Are Tomato Hornworms Safe for Chickens?

This blog post is going to be a little different for me. I hope this topic will open up discussions on your thoughts, conclusions and your personal experiences. I am going to share a story with you of what happened to us and our chicken last week, what happened to our dog last summer and end with my thoughts and opinions. The reason I am organizing this post this way is because I want to share all the information I had and when I received it. Presenting to you in this format, I am wondering if you will come to the same conclusions I did or will you see something differently. I love a good discussion because that is when we really begin to learn things. So, here we go… What are we going to discuss?

Are Tomato Hornworms Toxic to Our Pets?

If you don’t want to read my stories leading up to this answer, please feel free to scroll down to “Do I Think Tomato Hornworms are Safe for Chickens?” Now, back to the story…

We have a very small flock of pet chickens. The kids raised them from chicks and have become really attached to them. Tuesday morning last week our son came running into the house and said that Goldie (one of the kids Golden Sex Link chickens) has ants on her. I try to keep up with the ants around here but the ants are really bad, especially the tiny red ones and they hurt really bad when you get bit by them. So, I ran outside and sure enough she was on the ground, looking out of it with the little red ants all over her. Full disclosure, I do not know if what I did next was the best method to do when you have a chicken covered in ants but it is what I did in a full panic. I decided to dust her with a food grade diatomaceous earth. Then after a few minutes of checking between all her feathers and feeling positive the ants were off of her I then decided to wash off the diatomaceous earth. She was a good sport about everything, although I do not think she enjoyed it very much. This was happening on a morning that was already over 100 degrees at 9:00am and I did not know what to do with her next. After a quick call to my mom to get myself back on track, the kids and I set-up our dog crate in the house and she became our house chicken for the next week. 

I started to Google her symptoms and I was wondering if she was experiencing heat exhaustion or was egg bound. I decided to give her some chicken torpedoes, (what are those!) They are a mixture of egg yolk, grow mash, a tiny pinch of electrolytes and oyster shell powder, mix everything up and roll them into pea size footballs. The reason I decided to make these for her is because I watched a YouTube video that suggested feeding oyster shell powder helps encourage hens to lay eggs if they are egg bound and then follow up with a warm epsom salt bath. I fed her the torpedoes by opening her beak and placing them at the back of her throat and then she would swallow them on her own. After feeding her, I made her a warm epsom salt bath and soaked her for 20 minutes. 

I felt around her crop and that felt fine, I felt around her vent and that felt fine. I was at a loss of what might be happening. After the bath we placed her in the dog crate with water, a cup of grow mash and a towel over the crate. She slept on and off most of the day. We would take her out of the crate every two hours to allow her to move around and we would dip the tip of her beak in water. She didn’t drink but she did move her beak around. In the afternoon we noticed that her comb had turned a dark purple. Looking up what a purple comb meant ranged from frostbite (it was 106 that day, so not that), Fowl Cholera (I didn’t think it was that), Avian flu (I didn’t think so), mites or lice (I didn’t see any on her) and lastly poor circulation. Poor circulation could be from heat exhaustion (a strong possibility) or heart disease. That evening we fed her more chicken torpedoes and she did finally start going to the bathroom but she did not drink any water on her own and I did not feel comfortable forcing her to drink water. I really did not have high hopes of her making it through the night so I prepared both of our kids for that possibility. It was a sad night.

Wednesday morning she was with us! I took her out and showed her the water again and she started drinking on her own and did not stop for 15 minutes. We fed her more torpedoes and continued letting her out of the crate every two hours. She literally slept all day, woke-up, drank water, went to the bathroom and then went back to sleep. In the evening we offered her more torpedoes and that is when we noticed her comb had turned back to bright red. I was feeling very hopeful at this point.

Thursday morning not only was she still with us, her comb was red, drinking water on her own and she wanted to start eating on her own. We kept up the same routine of letting her out every two hours and she wanted to start exploring the house a bit. She was more awake and didn’t sleep as much.

