Kelrosie wrote:

Thats a good question. What is harmful to hens??

They seem pretty sensible about what they eat. Ours live in a pen with a
huge yew tree and never seem to have any bother at all with the berries.
They enjoy scratching around under it and roost in it during summer too.

ISTR the flesh of the yew berry is fine but the seed and plant material is
potentially deadly.

"Andy" wrote in message
...

Does anyone know if Datura are harmful to hens? I was planning on
getting my sister one as a present but she keeps hens. She'd probably
manage to keep the birds away from it but one might get through.

I doubt they would find the live plant attractive enough to eat - it smells
horrid when bruised. The flowers smell exquisite. The seeds could be a
problem though. But you can always cut off the seed heads to prolong
flowering. The fallen seeds make pretty good natural rodent bait so I would
not want my hens to try eating them.

LD50 cannot be very much. Not sure if it affects birds the same way as
mammals though.

Regards,
Martin Brown