Are tomatoes safe for chickens?

Ripe tomatoes are safe as an occasional treat. The leaves, stems and unripe green fruit are toxic and should be kept away from the flock.

Can chickens eat green tomatoes?

No. Unripe green fruit contains solanine, as do the leaves and stems. Pick up green windfalls if your hens range where tomatoes grow.

Can chickens eat tomato plants?

No. Fence the plants off rather than relying on the birds to avoid them — hens will strip foliage given the chance.

How often can chickens have tomatoes?

As an occasional treat alongside a complete layers feed, which should make up the large majority of the diet. Treats should stay a small share of daily intake.

Can chickens eat tomatoes?

Ripe tomatoes are safe for chickens and most hens love them. The plant itself is not: leaves, stems and unripe green fruit contain solanine and should be kept away from the flock. If you grow tomatoes and free-range your hens, that distinction is the whole answer.

Ripe fruit is fine

Ripe tomato flesh, chopped or halved, makes a good occasional treat and is a useful way to use gluts in late summer. Hens will usually work at a whole one happily.

Scatter or hang them rather than leaving a pile. Hanging a tomato at head height is a genuinely effective boredom-breaker for a flock kept in a run.

Do not feed anything mouldy. Soft is fine, furry is not.

The plant is the problem

Tomato leaves, stems and green unripe fruit contain solanine, which is toxic. The same applies to potato plants, aubergine and pepper foliage — all the same family.

Hens given range of a vegetable garden will strip tomato plants, so fence the plants rather than the birds if you want both. Green windfalls are worth picking up.

Potato peelings with green on them, and sprouting potatoes, are the version of this problem that reaches most people, and they should not be fed.

How treats fit into a hen’s diet

A complete layers feed should make up the large majority of what hens eat, because it is balanced for laying — particularly for calcium. Treats are the extra, and the usual guidance is that they should stay a small proportion of daily intake.

Too many treats dilute that balance. The visible consequences are thin shells, reduced laying and weight gain, and they arrive slowly enough that the cause is easy to miss.

Hens also need insoluble grit to grind food, and laying hens need a calcium source such as oyster shell offered separately. Neither is optional if they are eating anything beyond pellets.

One legal point owners often do not know: in the UK it is against the rules to feed kitchen scraps that have been through a domestic kitchen to poultry, because of disease-control law. Feed produce direct rather than via the kitchen.

Common questions

Are tomatoes safe for chickens?: Ripe tomatoes are safe as an occasional treat. The leaves, stems and unripe green fruit are toxic and should be kept away from the flock.
Can chickens eat green tomatoes?: No. Unripe green fruit contains solanine, as do the leaves and stems. Pick up green windfalls if your hens range where tomatoes grow.
Can chickens eat tomato plants?: No. Fence the plants off rather than relying on the birds to avoid them — hens will strip foliage given the chance.
How often can chickens have tomatoes?: As an occasional treat alongside a complete layers feed, which should make up the large majority of the diet. Treats should stay a small share of daily intake.

Sources

Written against guidance published by UK veterinary and welfare organisations. Always confirm specifics with your own vet.

Written by Matt Garnett, who runs Giddy Pets and is a lifelong pet owner — not a vet. This is general information, not veterinary advice, and it cannot replace an examination by the vet who knows your animal. How we write these guides.