Can Chickens Eat Rice?
- Jun 26, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2023
According to most instances I have found on the internet regarding this question. The answer is no, you cannot feed your chickens rice. I would safely say about 5 out of 6 posts say that you should not feed your chickens dry rice. One post included dry rice as one of the 9 Toxic Foods You should Never Feed Your Chickens.
We live in a time when information is at our fingertips. Unfortunately, because of this we have good and bad information and we must learn to navigate the information highway to benefit from all that it has to offer.
It is important to always check the source of where your information is coming from. You should always get two-three reputable resources before buying into the rhetoric. Reputable means dig deeper. Science journals, education websites, companies that specialize in the subject matter or topic at hand. These resources can assist you in getting reliable information. Random individuals, forums or Facebook friends can be a good place to start but do your homework before you repeat information that someone offers.
A perfect example of this is the question “Can I feed my chickens dry rice? The misinformation regarding this question has spread across the internet like wild fire.
People believe and repeat as fact that you cannot feed your chickens dry rice because it will cause their stomachs to explode when the dry rice expands in the chicken’s stomach. Go ahead, do a google search. You will be surprised on how many people have posted, re-posted and stated this information as truth or believe it to be true.
First let us ask ourselves a few questions.
1. What is rice? Not sure, Google. Below are two reliable resources to get that information.
2. Where is the bird that blew up from eating rice? It must be on YouTube somewhere. I am sure someone out there certainly would have experimented with a chicken just to show the world that a bird would explode from eating dry rice.
Someone did do an experiment using pigeons
In 2002 a study was done by biologist Jim Krupa of the University of Kentucky which was published in the 2005 edition of The American Biology Teacher. “Testing Urban Myth. Does Wedding Rice Cause Birds to Explode or Were Ann Landers, Martha Stewart & Bart Simpson Wrong?”
For further information click the link below
3. If rice is what they say it is…a GRAIN. Why would it not be good for chickens? (Umm…think about it)
See these links below for more Chickens eating Rice FYI.
The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/how-sick-chickens-and-rice-led-scientists-to-vitamin-b1/381903/
Poultry World: https://www.poultryworld.net/Layers/Nutrition/2010/8/Japanese-farmers-use-rice-as-chicken-feed-WP007796W/
CONCLUSION: Based upon our research, YES indeed we can feed chickens rice. And NO they will not explode. I feed my seventeen chickens dry rice on a regular basis and have for months.
What did you find out, and what is your conclusion?
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