Chickens eat almost anything, these animals are food munching machines and happily eat anything they can get their beaks on. You as a poultry farmer need to make sure that these birds eat healthy foods.

If you grow persimmons you may be considering giving these fruits to your birds, but is this food good for chickens? Can chickens eat persimmons? This article looks into it. 

Chickens can eat persimmons, this delicious fruit offers the bird good amounts of vitamin A and vitamin C. When feeding birds persimmons remember to feed them this food in moderation, too much vitamin C in a chickens diet can cause feather pecking problems 

Can chickens eat persimmons?

A balanced diet is important for chickens, a balanced diet usually includes good quality feed, fruits, and vegetables.

Feed mix should make up the bulk of a chicken’s diet, this food should make up 90% of the bird’s diet. The remaining 10% of the bird’s diet should be fruits and vegetables.

Persimmons are a fruit that you can serve your bird 

Benefits of chickens eating persimmons:

Persimmons, sometimes called Sharon fruits, can definitely be fed to chickens.

This food is able to deliver a variety of vitamins and minerals into your bird’s body, this includes but is not limited to, vitamin C, vitamin A, antioxidants, riboflavin, folate, thiamin, and manganese. 

Vitamin A helps maintain the bird’s eyes, skin, and respiratory health. Vitamin C helps the birds deal with stress. Folate helps with the growth of healthy feathers

Risks of chickens eating persimmons:

Although this food is nutritionally beneficial to the bird, you shouldn’t be feeding the bird too many persimmons. The high levels of citrus in the fruit can cause the bird to develop feather pecking problems.

This food is a fruit and thus contains sugar, feeding the bird too much sugar can cause health issues. It is recommended that you serve birds this fruit in moderation, avoid over-feeding persimmons to this bird

How to serve persimmons to chickens 

If your bird has never eaten a persimmon, and if the bird is a picky eater, you may have a hard time feeding your bird this food in the initial stages.

If you want to introduce this food to your bird, you’ll likely have to repeatedly offer this food to your bird before it finally warms up to it. To do this, hang the fruit up in the bird’s coop and let them inspect it before eating.

You can also eat the food in front of them, overemphasizing how delicious the food is before offering it to them. 

Once the bird has gotten used to eating the food, you can make the eating experience more interesting by cutting the fruit up into various shapes and sizes before serving.

You can also hide the fruit pieces and let the bird search for them, or you can put the fruits on skewers in the bird’s coop

Can chickens eat raw fruit? 

One of the criteria that makes a fruit a fruit is that it can be eaten uncooked, this is unlike a vegetable which has to be cooked before being eaten.

Chickens can eat raw fruit and they can eat cooked fruit as well. They usually don’t mind how fruit is being served, as long as it is easy to eat and sweet 

What fruit is bad for chickens?

Fruits overall are great for birds because they are both sweet and nutrient-rich, what you should be worried about, when serving fruit to chickens, is the seeds of certain fruits. The seeds of stone fruit, like cherries, apricots, peaches, and plums have pips that contain cyanide.

Apple seeds also contain cyanide. These fruits should be avoided because cyanide can kill a bird, in fact, cyanide can kill a bird in thirty minutes or less. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, yes chickens can eat persimmons, this fruit will deliver a variety of vitamins and minerals to your chicken’s body including vitamin C, vitamin A, antioxidants, riboflavin, folate, thiamin, and manganese.

That being said, it is important not to feed birds too many persimmons. This fruit contains high amounts of citrus, too much citrus can cause chickens to develop a feather picking problem.

Persimmons can be served as is, cut up, or put on skewers to make the eating experience more exciting for the bird 

If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other chicken related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Can chickens eat apple cores?, Can chickens eat pumpkin skin?, Can chickens eat ivy?, Can chickens eat irises?