Can anyone tell me if chickens will not eat anything red e.g tomatoes. Or is this just a fallacy?

-- Karen Myers (karenmyers1@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001

Answers

I can tell you that chickens definitely will eat red, e.g. tomatoes, plums, watermelon innards;-) Sorry to tell you. And if one of them gets a bloody spot the rest will pick it mercilessly if you don't separate it out.

-- mary, texas (marylgarcia@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

Our chickens absolutely love strawberries, tomatoes, well pretty much anything (except citrus peels I've heard).

-- Elizabeth (Lividia66@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

Our chickens have yet to turn up a beak at anything. It's funny because colored foods like purple cabbage, carrots, tomatoes etc... make their stool turn colors. My kids came in yelling one day, " Mom ! Mom ! the chickens stools are blue." What they hadn't seen is the day before I gave them left over cabbage ( purple). LOL!!! We try not to give them meat, but all leftovers go to them.

-- Kelle in MT. (kvent1729@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

After having chickens for over 20 yrs. it's been my experience that there is very little that they will attempt to eat!!! Whether the "food" is red, green, blue or pink they will try it...then form an opinion as to whether or not they like it. They'll even eat the "fuzzy stuff" that you find in the back of your fridge with no adverse consequences!!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), April 04, 2001.

Karen, I agree with everyone else. There is very little that a chicken won't eat. Last year for the first time, I decided to stake and tie up my tomato plants. All I ended up accomplishing, was making it easier for the chickens, ducks, and geese to find the ripe tomatoes. I had to keep them penned up long enough for me to get some tomatoes picked. So this year I'm back to letting them sprawl. Winona

-- Winona in MO (thompsonwin45@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001.

I understand that the reason chook feeders/waterers are red is because the birds are drawn to that color.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), April 05, 2001.

I had a friend whose hens got into her garden and pecked at the beets, feeding on them until their beaks and faces were red. when she saw them out in the yard she thought they were all bleeding. LOL Her beets never recovered.

-- Alison in Nova Scotia (aproteau@istar.ca), April 09, 2001.