This is the bottom portion of the Treats Chart page:
Dont feed the following things to your chickens:
(I'm sure people have experienced exceptions to this list, but if we want to raise our birds the best way possible, "better safe than sorry".)
Raw green potato peels: Toxic substance called Solanine.
Anything real salty: Can cause salt poisoning in small bodies such as chickens.
Dried or undercooked Beans: Raw, or dry beans, contain a poison called hemaglutin which is toxic to birds.
Avocado Skin and Pit: Skin and pit have low levels of toxicity.
Raw eggs: You dont want to introduce your chickens to the tastiness of eggs which may be waiting to be collected in the nestboxes.
Candy, Chocolate, Sugar: Their teeth will rot
No, its just bad for their systems, and chocolate can be poisonous to most pets.
A quote from Nifty-Chicken, the Administrator of BYC:
"I gave up on my birds knowing what was best for them when I caught them all eating a block of Styrofoam pellets."
Regarding toxicity, the following is copied from a post by DLhunicorn on May 14, 2007 in a thread titled "Potato Peels". (Thank you DLhunicorn for your tremendously helpful and knowledgeable contributions to BYC!)
"Do not count on your chickens "knowing" what is bad for them...also do not count on these "toxic" plants immediately being identifiable by finding a dead bird the next morning...usually it is a slow process damaging organs , inhibiting the ability of your bird to utilize the nutrients in their feed, etc.
http://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html
Toxic Plants
and here are some more sources for toxicity:
http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.c
1165263379
http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1214.htm
(Feed Chickens Properly)
here are some of my collected articles on nutrition :
http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.c
1157992073
http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.c
snutrition
(factors contributing to nutritional disorders)"
* Regarding feeding CAT FOOD to chickens,
the following is from DLHunicorn in response to the listing of cat food in this Treats Chart: (A word to the wise, and thank you, DLHunicorn)
"You all know how I feel on cat food and I have posted the links and reasoning behind my objections several times ...it can potentially be detrimental to your birds health and even deadly in the right circumstances and for this reason I feel it should be left off the chart (as when you put it on it is as if you are condoning its use) I will repost here one of the sources for my objection:
http://www.omri.org/Amino_acids_livestock.html
..."While it is nutritionally essential, methionine excesses are far more toxic to poultry than similar excesses of tryptophan, lysine, and threonine (National Research Council, 1994). Force feeding methionine to excess can result in death to chicks (National Research Council, 1994). A dosage of 2 g / mature cat / day (20 to 30 g / kg dry diet) for 20 days induces anorexia, ataxia, cyanosis, methemoglobinemia and Heinz body formation resulting in hemolytic anemia (Maede, 1985). ..."
