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chickens

Safe to feed cooked potatoes to chickens?

Douglas Alpenstock

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posted 7 months ago

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Hey all,

I'm cleaning out the cold room, schlepping out the the potatoes from last year. Long sprouts but not green or anything. They're still good for mashed potatoes, but we're done with that.

I plan to do a char burn and use the excess heat to boil them whole.

My initial thought was to add them to the composter. I've heard that the cooked starch acts as an accelerator.

But: I have a good neighbour who has laying hens. I send surplus veg their way and get lovely eggs when they have a surplus.

Can the chooks safely eat cooked potatoes, skin and all?

Su Ba

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posted 7 months ago

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I feed my hens cooked veggies, including all the cast off potatoes. No problem.

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Timothy Norton

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posted 7 months ago

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I feed cooked potatoes all the time to my chickens without any issues, just no green potatoes.

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Jay Angler

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posted 7 months ago

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I've read repeatedly, no raw potato ever, but cooked is fine for chickens. Hopefully, all the places I read it weren't just copying some old reference that had never been tested! Wouldn't want to take the risk!

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hans muster

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posted 7 months ago

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I feed raw and cooked potatoes/potato peels to my chickens, never had any issues.

I searched old scientific sources about the topic of solanines with poultry.

One paper says that the chicken(s?) died from potato sprouts.
https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/19462201396
I wonder if it is really due to the potato sprouts, I did not access the full paper to check if it was really a controlled experiment.

the other, in the same year, states that 2 oz (that would be over 50 g, right?) green potato sprouts per chicken per day caused no issue.
https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/19431402771

The other even fed pure solanine, which caused no ill effects
https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/19492203028

As birds are usually quite tolerant of solanine, I will continue feeding my chickens whatever potato leftovers I have.

Edit: although I have to add, my chickens always have full access to alternative feeds, they are never forced to finish potatoes.

Kristine Keeney

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posted 7 months ago

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I've fed raw and cooked potatoes to my flock. They get all the kitchen scrap and vaguely food-like bits. Green. black, whatever. I figure they have enough options to avoid what they don't want to eat and I'll rake it all up after a day or so for the compost pile.

I've never had a problem. I've seen the advice to avoid giving your chickens the same stuff that chickens have been fed for thousands of years (food scrap and garbage, dairy and spoiled foodstuffs) and I discount it. I've yet to see a chicken have trouble after eating anything. They might not eat it again, but no digestive upsets have been seen.

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Douglas Alpenstock

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posted 7 months ago

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I am grateful for all of your thoughtful responses.

The thing is, the potatoes I'm tossing out represent a helluva lot of hands-on labour and effort. Especially in last year's drought! We produced too much food! And we just didn't eat fast enough! We gave a lot away, but there is still more.

I guess that on the flip side, it's true that we would never, ever have gone hungry. My parents grew up in the Great Depression, and even though they had dollars in the bank the only true security in their minds was a well-stocked larder, canning room, freezer, and cold room with enough home-grown-and-harvested potatoes to feed an army.

So when I think of think of disposing of the entirely edible excess of the last year, I think about how it could kickstart the good food for the next year. It must not be wasted.

And I like fresh eggs! Good place to start.

Kristine Keeney

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posted 7 months ago

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That attitude is why everything goes to the chickens. I would rather turn old bits of something into eggs than clog the communal trash pile with something that can be otherwise useful.

The chickens can eat it, or it'll compost and feed plants and the cycle will continue.
It's hard when you are looking at days of hard work and time and effort and having to try to figure out how you can best salvage some of that hard work.

It's a great way to rethink things - you've had the use of the potential food and it can go to making more, different, potential food.

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Kaarina Kreus

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posted 7 months ago

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Cooked potatoes are greatly loved, raw or peels less so. Green potatoes are a bit poisonpus but no chicken will touch them.Chickens are very good at discerning what is good for them and what is not.

Whathever you are, be a good one.
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Jay Angler

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Kaarina Kreus wrote: Green potatoes are a bit poisonous but no chicken will touch them.Chickens are very good at discerning what is good for them and what is not.

I bury my green potatoes any place they won't be in the way. I don't care if I don't get a "crop" from them, as if they grow, they will feed the soil. I've had them sprout in unexpected places, including in the compost!

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Kaarina Kreus

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posted 6 months ago

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Jay Angler wrote:I bury my green potatoes any place they won't be in the way. I don't care if I don't get a "crop" from them, as if they grow, they will feed the soil. I've had them sprout in unexpected places, including in the compost!

Jay, they will most decidedly sprout! This spring, I lovingly spread potatoes on a nice tray placed on a sunny window to sprout, then tenderly planted them. Only half of those ungrateful bastards have grown.

But I had some potatoes that went green in the kitchen, threw them out of the window... and that is my most vigorous potato patch!

Makes you wonder about the whole business of nannying them all spring...

Whathever you are, be a good one.
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Douglas Alpenstock

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posted 6 months ago

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Kaarina Kreus wrote:But I had some potatoes that went green in the kitchen, threw them out of the window... and that is my most vigorous potato patch!

Yes, exactly. They are tough, vigorous little dudes. I dump the unusable shrivelled dregs in the moldy wood chip pile (moldy because not enough sky water) and they grow like a hot damn!

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