Would you feed them chili?

[NonnasBabies]

My birds get everything we have leftover. I can understand worrying about the salt content if the food was given as their main diet every single day. But, leftovers a few times a week!!

Also, why would anyone worry about the spiceyness of the food??? One of the old wives tales is to give the birds cayenne pepper.

 

[france]

No sodium/salt in the chili. Made from scratch and I watch that kind of thing.
Should be interesting to see what they have to say about it.
Thanks for the heads up about the tomato

 

[madimorg]

Quote:
I actually have avoided spicy just because I worry it may be too hot for them.... I know I've heard that they cant taste heat from spice but I keep thinking back to a time I saw a duck eat a hot chip and it swam around in circles with it's mouth wide open acting like it was miserable. Maybe ducks are different but this duck definitely didn't find the pleasure in the chip.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Chickens cannot taste the heat in chili peppers. That's how the original wild peppers were spread which was from birds eating them.

There's nothing in chili that can hurt them unless you salted it to death. It's basically cooked beans, meat, maybe a bit of tomato and the seasonings.

 

[julia burton]

I feed mine any and all. I believe that variety is not only important to not bore them but it increase the chance of getting all vitamins they need. I never feed them chicken though but the love tomatoes potatoes not eggplant cause it even poisons us. Not potatoe peels not citrus not avocado ... pretty much anything else . My chicks are super happy healthy girls. They lay all year long too.

 

[julia burton]

I could tell by the way that they whined and rubbed their beaks when I fed them some red chili flakes in their mix as it had gotten old that they COULD feel the heat!!!!!! I was surprised and sorry for them. It did no real harm of course I waited for hot eggs but it didn't happen LOL Anyway the myth that chickens cannot tell hot is only a myth for me now. I will never do that again. a little in leftover chili now that I might do hahahah

 

[newwestchick]

Mine are eating leftover homemade carrot soup, with some bulgar mixed in today! Between us and my neighbours who are always stopping by the coop, I think they get a little variety almost every day They also have unrestricted access to organic chicken feed, spoiled I say!

 

[RonP]

My secured run IS my compost pile, deep litter.

Most anything biodegradable goes in.

Chickens are mini compost bins...

 

[CrazyTalk]

I actually have avoided spicy just because I worry it may be too hot for them....

Birds don't have the receptors for capsaicin. They can't taste it at all. Peppers naturally have their seeds dispersed by birds.

 

[CrazyTalk]

I could tell by the way that they whined and rubbed their beaks when I fed them some red chili flakes in their mix as it had gotten old that they COULD feel the heat!!!!!! I was surprised and sorry for them. It did no real harm of course I waited for hot eggs but it didn't happen LOL Anyway the myth that chickens cannot tell hot is only a myth for me now. I will never do that again. a little in leftover chili now that I might do hahahah

If something in your chili was bothering them, it was something other than the peppers. It's not a myth, they don't have the chemical receptors to taste capsaicin. Black pepper maybe?