Should I Give Yogurt to My Chickens? Nope.
Do you give your chickens a little yogurt as a daily treat, secure with the thought that you’re offering them a healthy snack? Or, do you avoid giving your flock yogurt and other dairy because you have read that it’s bad for them? Or, are you stuck in the middle, conflicted about the merits or issues that surround giving dairy to poultry?
I hadn’t been keeping chickens very long when I first ran into the hullabaloo swirling around giving yogurt and other dairy products to chickens. Like most folks, I turned to the internet to find information.
How did we get along before the internet? The internet is a vast, amazing repository of information on absolutely everything. The problem is that absolutely anybody can post absolutely anything on the internet. And it’s not like each article comes with a truth meter posted at the top. The information presented in any given article can consist of well-researched facts, or completely unverified opinion based on nothing. When the facts given in two articles contradict each other, it’s up to the reader to figure out where the truth lies.
That’s what I found with the yogurt/chicken question. I would wander through an article extolling the virtues of yogurt only to bump headfirst into another article declaring that any dairy is poison to chickens. What is fact, what is opinion, and where does the truth lie? The whole situation is a murky mire of confusion!
The Murky Mire of Confusion
I recently jumped down the information rabbit hole by Googling “Chickens – Yogurt.” I spent an evening that extended way into the early morning hours scampering through an infinite maze of articles. From that maze, I grabbed excerpts from seven articles that I’m quoting here. I chose these seven for the clarity of the prose and the specificity of the arguments. But they definitely do not agree with each other.
Carlos Warren writing at First Light Farmer states that “The simple answer…is yes, you can feed yogurt to your chickens. Yogurt is power-packed with nutrition. It contains proteins, healthy good bacteria, probiotics, calcium, and lots more. Humans are recommended to eat yogurt daily. But, when it comes to poultry, you need to exercise some moderation.”
Over at The Happy Chicken Coop, Chin Lapingcao suggests that “it is a controversial topic. It’s safe to say that yogurt offers health benefits to your chickens because of its probiotics and other nutrients like vitamin D. However, know that yogurt is a fermented milk product, and chickens are quite lactose-intolerant. Still, this shouldn’t be a reason not to give them yogurt.”
Lisa Steele, at Fresh Eggs Daily declares that “chickens love yogurt, and I will give my flock the occasional bit of plain unflavored yogurt as a treat, however, excessive amounts of dairy products can cause diarrhea in poultry. Their bodies aren't designed to digest the milk sugars found in dairy, so for this reason, probiotic powder specifically designed for poultry is a far superior choice to introduce good bacteria into their diet.”
Kathy Shea Mormino, aka The Chicken Chick suggests that “what many chicken-keepers do not know is that chickens are not equipped to digest most dairy products and would be better served by ingesting the beneficial bacterial cultures alone…Feeding chickens a little yogurt occasionally is fine, but too much dairy can cause digestive upset and diarrhea.”
Andy Scheider, aka The Chicken Whisperer exclaims, “Give your chickens yogurt? Why? First, it's scientific fact that chickens do not have the necessary enzymes in their gut to properly digest dairy. Too much can and will give them diarrhea. So, why are you giving your chickens yogurt? You want them to benefit from probiotics…? You are wasting your time. There is not enough in store bought yogurt to have any benefit for your chickens. However, there is plenty of bad things in there like sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, and artificial colors.”
Toni Benton writing for Somerzby Newsletter doesn’t recommend feeding dairy, including milk, cheese and yogurt, to chickens. “Chickens tend to be lactose intolerant, which means their bodies have difficulty digesting lactose, a sugar present in milk and dairy products… While dairy products can be high in protein and calcium, they are not suitable for chickens to consume. Eating dairy can lead to digestive issues, bloating, and even death in severe cases.”
Jeanette Johnson writing for Chicken Identifier presents this logical argument. “Can chickens eat yogurt? Yes, they can. Chickens can eat a little yogurt from time to time without suffering any adverse effects. However, whether they should eat yogurt is a different question. We’ve established that you can feed yogurt to chickens in small quantities if you want to, but perhaps the more important question is, should you? So, let’s summarize. Yogurt contains many nutrients that chickens need. However, due to their inability to break down lactose, the amount they can get from yogurt is limited since feeding them too much yogurt will make them sick.”
