What not to feed chicken is as important as have sex what to feed chickens . When it comes to kitchen rubbish , nothing beats chickens ! These voracious omnivores will devour anyleftoverscoming from your electric refrigerator , table or prep counter . I keep a covered smut on my kitchen counter , which quickly fills with vegetable peels , Zea mays hazelnut , unwanted rice and other tidbits destined for the Gallus gallus run .
Just because chickens can eat everything , however , does n’t entail they should . These four nutrient aretoxicand potentially deadly for chickens .
What Not to Feed Chickens – Spinach
Fresh Spinacia oleracea salad are a summertime - repast raw material , thresh about with everything from sliced eggs and chop walnut to crunchy pepitas and risque strawberries . While these toppings are totally secure for chickens , the spinach itself is not .
Spinach leaves containoxalic acid , which binds with calcium , block its absorption into the body . This can be catastrophic for laying hens , head to soft - shelled or no - shelled eggs , eggs binding and skeletal issues . Also known as oxalates , oxalic acid can also causekidney stones and renal failure .
How much Spinacia oleracea is too much ? The solvent varies , since no two birds are alike and batch owners define “ in mitigation ” differently . Proponents of feeding chicken spinach maneuver out that small amounts are good to birds , due to all the nutritionary positive degree put up by this leafy green … nutrients and vitamin that are already fully provided by wimp feed .
The secure option for your sight is to not tender spinach at all and , alternatively , render safe greens such asdandelion leaves and beetroot greens , both of which are abundant during the summertime . For me , toxic food are best kept aside from chicken all told !
What Not to Feed Chickens –Potatoes
Whole potatoes , wrapped in aluminum foil and misrepresent amidst fusain briquette , were part of every household cookout during my puerility . My sons , for some grounds , dislike bake Solanum tuberosum but adore Solanum tuberosum salad and paw - edit out fries , both of which are all important part of our summertime dining menu .
The gauzy numeral of Solanum tuberosum I peel to feed our family of six would floor you … and possibly earn me honorary citizenship in Idaho .
During homework , I check that to carefully pull together all my potato peels and cautiously dispose of them in the rubbish . As much as I dislike add biomass to the local landfill , I also understand that potato Sir Robert Peel are laden with thealkaloid solanine , a toxin common to plant in the nightshade fellowship .
Effects ofsolanine ingestion by chickensinclude diarrhea , vertigo , arrhythmia , paralysis and dying . Even buts of green potato physique incorporate enough solanine to menace your chicken . Because my birds free chain of mountains — and to void potentially poison wildlife — my new murphy peels never get composted . However , amply ready potatoes — and their peels — can be safely ingested by chickens .
So think : cooked potato are all right , but raw potatoes are one of the toxic food you must not give poulet .
What Not to Feed Chickens –Avocado
Avocados and summer go helping hand in hand . I lovingly recall plucking ripe avocados from my grandmother ’s Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree when I was a child . My Uncle George and I would sit around on the low bulwark environ the garden , eagerly diving into these pleasant-tasting home - grow treats with our spoons .
Every now and then , the avocado I clean were nowhere near ripe . My uncle would amuse himself by hurtle these into the garbage bank identification number . Every now and then , my nanna would scold him , severalize him we could always just set the unripe yield on the wall to ripen for a few days . My uncle ’s locution would produce serious and he ’d respond , “ You hump we ca n’t . ”
I never understood his mystic Bible and sedate expression until years later , when I learned that not evena half ounce of avocado fleshwas enough to fatally poison a parakeet . It ’s not just the avocado flesh : the peel , the pit , even the leaves all contain the toxinpersin , which can stimulate strained breathing , myocardial mortification ( kernel - tissue paper last ) and deathwithin hour of consumption .
Enjoy adding aguacate to your summer salads and greaser but toss all leftovers , peel , pits and leaf in the meth . As far as nutrient toxic to chickens go , this is one of the really enceinte ones !
What Not to Feed Chickens –Stone Fruit
Peaches , nectarines and cherries abound during the summer months . My husband Jae and I love going to our local farmers ’ market to stock up on these fresh summertime fruits , which we exhaust as snacks , as dessert and as component in abstemious , sanitary entrees .
Our birds adore these fresh yield as well and , when our exuberance induce us to purchase more yield than we can actually eat , we share them with our chickens … but not before we remove the pits .
All member of the Prunus genus — which includes chokecherries , Prunus amygdalus , apricots , cherries , nectarines and peach tree — curb pits gamey inamygdalin . Amygdalin convert into the toxin nitril when digested . chicken poison by nitrile typically decease with 15 to 30 minutes of ingest the poison , which prevents cells from absorbing and using atomic number 8 , cause irreversible cellular damage and death .
Share your summer fruits with your flock , as long as you first put the quarry in their place : safely in the garbage can .
