One of the best parts about raising backyard chickens is the fact you can feed them almost anything — and they’ll eat it! I love being able to give table scraps to chickens that even my dogs won’t eat. Throwing away food is wasteful, so it’s nice to know chickens will take care of some scraps that would normally get tossed.
But not everything is safe to give to your chickens. In fact, some foods that you might think are safe for chickens are in fact, quite the opposite. Some food scraps are dangerous (even deadly) to give to chickens. Read on to learn more about some common food scraps that you shouldn’t feed your chickens.
Dry Beans And Lentils
Most people wouldn’t throw out dried beans or lentils because they have a shelf life of almost forever. But, if you’re cleaning out the pantry and come across a half-used bag of pinto beans that you’re never going to cook, don’t give them to your chickens.
Uncooked beans and lentils contain acompound called phytohaemagglutinin.这种化合物对鸡有毒。煮豆子来破坏化合物,然后你可以把它们喂给你的羊群。你也可以吃豆芽和小扁豆。一旦发芽,它们就可以安全进食了。
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If you feed your chicken’s cooked beans or lentils, make sure they are homemade. Don’t feed them beans from a can, as they tend to contain a high sodium level your chickens don’t need.
Dry Rice
Many years ago, it was popular to throw rice at weddings. You’d get a little bag of rice and toss the rice at the couple after the ceremony. People then discovered that birds were eating the rice and it was often deadly for them, so people switched to throwing birdseed.
Dried rice isn’t dangerous because of a chemical but because of the fact that it’s dried. When you cook rice, it swells. The rice does the same thing when you feed it to your chickens. It comes in contact with the moisture in the bird’s digestive tract and swells. When the rice expands, it can expand too much and cause harm to their gut.
Avoid this problem by cooking rice first. Chickens will go crazy over cooked rice. Don’t feed them dried.
Avocado
I’m a huge fan of avocado. It’s one of my favorite foods to eat fresh. In fact, at any given time, there are bound to be several avocados in our fridge. You don’t eat the skin or the pit of the avocado, and it becomes a food scrap.
The skin and pit of the avocado is not something that you want to feed your chickens. It containsa toxin called persin.喂鸡食用Persin是很危险的,如果数量足够多,它可能会致命。果皮和果核的果胶浓度最高,但果肉中也有少量的果胶。为了安全起见,不要给你的鸡吃鳄梨。
Apple Seeds
For the most part, chickens are smart about what they can and cannot eat. They tend to stay away from foods that are dangerous to them, and focus on eating things that are good for them. If you have fruit trees, you’ll know that chickens are crazy about fruit that falls to the ground. If it’s soft enough, they’ll eat all of it. Apples, cherries, and other stone fruits that fall to the ground become fair game for chickens.
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Apples, cherries, and other stone fruits have seeds that contain cyanide. If your chickens eat small amounts of the seeds, they’ll probably be fine. The problem happens when they consume too many cyanide-containing seeds. Don’t spend hours trying to pick seeds out of all of your apple cores, but use caution when feeding apples to your chickens. Don’t let apples become the only part of their diet.
Chocolate
I’m not sure why this needs to be said because who isn’t eating all of their chocolate? Since when did chocolate become a food scrap? But I guess if you’re not eating your chocolate, you should know it can be dangerous to feed it to your chickens. It’s also dangerous to feed to dogs — in case you didn’t know.
Chocolate contains a toxic chemical calledtheobromine.避免这个问题,自己吃巧克力吧。
Nightshades
The nightshade family includes tomatoes and eggplants. These plants contain atoxic substance called solanine.茄碱存在于番茄和茄子的各个部位。叶子,茎和生的番茄和茄子水果含有龙葵碱。
It can be tempting to toss plant scraps into the coop so your chickens can eat them, but don’t feed them tomato or eggplant. Compost these scraps instead.
Onions
Many homecooked meals that I prepare have chopped onion in them. The ends of the onion get cut off and aren’t used, and sometimes only part of the onion itself is used — but I never feed the scraps of onion to my chickens.
