What your chickens can and can't eat!

[Altairsky]

Uncooked rice is perfectly fine for chickens. I live in a part of the world where 80% of the land are rice fields. When it's milling time, all wild birds eat is rice. Obviously uncooked. Especially wood pigeons.
No wild bird ever exploded for eating raw rice and none of them went extinct.

And for those who are concerned about dry foods that boats, have you ever seen how much the so called "balanced layer feed" pellets bloat if wet?
Rice exploding bird is just a silly urban legend. Where I live rice is even included in animal feed like chicken scratch. All this concern about rice exploding birds sounds extremely ridiculous to anyone living in rice producing countries.

 

[HowIsItDone]

Where I live rice is even included in animal feed like chicken scratch.

Very good points.

I have noticed that most Asians wash their rice before cooking it, to reduce the arsenic. I suppose you could wash the rice you feed to your chickens.

 

[Danish aseels]

Food	Yes/No
Acorn Squash, fruit, skins and seeds	Yes
Alfalfa	Yes
Almonds	Yes
Almond Butter	Yes
Amaranth, raw	No, Raw amaranth contains growth depressing antinutrients
Amaranth, cooked or extruded	Yes
Ant	Yes, Typically chickens won’t eat ants. Be sure no pesticides were used on any colony
Apple	Yes
Apple, seeds	No, Contain cyanide

Banana	Yes
Banana, skin or peel	Yes
Basil	Yes	Benefits the immune system
Bean Sprouts	Yes
Beans	Yes	ONLY cooked beans, never dry
Beet, leaves/leafs/greens	Yes
Beets	Yes
Bell Pepper	Yes
Bird Seed	Yes

Edamame	Yes	do NOT feed uncooked soy
Egg shell	Yes	Great source of calcium
Egg, boiled/scrambled/cooked	Yes	Only feed cooked eggs, so they don’t start eating their own eggs
Eggplant	Maybe?	Much debate on whether raw eggplant is safe for chickens, as it is in the nightshade family. Cooked is safe for chickens
Eggplant, leaves	NO	Contains Solanine
Eggs	Yes	Cooked only, to prevent encouraging egg eating

Fish	Yes
Flax seed	Yes
French Fries	No	Salty/fatty foods are unhealthy

Green beans	Yes
Green peppers	Yes
Grits	Yes

Ham	Yes	In moderation due to salt content
Honey	Yes
Honeydew	Yes

Kale	MAYBE
Kidney beans	Yes	MUST be cooked
Kiwi	Yes

Lemon	In moderation
Lettuce	Yes

Maggots	No	Risk of botulism
Mango	Yes
Mealworms	Yes	Save money by raising your own
Meat scraps	Yes	Avoid fat, only feed cooked scraps, and only in moderation
Mice	Yes	My chickens love them!
Minnows	Yes
Mushrooms, store bought	Yes
Mushrooms, wild	No	Potentially toxic

Nightcrawlers	Yes
Nuts	Yes	Only shelled and unsalted

Oatmeal	Yes
Oatmeal, uncooked	Yes
Oats	Yes
Okra	Yes
Olives	Yes	Limit cured olives due to salt
Onion	No	Can flavor eggs in smaller quantities. In larger amounts, can cause anemia
Orange	Yes
Orange peels	Yes
Oregano	Yes	Excellent for immune health & as a water additive

Papaya	Yes
Pasta	Yes	Feed in moderation, as it contains nearly no nutritional value
Peaches	Yes	Remove pit
Peanut Butter	Yes
Peanuts	Yes
Pears	Yes
Peas	Yes
Pecans	Yes	Only shelled and unsalted
Pepper seed	Yes
Peppers	Yes
Pickles	Yes	Limit due to salt
Pineapple	Yes
Plum	Yes	Remove pit
Pomegranate	Yes
Popcorn, popped	Yes	Unsalted, unbuttered only
Popcorn, unpopped	Yes
Porridge	Yes
Potato, cooked or mashed	Yes
Potato, peel	No	Contains Solanine
Potato, raw	No	Contains Solanine
Potato, sprouted	No	Contains Solanine
Pumpkin	Yes
Pumpkin, Seeds	Yes

Quinoa

Yes

Only washed or cooked, as raw contains saponins unpalatable to poultry

Radishes, and greens	Yes
Raisins	Yes
Raspberries	Yes
Raw chicken	No	Risk of salmonella
Rhubarb	No	Contains some oxalic acid
Rhubarb, leaf	NO!	Highly toxic, contains oxalic acid
Rice	Yes	Cooked only
Rice, brown	Yes	Cooked only
Rice, cooked	Yes
Rice, uncooked	No
Rodents	Yes	Chickens naturally eat rodents. It is a good idea to keep poisons out of the area so chickens do not eat a poisoned mouse, leading to the bird being poisoned

Scrambled Eggs	Yes
Seaweed	Yes
Shrimp, meat and shell	Yes
Snails	Yes	Can carry gapeworm
Spinach	Yes
Squash	Yes
Strawberries	Yes
String beans	Yes
Sunflower Seeds	Yes	Great for molting birds
Sweet Potato	Yes

Tomato, ripe fruit	Yes
Tomato, leaf or green fruit	No	Contains Solanine
Turkey Carcass	Yes	Cooked only

Walnuts	Yes	Only shelled and unsalted
Watermelon	Yes
Watermelon, rind	Yes
Wheat	Yes
Wheat Berries	Yes

Xylitol

No

Yam	Yes
Yogurt	Yes	Feed in moderation as chickens cannot digest milk. Good for probiotics

Zucchini

Yes

Why is uncooked rice bad?
I feed mine uncooked red rice all the time without any problems

 

[NatJ]

Why is uncooked rice bad?
I feed mine uncooked red rice all the time without any problems

This got hashed out pretty thoroughly on some of the earlier pages of the thread. But if you don't want to dig back through to see it all:

Some people say dry rice it will absorb water and expand in the chicken's digestive tract, and that will be bad for the chicken. Some people also say not to give dry rice to wild birds for the same reason. Sometimes people say that birds will explode.

But other people say dry rice is no worse than other dry grains or dry chicken foods, none of those cause problems for chickens or for wild birds, and rice does not cause problems either.

People gave various links and quoted various "experts" on both sides of the debate.

Several people said the same thing you do: they have personal experience feeding dry rice to chickens with no trouble. I don't think anyone mentioned personal experience with chickens having problems from dry rice.

By the time it was all argued out, the original poster was not able to go back and edit the list in the first post even if they did want to, so it's been sitting there ever since.

(I'm on the "don't worry about dry rice" side of the matter.)