Is there a list of flowers and plants that chickens who free range should not eat?

blooming silkie

In the Brooder
7 Years
Apr 17, 2012
49
1
34
My chickens have access to all my flower beds in my yard and now that my flowers and shrubbery is really starting to grow here in Ohio, I was wondering what chickens should eat and not eat?
 
Mine all free range on several acres. I have ducks, chickens, guineas, and turkeys and a few goslings. They do not eat the poisonous plants. There are plenty for them to eat in my yard if they were dumb enough and some of mine are pretty dumb lol. I have tons of border beds and island beds with poisonous flowers called Angel Trumpets aka Brugmansia. I even hybridize them and have seedlings everywhere in pots. Other than scratch them up and dig the dirt out of my flower pots they leave them alone.
My garden is a different story. They hopped the fence and ate up all the green onion foilage and will eat peppers if they can reach them lol. The turkeys are the worst about eating the peppers. My brugmansia seed pods look like long green peppers but they don't ever touch them...they are dumb but they seem to know the difference. I grow lots of edibles that they can eat like beauty berries, wild black berries, wild grapes, etc around on the property and teach them to eat those.

Here are some of the (poisonous) Brugmansia I grow everywhere lol.
 
Thank you for that information! Being a newbie to raising chickens, I worry about everything they eat!
 
I think this is the type of list you were looking for. Use your own judgement on what is best for your flock. There a lots of toxic plants out there and most chickens seem to know what is best for them. Probably not 100% though, there is always gonna be an exception to every rule lol. Anyhow I think this is a pretty good list and should give you an idea of what would be toxic.
http://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html

Here is a list of chick treats that they CAN eat.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicken-treat-chart-the-best-treats-for-backyard-chickens
 
I think this is the type of list you were looking for. Use your own judgement on what is best for your flock. There a lots of toxic plants out there and most chickens seem to know what is best for them. Probably not 100% though, there is always gonna be an exception to every rule lol. Anyhow I think this is a pretty good list and should give you an idea of what would be toxic.
http://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html

I'm not sure how accurate this list is. It listed onions, chives, and leeks and I have seen my chickens eat all of those with no harm. Same for clovers in the list. It also listed rhubarb leaves and in another thread on here other posters have said their chickens ate the leaves without a problem.

I was suspicious about how incredibly long the list was. If that many plants really were toxic I'm not sure many free ranging chickens would be alive today.

Oh, go to the bottom where it says the source was for a book on reptiles...not poultry. That makes more sense.
 
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The place I check for plant toxicity is: U.C. Davis ANR

And as far as plants the chickens won't eat, look for plants listed as deer resistant and ideal for your area. Usually chickens avoid toxic stuff once they sample it and most of the deer resistant plants are mildly to majorly toxic. I have a list on my blog below of what my own chickens don't touch in my garden, at a post about chicken resistant plants.
 

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