Can chickens eat cucumbers
My chickens get a lot of cucumber over the summer as I have quite a large backyard garden and always grow as many cucumbers as I can in the greenhouse.
Below: Here is a video of mine tucking into a spare cucumber from the greenhouse.
Any that are a bit yellow, really curved, don't develop properly or get missed until they go big and seedy are tossed in with the chickens.
Can chickens have cucumbers?
Yes they can. You can feed chickens cucumber without any worries at all. They are not a nutrient dense food so like all treats try and limit them to less than 5% of the diet.
A cold cucumber from the fridge is especially welcome in the heat of summer as they are moisture rich.
Cucumbers contain potassium, fibre and vitamin C. They also provide small amounts of vitamin K, magnesium, manganese and vitamin A.
Chickens seemed programmed to eat the seeds out of any fruit and mine will demolish a cucumber in a few minutes.
My chickens are particularly fond of the ones I've forgotten and left on the plants as they get big seeds in the middle like a long melon.
Can chickens eat cucumber peel?
They can do. One of the amusing things I have noticed about feeding my chickens cucumber is that the skins are sometimes left lying around to dry out in the sunshine. They just eat the flesh out of the middle and leave the tougher skins.
If you peel your cucumber, the hens can have the off cuts, if nothing else you will have a few minutes amusement watching them chase each other around with the peels hanging from their beaks.
Can chickens eat too many cucumbers?
Yes, too much cucumber just adds to much watery food to the diet and can upset the balance of nutrients in the feed.
I limit what I give my chickens to one at a time as too much will give them loose messy poop. And any foods other than their chicken feed will dilute the nutrition that they need for laying eggs.
How to prepare cucumber for chickens?
You don't need any special preparation for feeding chickens cucumbers. They will just peck at it.
Below: My chickens eating half cucumbers in the run.
Hang it up and let them peck at it or cut in half lengthwise and put it in their usual feed trays or favourite eating spot.
Will chickens eat cucumber vines?
When mine got into the greenhouse they ate the basil and left most of the other green stuff alone, including the cucumber vines. so no as a rule they won't.
They did eat a few of the flowers of the end of the baby cucumbers though, which is fine, all the flowers in the curcubrit family are edible.
Although cucumbers vines and leaves contain cucurbitin, the amount a chicken could eat is not fatally poisonous so it wouldn't do them any harm if they did.