Backyard chickens – whether you’re raising them for meat or egg production – can eat a variety of different fresh produce as part of their diet. Can chickens eat tomatoes? Let’s take a look.
First off, yes, chickens can eat ripe tomatoes. In fact, they love both large tomatoes and cherry tomatoes as a healthy treat. There are some caveats, though.
Feeding Tomatoes to Chickens
If you’re growing tomatoes, you might find yourself with an abundance of tomatoes that are somewhat flawed or pest-ridden — but perfect for feeding chickens.
- Tomatoes should be given to adult chickens; avoid feeding tomatoes to baby chicks younger than 6-8 weeks.
- Give them raw tomatoes to supplement a balanced diet, not in large amounts.
- While it’s fine to give chickens soft, overripe fruits, avoid giving them moldy tomatoes or rotten tomatoes.
- Tomatoes are a rich source of Vitamin C and other essential nutrients like potassium and folate; they can be a great healthy snack to add to your chickens’ diet.
Do you need to cut the tomato into small pieces for them? No you do not. Chickens will peck at whole, fresh tomatoes until they break the skin and reveal the flesh and tomato seeds inside.
What About Cooked Tomatoes?
Yes, if you have leftover cooked tomatoes, those can go to your flock, too. As can the waste left from putting whole tomatoes through a food mill or strainer. Tomato skins, too, can go to the birds.
Unripe Green Tomatoes
While these unripe tomatoes are edible, flock owners are likely to find that edible doesn’t mean the girls will like them.
Note that in addition to red tomatoes, ripe yellow, orange, or purple tomatoes can all be a nutritious treat for your chicken flock. It’s the unripe fruit you want to avoid feeding to them.
Toxic Tomato Plants
Part of the nightshade family, all green parts of the tomato plant – including the tomato stems – have toxic solanine in them. This toxic compound means that tomato leaves are not recommended for chickens. I’ve found that even if chickens are allowed to roam among tomato plants, they simply won’t eat them.
Even so, it’s probably a good idea to reduce your chicken’s exposure to the poisonous substance in the green parts of the plant by fencing off tomatoes if you allow them to free range in the garden.
Trying to reduce the cost of feeding your feathered friends? There’s a wide variety of foods that can be added to chickens’ diets to supplement their regular feed. Read more about that here.
