Avocado is toxic to chickens

[chickenfan]

I've just been reading on my Vet's website that avocado is extremely toxic to chickens.

 

[Marigold]

Not much chance of mine getting any, the price they are!
Also, I read that increasing demand for avocados is leading to deforestation in many areas of S.America, maybe another reason to go lightly on buying them?

 

[rick]

I heard from somewhere that it was particularly the brown skin on the stone/nut that was toxic. Makes some sense - that's the part the plant doesn't want to be munched into by anyone, including chickens! It's funny stuff avocado. I tried everything, including acetone and petrol, to take pine resin off my pocket knife without success. Then cut up an avocado and it came up sparkling!

 

[ColinB]

mmm - I wonder what it does to your stomach lining?

I'm rather partial to avacado and bacon salad... but if they're deforesting places just for avacados then I can do without them.

 

[rick]

To be fair I think any veg oil may have got the resin off. I just hadn't thought of it.

 

[Marigold]

I did once read that, if travelling in hot countries in areas where there's a risk of food poisoning, a ripe avocado is one thing you can safely give to a baby or young child, as it's got so many beneficial elements in it. Same with bananas I suppose. But not for chickens!
Mind you, in the unlikely event of anyone actually feeding avocados to chickens, I would imagine they wouldn't be keen to eat them anyway, if harmful. All those lists of things you're not supposed to grow in your garden if our chickens free range are pretty unnecessary really, as they'll just ignore stuff which wouldn't be good for them, assuming they had plenty of more suitable food available.

 

[rick]

It's funny what we consume and find delicious that any other sane animal wouldn't go near. Tea, for example. Apparently they keep goats on plantations to weed between the bushes because even goats think tea is disgusting stuff.

 

[ColinB]

it works the other way round, too. I wouldn't eat a slug, but it's a delicacy to a duck. However, I wouldn't call a duck sane.

 

[ColinB]

I've just remembered that, 6 months ago when I first seriously started reading up about keeping chickens, I wondered how they possibly managed to stay alive past their first birthday because the list of poisonous plants was so long and had so many common plants on it. It was the same when we started looking in to getting our first puppy - it's quite worrying.

 

[chickenfan]

Interesting you think its the stone skin that's toxic Rick. This is the sort of thing I put on the compost heap, and I guess some people's chickens have access to this. Funny - avocado is also toxic to sheep and some other animals, not that they are likely to come across it.