Onions contain atoxin called thiosulphatethat destroys red blood cells in chickens. If enough red blood cells are destroyed, chickens can develop jaundice or anemia. Avoid this problem, and put your onion scraps into a compost pile instead.
Lettuce
Wait, lettuce is dangerous for chickens? Isn’t lettuce supposed to be healthy? I’ve heard these questions before so bear with me. Part of the reason lettuce is so healthy for humans is it’s a low calorie-dense food. Lettuce contains a large amount of water.
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Chickens will go crazy over lettuce and eat a ton of it. When they eat a ton of lettuce, they’re also taking in a lot of water, so too much lettuce can lead to diarrhea in your chickens. You can give them lettuce in small amounts, but be mindful it may lead to upset stomachs if you feed them too much. Also, the type of lettuce makes a difference in the amount of water it holds. Iceberg lettuce is full of water while some other types, like buttercrunch lettuce, don’t have as much.
Spinach
This is another vegetable that, although it is super healthy, can be dangerous to feed to your chickens. Spinach doesn’t have quite the water content that lettuce does, so it’s not that your chickens will develop diarrhea if they consume too much.
Eating too much spinach canprevent proper calcium absorption.菠菜含有大量的维生素和矿物质,这是一件好事,但如果你的鸡吃了太多的菠菜,它们只会从菠菜中吸收营养。菠菜中没有一种营养素是钙。当鸡的身体忙于从菠菜中吸收营养时,它无法吸收钙。
Play it safe and don’t give chickens spinach. Feed them kale, cabbage, or collard greens instead.
Rhubarb
Did you know that if rhubarb isn’t cooked properly it can be dangerous for you to eat? It’s true! The leaves and stems of the rhubarb plant containoxalic acidwhich can be toxic to you and your chickens (spinach also contains small amounts of oxalic acid). Put rhubarb scraps in the compost bin to be safe.
Landscaping Plants
你在院子里或容器里种的许多花可能对你的鸡有危险。如果你的鸡是自由放养的,它们可能不会打扰它们。如果你把它们种在鸡舍旁边,你的鸡跑不出来,它们可能会忍不住尝试它们,所以要避免杜鹃花和其他杜鹃花、毛地黄、半边莲、蘑菇、橡树叶和橡子、冬青、羽扇豆和蕨类植物。
Coffee And Tea
给鸡喂咖啡和茶有一些争论。我从来没有喂过它们,因为它们在堆肥堆里很有价值。然而,有些人声称他们的鸡真的很喜欢咖啡渣和茶叶。
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咖啡和茶都含有咖啡因,咖啡因是甲基黄嘌呤。如果剂量过大,就会导致心脏问题。把咖啡渣和茶叶撒在堆肥堆上,避免喂鸡。
Raw Eggs
Are raw eggs dangerous to chickens? No. Will they give hens the habit of egg-eating? Potentially.
鸡会喜欢生鸡蛋。如果发生这种情况,你就会有一只母鸡突袭你的筑巢盒,寻找更多的东西。It’sdifficult to fix an egg-eater, and much easier to prevent it from happening. If you have extra eggs that aren’t going to be used, cook them before feeding to your chickens. They won’t associate cooked eggs with the eggs they lay, and you’ll be safe.
Anything Perceived To Be Unhealthy
If it’s a food that’s been fried or is really salty or sweet, don’t feed it to your chickens. Excess fat, sodium, or sugar can make them sick. If it’s not good for you, it’s not good for your chickens either.
Anything Treated With Chemicals
Lawn clippings and pulled weeds are excellent to feed chickens, and they’ll literally eat all of them. However, don’t feed them to your chickens if the lawn has been treated with chemicals. The chemicals can linger and make your chickens sick.
If you keep an organic garden and yard, this issue shouldn’t be a problem!
Shelby DeVore is a livestock expert with experience teaching high school agriculture and multiple poultry science teams. Shelby has over 20 years of experience raising poultry for show, meat, and eggs. She lives on a farm in west Tennessee with her husband and two children along with too many chickens to count. You can catch up with her on her homesteading blog,Farminence.
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