Poisonous plants

[sootysue]

A friend of mine is quite concerned about her girls eating digitalis, they have demolished most of the plant. The chickens seem to be fine, but we are wondering if the toxins could be passed on in their eggs, obviously we don't want to poison the local population or ourselves.

[Nicos]

Hmmm..now there's a thought!!!!

Digitalis makes the heart beat very quickly- so it's more likely to kill the chook. I can't think it would be absorbed by the egg- after all I'm sure they eat all sorts of other 'weeds' which are toxic to us!

Why not phone a vet specialising in farm animals??? It'd be interesting to see what they say!

[bluemoon]

I've been wondering along these lines too. I was hoping to use my chickens to clear half my new plot, but I'm not sure what's there in terms off weeds and wotnot. should I be wary of anything?

[davefromthechipie]

Me too they say you cant eat eggs for 3 days with some wormer types >.< ( so toxins must go into the egg ) but then again i cant remember the last paper/news i read of anyone dieing from anything other then salmonella from chickens. More chance getting ill from multi compost we all buy nobodys going to stop buying that here

[bluemoon]

Perhaps hens have more sense than we give them credit for, after all if toxins ended up in the egg then they'd presumably also end up in the chick, perhaps causing death or problems. This wouldn't be a very good strategy for the chicken so perhaps they instinctively don't eat anything they shouldn't. Many years ago I tried feeding our rabbit French beans, fortunately he wouldn't touch them. I decided he was 'faddy', but learned much later that to rabbits they are highly toxic. So not faddy, just sensible.

[MaureenHall]

I think we had a discussion about this last year (can't remember the thread title though!) but I found this list List of plants that are poisonous or harmful to chickens - Omlet Club Wiki
I think we all decided to be as careful as we can, but accept that the chickens probably know what's good for them and what isn't

[lizzylemon]

I might be sticking my neck out but....

I though this is a very interesting thread so I emailed my friend in the US whos dad is a vet (I never knew till last week, only been friends for 15 years) and he says the likely hood of the poison being passed on is quite high but at a reduced level same as other drugs that are administered such as antibiotics.

The rule of thumb is twice as long for withdrawal as for the administration. I.e. 7 days antibiotics, 14 days withdrawal, so he recommends not eating the eggs for 7 days at least.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to check with your local vet to see if they're of the same opinion. Personally I'd probably pass on the eggs too just because its known that Digitalis has an adverse effect on people....where as eating parsley is poisonous (supposedly) to hens but not people....

[Hilary B]

I would reckon that if the amount a hen eats doesn't make her ill, then it won't harm anyone who eats her eggs.
Wormers are not readily comparable, and the reason for a withdrawal period when livestock have had antibiotics is not because the antibiotic is toxic, but because a low intake of antibiotic means anything in the system that antibiotics might remove will develop resistance (an aspect of survival of the fittest. In the presence of antibiotic traces, the minority of bacteria 'immune' to the antibiotic will be the ones which reproduce, so the immune ones will soon become the majority).
I'm not at all sure that parsley wouldn't be toxic in sufficient quantity, but it just doesn't get used in such quantities.

[lizzylemon]

Sorry you're quite right - I didn't mean to infer that antibiotics are poisonous, I was just using them as an egg-ample for a suitable withdrawal measure / time scale but my words / head isn't working so well today - nearly the end of the week and my brain cell is running dry

[Hilary B]

Sorry you're quite right - I didn't mean to infer that antibiotics are poisonous, I was just using them as an egg-ample for a suitable withdrawal measure / time scale but my words / head isn't working so well today - nearly the end of the week and my brain cell is running dry

Been there<g> (worn out a couple of T-shirts too)

[sootysue]

Thanks for the info, some interesting stuff there, I will pass it on.
As for parsley being poisonous to chickens, well I had 3 plants in the garden that are now just tiny stalks as they have eaten the lot. I had covered the remaining plant with a large pot, but I saw Ginger dig underneath it and then tip it over, she then ate as much as she could before I could shoo her off, you can see her sitting figuring problems out I swear! As they say in Chicken run " them chickens is plotting something".

[lizzylemon]

Thanks for the info, some interesting stuff there, I will pass it on.
As for parsley being poisonous to chickens, well I had 3 plants in the garden that are now just tiny stalks as they have eaten the lot. I had covered the remaining plant with a large pot, but I saw Ginger dig underneath it and then tip it over, she then ate as much as she could before I could shoo her off, you can see her sitting figuring problems out I swear! As they say in Chicken run " them chickens is plotting something".

Sounds like they're in cahoots with mine. There's a web site that lists all poisonous plants for hens and thats where the Parsley is listed. I'd say not parsley though as my hens also demolished a rather large clump of it with no ill effect (they went deaf when I started cursing their feathery behinds so they weren't even a little offended, more smug I'd say).