickens on a freshly treated pasture, herbicides break down very quickly in the environment and there are really no residual substances to cause sickness and injury to chickens. 2-4D is very safe, probably the safest, to use around chickens. It is what's in your Scott's fertilizer. After a week and repeated waterings, I wouldn't have any worries at all about chickens being put out to free range on it.

Then how are there herbicides that claim to work for four months if they break down so quickly? I'm just curious.

 

[RWBurrows]

I'm curious...what did you end up deciding to do?

I'm so glad I found this thread, I was just about to post the EXACT same thing! The last time our gardener put down Weed & Feed, I asked him not to do our back yard, but came home from work today to find that he had spread Scott's Weed & Feed over both the front and back...I'm sure he forgot and was trying to be helpful. We have terrible weed issues due to one of our neighbors who has a lawn that is literally 100% weed and 0% grass.

I checked the back of the package and the hazard statement reads -- Hazards to Humans and Domestic Animals: Causes moderate eye irritation. Avoid contact with eyes or clothing. Additionally, under environmental hazards, it mentions that it is hazardous to fish. Our girls are only about 2.5 months old and we were planning to construct their run this week, up until now we've just been allowing them to free range in our back yard when we're home. They aren't laying yet of course.

I think our only option would be to limit the girls' outdoor time to our gated driveway, which we can block off from the back yard until we've had the chance to water a few times. Since we got the girls, we've been using all organic in the back yard and I probably should have done a better job explaining this to our gardener. I'm disappointed, but what's done is done...

Let me know what you ended up doing!

 

[Jcarcary]

I'm curious...what did you end up deciding to do?

I'm so glad I found this thread, I was just about to post the EXACT same thing! The last time our gardener put down Weed & Feed, I asked him not to do our back yard, but came home from work today to find that he had spread Scott's Weed & Feed over both the front and back...I'm sure he forgot and was trying to be helpful. We have terrible weed issues due to one of our neighbors who has a lawn that is literally 100% weed and 0% grass.

I checked the back of the package and the hazard statement reads -- Hazards to Humans and Domestic Animals: Causes moderate eye irritation. Avoid contact with eyes or clothing. Additionally, under environmental hazards, it mentions that it is hazardous to fish. Our girls are only about 2.5 months old and we were planning to construct their run this week, up until now we've just been allowing them to free range in our back yard when we're home. They aren't laying yet of course.

I think our only option would be to limit the girls' outdoor time to our gated driveway, which we can block off from the back yard until we've had the chance to water a few times. Since we got the girls, we've been using all organic in the back yard and I probably should have done a better job explaining this to our gardener. I'm disappointed, but what's done is done...

Let me know what you ended up doing!

Hey!
Man it was frustrating, luckily everything worked out and they are fine

So I watered the first night, quite a bit. And the next day I raked up the yard as much as possible and then soaked the ground again bc the color was coming out of them. I did this for the first 2 days and thankfully we had pretty heavy rain the following. I waited a full week from when it was down to let the girls out. They were about 4mo old
I kept and eye on them but all was good

I rather ordered pasture seed and asked him to put that down which hasn't had a chance to grow bc the girls love it

 

[RWBurrows]

Hey!
Man it was frustrating, luckily everything worked out and they are fine

So I watered the first night, quite a bit. And the next day I raked up the yard as much as possible and then soaked the ground again bc the color was coming out of them. I did this for the first 2 days and thankfully we had pretty heavy rain the following. I waited a full week from when it was down to let the girls out. They were about 4mo old
I kept and eye on them but all was good

I rather ordered pasture seed and asked him to put that down which hasn't had a chance to grow bc the girls love it

Oh good! I'm glad to know it turned out OK in the end. I will plan on doing the same thing. It's super hot and dry at the moment, so no rain, but we'll run the sprinklers daily this week just to really soak the ground and dissolve the herbacide. Thanks for replying!

 

[Jcarcary]

We're in Florida so I watered at night
I'll it would be gone before a drop hit a blade of grass

Good luck!