What is toxic to chickens?

[CacklingCarolyn]

What should my girls absolutely not get to eat because of toxicity? I want to give them treats but certainly don't want to accidentally harm them.

 

[GiddyMoon]

Quote:
This list is not accurate. apple seeds can only hurt them in large quantities, salt is vital to their health, raw beans just need to be cooked, and citrus is not toxic either...some people say it can make their stools loose but I have seen many people throw out oranges for their chickens...nor is garlic or onions they can just make the eggs taste funny, or peas nor tomatoes nor eggplant.... and asparagus isn't toxic either.

 

[DaveBeaty]

Chocolate is not toxic to chickens. I fed my New Hampshire rooster Mario over a pound of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate chips. It had no detrimental effect on him.

Next time I get ticked off at him, I will fire up the scalding pot and break out the avocados for another test.

On citrus: The rumor that citrus is poisonous to chickens comes from a test done by the Florida Department of Agriculture to see if orange pulp (left over from making orange juice) could be used as chicken feed. The result was that orange pulp is not complete nutrition for chickens and feeding it exclusively will cause a drop in egg production. The department put out a finding that "citrus pulp should not be used as chicken feed."

This got interpreted as "Don't feed citrus to chickens"

This got mis-interpreted as "Citrus is poisonous to chickens"

Another study shows that orange pulp is NOT poisonous, at it substituted maize for it to grow broilers. http://www.pjbs.org/ijps/fin1600.pdf

 

[Saltysteele]

the thing i've figured out about lists like the ones listing all the things toxic to chickens, is that if there is any negative side effect, whether it be from flatulence to death, they will list it as toxic.

these things all existed in the wild before we came along and domesticated the chickens, and chickens weren't dying from them. more than likely a little bit isn't going to hurt anything, and they somehow avoid deadly things (whether it tastes bad to them, whatever).

i'm sure you'll find something in any pasture that is listed in somebody's list somewhere as being toxic to cows. it's unavoidable. just because that plant is there, doesn't mean you're going to have dead animals.

so, moral of the story: take "lists: with a grain of salt (and I'm sure someone will tell you salt is toxic, too

)


edited to say: the more i think about it, these lists are like hand sanitizer to overzealous parents. the kids would be fine without the sanitizer (i grew up on a farm, went to school, did everything without hand sanitizer and am just fine - mostly), but these parents "have" to protect them from everything, even themselves.

use common sense any everything will be fine

 

[cackydoodledoo]

I agree! I have thrown oranges out for them and it hasn't hurt them. People put them in with chickens when they ship them. Chickens have been around for a long time and without so much human intervention. How do you think chickens faired way back when? They knew what to eat and what not to eat. They didn't have humans to ration out their food. They just ate whatever they found on the ground which begs the question - What do you think baby chicks ate back before we had chick starter? Did momma find food for them or teach them how to find bugs etc???

 

[Doopy]

When I was growing up my mom used to toss everything into the chicken run. Kitchen scraps, garden scraps and worms during the summers. In late summer she would use a scythe to cut tall grasses, wheat, and weeds that had gone to seed. She stacked the grasses neatly in piles in the barn, tied them with twine and hung them from the rafters. All through the winter the chickens only got kitchen scraps and dried grasses with the seed tops. Once in a while the grass would contain mice, bugs, or snakes as a special treat. She never purchased anything to feed the chickens. She never, ever provided grit for them. They were free range and got all the grit necessary from the soil and our gravel driveway.

We had the healthiest chickens in the area.

 

[Cindy in PA]

Also meat is not good for them it can give them gape which is a worm infection

Gapeworm eggs are found in earthworms etc. They cannot get gapeworm from eating meat.

 

[Chris09]

Also meat is not good for them it can give them gape which is a worm infection

Check your information.
The number one (1) cause of Gape Worm (Syngamus trachea) is birds eating earth worms.
Although earth worms are the main cause of gape worm other hosts are grass hoppers, snails, slugs and beetles.

Feeding meat to poultry if fine and a fare amount of meat should make up there diet since chickens are Omnivores.

 

[debid]

For most things, you can go by whether it would harm you to eat it. I'd also avoid giving them chocolate (although why would you share that?!), dried fruit that is preserved with sulfites, alcohol, potato peels that have gone green, and anything that has mold on it.

 

[callahanfarmgirl]

I know alvacados are poisonous to parrots, not sure about chickens. Also, I have seen post on here about apple seeds containing cianide.