Advice about Morning Glory needed

[MaureenHall]

Hi everybody, I hope you and your chooks are all enjoying this spell of nice weather as much as me and mine are.

I need a bit of advice please (as usual! ). I've got a free packet of Morning Glory seeds that I've just planted into small pots and I'd like to know if these will be poisonous to my chooks. I'm hoping to gradually grow some climbers (honeysuckle and passion flower) over the chicken wire barrier to give it a bit more interest, but I don't want to plant anything that might harm them.

They're all enjoying the bucketfulls of weeds that I'm pulling out of my veggie plot, and my neighbour has been spoiling them with fresh fruit salad almost every day . They absolutely adore water melon, and Myrtle has taken a fancy to oranges of all things - though it does give her a touch of the trots.

[TPeers]

Morning glory is related to bindweed - which has an irritant sap - so I wouls assume that it would not be good for hens.

I'll do some research!

Terry

[MaureenHall]

Thanks very much Terry, I've been searching the web but haven't found anything. I've been giving them the weed seedlings out of my veggie patch (which sometimes includes bindweed) and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm, though it is less than a handfull each day

[seasprout]

I have the same packet as you Maureen, from the same Mag no doubt.

On the back of the packet it says the seeds are harmful if eaten, i would assume the same of chickens eating them, also on Wikipedia it states plants from the Convolvulaceae family cause dodgy blood problems if ingested.

Perhaps keep chickens and Morning Glory apart.

[MaureenHall]

Yes seasprout, I think I'll be doing that, all the seeds have germinated already so I think the front garden and my friendly neighbour (who sends fresh fruit salad over every day as a treat for the chooks) is the place for them