Can Chickens Eat Cherries? All You Need To Know

You can definitely feed cherries to your chickens and they're one of the best fruits that you can feed them. In addition, cherries have a wide variety of nutrients that are highly bioavailable.

Despite cherries being considered safe for chickens of all sizes, baby chicks may not be able to handle too many of them as they may upset their digestive tracts, just like most sweet treats.

Can Chickens Eat Cherry Pits?​

The cherries' pits contain some chemicals that create cyanide if digested, but chickens usually do not eat them. Your chickens will typically peck around whole cherries and devour only the edible parts of them, so there is nothing wrong with feeding them whole cherries.

If they just consume a smaller piece of the pit or even the whole thing, most of the time they won't suffer any serious health issues.

Can Chickens Eat Cherry Stems?​

When it comes to feeding cherries to your chickens, you shouldn't be concerned about removing the stems. When compared to other animals such as dogs and cats, chickens are fairly picky eaters and will only eat what they are able to digest.

While cherry stems do pose some risk of toxicity, chickens leave them alone much like they leave the pits alone.

Can Chickens Eat Cherry Skin?​

In general, cherries and cherry skin are nutritious and diverse fruits to feed your flock. The chickens will love them for their high fiber content, vitamin C, copper, and magnesium, including the much more difficult-to-find potassium, copper, and magnesium.

Which Types Of Cherries Can Chickens Eat?​

Knowing chickens can safely consume cherries in general, begs the question of whether they can eat all kinds of cherries, or if there are certain types that chickens prefer.

Can Chickens Eat Sweet Cherries?​

In general, we associate cherries with sweet cherries, such as Queen Anne or Bing. There is absolutely no problem with feeding your flock any sweet cherry variety. The high sugar content and sweet taste will make them devour them even faster than you or your family can.

Can Chickens Eat Sour Cherries?​

As an alternative to sweet cherries, you can give your chickens sour cherries because they contain fewer calories and more vitamins and minerals than sweet cherry varieties.

It is worth noting that if your flock has a sweet tooth, then these may not go down as quickly.

Can Chickens Eat Wild Cherries?​

As wild cherries are more bitter than sweet or sour cherries, they might not appeal to your flock. However, you can allow them to enjoy them if you want.

Can Chickens Eat Canned/Jarred Cherries?​

Even though canned cherries are not poisonous or detrimental long-term to your chickens' health, you should generally avoid feeding them due to the high amount of added sugar they contain.

How To Feed Cherries To Your Chickens​

It is okay to feed whole cherries to your chickens, but what about all of the other ways you may find cherries at your local fruit stand or in your supermarket?

Feeding Your Chickens Dried Cherries​

It is probably best to use dried cherries instead of fresh cherries if you are concerned about your chickens eating the stems and pits of cherries. If you do decide to feed dried cherries to your chickens, just make sure they don't contain added sugar if you do buy them.

Feeding Your Chickens Pitted Cherries​

Taking it a step further, you could feed them pitted cherries instead of dried cherries. You can either buy cherries that have already been pitted or you can pit them yourself by cutting the cherry in half and removing the pit by hand.

Taking the pit out doesn't mean that your chickens lose any nutrients, but it can be a very time-consuming process if you have many cherries.

What Will Happen If Your Chickens Eat Too Many Cherries?​

Like most sweet treats, we should abide by the advice that all of our mothers gave to us when we were kids, "Everything in moderation". In general, your chickens shouldn't be adversely affected if they consume more cherries than they should.

A change in their poop's consistency may be something to watch out for. It might be a good idea to scale back the amount of fruit that you are giving your flock if you notice a dramatic change in consistency before and after feeding them cherries.

Benefits of Cherries For Your Flock​

It shouldn't surprise you that chickens will basically eat anything that you give them if they're hungry enough, but they're most likely to go for the fruit first! This "rule" holds true for cherries as well, as they are packed with a variety of important nutrients for your chickens.

As in humans, they can be a great natural source of vitamin A that can not only improve their eyesight but can also increase their egg production capacity. A possible cause of decreased egg production may be a vitamin A deficiency.

Further, cherries are loaded with vitamin C and E, which can ease stress and help prevent encephalomalacia.

Calcium helps boost the health of eggs, which is another benefit of cherries.

Moreover, they're great sources of iron and copper, which help chickens prevent anemia and cure digestive issues.

Despite slight variations in nutritional composition, cherries generally contain high levels of the following:

• Vitamin A
• Folate
• Niacin
• Pantothenic Acid
• Pyridoxine
• Choline
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K
• Potassium
• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Iron
• Phosphorus
• Zinc
• Copper
• Manganese

Throughout this article, we’ve discussed how cherries are absolutely okay for chickens, and as you can see from the information above, cherries are among the best fruits to offer them. Like most other fruits, cherries should be consumed in moderation by your chickens.

Other fruits which are loved by your backyard chickens include grapes, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, peaches, apricots, pears, and more.