[lellysmum]

A friendly plot holder left some spinach outside the hen house but my big brother says its contains some sort of acid  so not to give them too much -does he know what he's on about or just being a twerp?

[mumsy]

OMG...I have just picked some & had it for me tea, I have some left over & was wondering the same thing...................

[poultrygeist]

oxalic acid apparently. No idea what effect this may have on chooks.
But I've just been reading about an experiment on goats !  :shock:

[poultrygeist]

Difficult to search on how much to feed chickens. It just gives results on chicken salads.  :?

Apparently the oxalic acid can be destroyed by cooking but I would guess in small quantities (few leaves) it wouldn't any harm.

Cabbage is low in it but still contains it.

Rob

[Kate and her Ducks]

Don't think it will do them any harm, hope not anyway as following the high winds this week the (admittedly flimsy) barrier to my veg patch blew over and my girls stripped an entire row. They obviously loved it and certainly no ill effects (well except to the veg patch and my plans for the spinach). :?

[Aunt Sally]

My chooks LOVE spinach, they have it quite often.  But it's the same as all food.  All things in moderation.  It does contain oxalic acid but I have not noticed any adverse reaction from my chooks.

[poultrygeist]

I've learnt something about ruminents from this topic, so thanks for that !!

Rob  

[mumsy]

Great, thanks for that.......they will get it for their treat tomorrow, best keep them away from the rest, luckily its in a container, prob why they've not noticed it before..........

[compostqueen]

mine love it too  

[GrannieAnnie]

My chooks love spinach too.  Last year I planted a couple of rows of perpetual in the polytunnel to help out during the winter, but because of the rain we kept having, we let them go into the polytunnel during the day where it was nice and dry, they ate all the spinach, there was nothing perpetual about it then!!!!!

[compostqueen]

Mine are eating the perpet stuff and they go mad for it, and the Bordeaux spinach. Cauli leaves got devoured too  

[Foxy]

Ooooohh be careful with spinach and chooks!!! Makes their wings grow muscles and they can fly over anything plus if you have dogs or cats boy are they in trouble with super popeye chooks!    

[GrannieAnnie]

So THAT'S why my Amberlinks flew over that 6ft fence that time!!!!!    

[Porffor]

hmm now there you have some names for chooks me thinks!
can you hear my popeye like chuckle?

Save me.. Save me!!  

[ck2day]

So THAT'S why my Amberlinks flew over that 6ft fence that time!!!!!    

I think you had a job lot of super strength spinach eating Popeye chickens Grannie, as the Amberlinks i got from you all flew over the temp fencing within a week of having them      

Claire