Backyard Poultry Forum

Is it true that chicken cant eat grass?

I was just informed of this, they say it can make them sick?

Cut grass may cause some problems with impacted crop (the long strands may knot up) but otherwise what do you think they eat when in a paddock?

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Barnevelders- Double-laced Gold and Buff laced. Large Indian Game- dark and jubilee and the newest project Silkies (crazy I know). http://www.freewebs.com/jirahpastoral
Let me live the happy life

it's my isa browns favourite passtime eating grass, she's prefer to eat that then pellets or scraps

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Never follow a Hippy to a second location

Yea same here! Our chickens love them. I will even toss some freshly cut grass in their coop.

Chooks eat grass all the time, it normally makes up a large portion of their diet if they are free ranging..


Grass clippings from the lawn mower can cause problems though, usually chooks will pull off a bit and then move on, with grass clippings they pull and the whole piece comes, they swallow it down and they can get a impacted crop, where all the grass clippings form a ball or a mat and then they can't eat properly.


Having said this I do give my lawn clippings to the chooks, I cut my grass regularly so it doesn't get too long and I have never had problems with impacted crops.



Ron

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"To the Core"

Sorry what is an impacted crop?

It is when food cannot pass through the crop into the gut proper.

The crop fills up during the day as the bird eats, of a night the crop empties.

J

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Some mornings I wake up grumpy but most mornings I let her sleep in.
Just Marans

Basically all the grass twists together and forms a blockage in the crop (a "bag" at the base of the chooks neck where the food goes, before it heads further down the digestive track.) this ball of grass can be fatal,


Ron

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"To the Core"

impaction si when a large mass of organic or inorganic material gets eaten and does not move on from the stomach/crop but instead just get denser and denser causing a blockage that has to be manually removed.

you beat me to it lol

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Never follow a Hippy to a second location

My chooks love the grass!

Pity they won't touch dandelion

Send it to my house, my chooks will devour almost anything green, and they do love dandelions, although cape weed is out,


Ron

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"To the Core"

My blighters won't eat capeweed either - unless it's absolutely the last green thing around and even then, I think they dig up the roots looking for insects more than eat the weed itself.

Can you send me your grass in general??

Yes, send me some too!! We have a light covering but the frosts are starting to kill it off so it won't belong before we are back to brown again ........

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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Newbie resurrecting and old post - apparently freshly mowed grass can be bad for some small animals, something to do with the petrol and fumes. Is this the same for chooks? Should I keep mine off the freshly mowed grass??

I've never had a problem Pixie.