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5 Things You Should Never Feed Your Chickens
I never really worried about what I give my chickens before this week. I feed them chicken food and table scraps. Boy was I wrong! And I’ve been around chickens my whole life, never have I heard anyone comment about losing a chicken over something that they fed them.
Then I got invited to join a chicken forum and I found a bunch of people talking about how some food is toxic to chickens.
WHAT?!
Yeah! Turns out there are a few things that you shouldn’t feed them and I’ve listed 5 Things You Should Never Feed Your Chickens below.
What are these toxic foods anyway?
BEANS -Beans, yep you heard me beans, dry beans to be specific. Or Raw are deadly to chickens. Who Knew! Not me that is, they said you can’t even feed them soup beans you cooked in the crock pot. The beans don’t get hot enough or something to kill off the toxins in the beans and they can kill a chicken in a matter of hours.
Now I’m pretty sure I’ve given ham beans to my chickens before and don’t remember any of them flopping over dead over it. I’m sure I would have remembered a massive death, but nothing comes to mind or maybe they didn’t eat the beans and my little chihuahua snuck in and ate all of it before the chickens got a chance to eat them. Like I said I really can’t remember. But I won’t be feeding that to them again. That’s for sure.
Green Potatoes – I remembered about green potatoes, because I used to raise crickets and they ate a bunch of potatoes. For one they never ate the skins which is funny but they also would never eat the green parts of the potatoes or the ones that were sprouting. My chickens love potato peelings. I’ll just have to remember to throw out any green ones from here on out.
Moldy Food – This is also supposed to be toxic to chickens. Oops! I’ve given my chickens moldy bread before, maybe they eat around the mold. 🙂
Avocado – I don’t have a problem with Avocado’s for one I don’t like them so my chickens don’t have to worry about eating these. I think they said the skin is bad and the big seed, but you can give them a little bit of the fleshy part. Again not going to worry about this one, because I don’t buy them.
Chocolate – I would never give any of my pets chocolate no matter if it’s my dog or chicken and as I get older me and chocolate just don’t get along anymore. I love it but it doesn’t love me. 🙂
There you go! 5 Things you should never feed your chickens garden some of them surprised me. I think most animals just have an inner knowledge that keeps them from eating things that will make them sick. I know when we had cows in our fields they never ate the poisonous plants. And if my tiny crickets will avoid eating green potatoes I bet chickens are a little bit smarter than a bug. Just be smart and if you’re not sure, then don’t feed it to them. Put it in your compost pile for your instead. I really need to get myself a compost pile. That’s a post for another day.
Happy Chickens,
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Hi! I'm Michelle. You can find me planning, cooking, and often wrangling chickens in my spare time (who am I kidding? I have no spare time). I am the CEO and creator for homesteadingforwomen.com. All posts are reviewed and updated personally by ME - if you have any questions, feel free to contact me here.
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