Friday morning she seemed almost back to herself, she was fully eating and drinking on her own and not as interested in sleeping. We started taking her outside to reacquaint her with her flock and to get reacclimated with the heat.

Saturday was a repeat of Friday and Sunday morning she was reintroduced to her flock and has been enjoying being back outside, even though she did enjoy her time as a house chicken when she started to feel better.

Once things started to settle down and it looked like she was going to make it, I started thinking everything over again in my mind and it dawned on me that I had read that tomato plants are toxic to chickens. Tomato stems, leaves and flowers contain solanine, which is toxic to chickens. I fed our chickens hornworms that had been eating tomato plants on Monday. That is when I began to wonder if the hornworms can carry the toxin from the leaves to the chicken and found out that they can. From what I read, hornworms are very good for chickens. They are high in protein, calcium, phosphorus and are low in fat. They are a great chicken snack as long as the hornworms have not been eating tomato plants. Hornworms that have been eating tomato plants will have solanine in them. Solanine can cause your chickens to have gastrointestinal upset, lethargy, diarrhea and neurological issues. 

Now you might argue and say I feed my chickens hornworms all the time. I would agree, we have fed our chickens hornworms over the years and to my knowledge have not had any issues until this time. From what I read, feeding chickens hornworms that have been eating tomato plants may be okay in small amounts. My question is what defines small amounts? Is it one hornworm, three or four, how big are they and how do you define a large or small hornworm? There seems to be too many variables to figure out a safe amount of hornworms to feed to your chickens. I know that on that Monday morning I fed six hornworms of varying sizes to four hens. Two of those hens are faster than the others and I think they ate all the hornworms. I don’t know if Goldie ate all six, four or less. I did not pay that close attention.

A Story About Ranger Our Dog

Ranger is our son’s dog. He is a smallish (around 30 pounds) black and white mix that the shelter said he was a beagle/dachshund. The thing about Ranger is that he will eat anything and everything. Last summer our tomato plants were in an area that the dogs could not get into. Sometimes I would open the gate and let Ranger in to keep me company. I was checking the tomato plants for hornworms and when I found one I would drop it on the ground, squish it with my shoe and cover it with dirt (I was too lazy to collect them to take to the chickens). What I wasn’t paying attention to was that Ranger was following behind me, uncovering the tomato hornworm and eating them. He went off his food that summer and was looking miserable. I was just about to make an appointment to see a vet when I finally noticed what he had been up to. I decided to read up on whether hornworms can make dogs sick and guess what, they can! Dogs are very sensitive to solanine, the toxin in tomato plants. Dogs can not have green tomatoes, the leaves, stem or flowers of the tomato plants because they have high levels of solanine. Only red-ripe tomatoes no longer carry the toxin. The hornworms collect solanine from the plants, making them toxic to dogs as well. I stopped squishing the hornworms on the ground for him to get to and he went back to himself and started to eat normally. I only wish I would have realized then that if these tomato hornworms are toxic to a 30 pound dog they would be toxic to a 5 pound chicken.

Do I Think Tomato Hornworms are Safe for Chickens?

I believe that the hornworms were not the only contributing factor in making Goldie sick. I think they were the catalyst that started her not feeling well. I mentioned before that we were in the middle of a heat wave. I feel strongly that she ate the most hornworms and they caused her to have an upset stomach, having an upset stomach caused her not to eat and drink regularly which can be deadly with the heat we were experiencing. Then add any reaction she may have had with the ant bites and I think the combination of everything is why we almost lost our chicken. 

In my opinion I do not think it is safe to feed chickens hornworms that have been eating tomato plants. I have told Rick and the kids to stop feeding the chickens hornworms as a treat. To me it is not worth the risk.

After reading about our chicken and dog I am curious, what are your thoughts? Do you have any other ideas of what might have happened? Will you continue to feed your chickens tomato hornworms? Please let us know in the comments.

Happy desert gardening!

Joy Simper has a full time job as a home schooling stay at home mom. She is the one that holds the house and yard together and keeps the kids in line. She enjoys gardening, including seed starting and propagating plants.