My summary of these excerpts: While there is a range of opinion, even those in favor of giving yogurt to chickens agree that it may cause digestive/health issues in chickens and should be given in moderation. Hardly a glowing endorsement. I think Jeanette Johnson gets to the heart of the issue. Can you give yogurt to your chickens? Certainly. Should you give them yogurt? No. The beneficial nutrients provided by yogurt are negated by the ill effects caused by the lactose.
Lactose is the big problem with yogurt and other dairy products. Let’s take a closer look at lactose to understand the problem.
What is Lactose?
Simply stated, lactose is a sugar. Sugars are the fuel that humans, chickens and all animals need to power their bodies. Humans, chickens, and all animals get sugars into their bodies by eating food, then absorbing the sugars in the food through the walls of their small intestines into their blood.
One of the most common and important sources of nutrition in the diet of humans, chickens and other animals is the starch in grains. Starch is made out of long chains of simple sugars. Enzymes present in the small intestine must break starches down to simple sugars before they can be absorbed.
Another important source of nutrition is disaccharides. Disaccharides are two simple sugars stuck together. Just like starches, disaccharides can’t be absorbed in the small intestine until they are broken down into their two simple sugars, and like starches, that process takes place in the small intestine.
Sucrose, aka table sugar, the stuff you sprinkle on your cereal and put in your coffee, is a disaccharide. It is made of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose and the enzyme that splits sucrose into these two simple sugars is called sucrase.
Lactose, milk sugar, is also a disaccharide. It is made of the simple sugars glucose and galactose and the enzyme that splits lactose into these two simple sugars is called lactase. Milk is the only place in the whole wide world where lactose exists. No other plant or animal produces it. Important point: If you consume milk or milk products, you’re consuming lactose. If you don’t you aren’t!
What is Milk?
Are you rolling your eyes? Everybody knows about milk! It’s that white liquid you find in the dairy case at your grocery store!
And, well, that’s cow milk. But there are other kinds of milk. You probably could find some cheeses in your grocery store made from the milk of goats and sheep. And in the Middle East there’s camel milk. And in other parts of the world people enjoy milk from buffaloes, yaks, horses, donkeys and reindeer.
But, of course, all mammals produce milk. Not so they can sell it at the local grocery store but so they can feed their young. To put a finer point on it, all female mammals produce milk for a period of time after they’ve given birth.
And just to be clear, animals that are not mammals do not produce milk.
Which Animals Are Able to Consume Milk?
Nonmammalian animals, like fish, reptiles, and birds can’t consume milk. That sort of makes sense, right? Why would animals that don’t produce milk have the ability to digest it? Birds and other non-mammals don’t produce any lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose. Thus they can’t digest and absorb lactose. Logically, in nature, non-mammals have never encountered milk or the lactose it contains. So they’ve never had the need or ability to make lactase and digest lactose or milk. We’re thinking about chickens here, obviously.
Baby mammals can drink their mother’s milk, of course. It’s their only source of nutrition when they’re first born. As they mature, all baby mammals stop producing lactase and lose the ability to digest and absorb lactose. Thus, adult mammals do not have the ability to consume milk.
Oh, but some adult humans can consume and enjoy milk. Um…let’s make that a header and talk about that for a bit.
Some Humans Can Consume Milk
If other adult mammals can’t consume milk, what’s special about humans? Why are we able to enjoy all that custard, pudding, ice cream, and other good stuff when other adult mammals can’t?
We milk-drinking humans are actually a perfect example of natural selection. For most of their 160,000 years of existence, adult humans couldn’t digest lactose—just like all other adult mammals. Genetic studies have shown the occurrence and spread of certain mutations in various human populations in various parts of the world. These mutations have occurred in the last 10,000 years and have allowed the continued production of the enzyme lactase into adulthood. And these mutated humans have the ability to digest lactose and consume milk products.
What else happened in the last 10,000 years? Well, the beginning of agriculture for one thing. And the domestication of livestock animals. Some of which were milk-producing mammals. Hmmmm…..
Scientists have theorized that when these new mutations occurred, they were selected for in populations that had available sources of dairy. The ability to digest lactose is not universal in all humans. It is widespread in parts of Africa and the Middle East. It is nearly universal in Northern Europe and in Northern-European-descended populations. In other parts of the world, it is rare to nonexistent. About 65% of adult humans are lactose-intolerant. That ranges from about 5% of Northern Europe to 90% in parts of Asia.
Let’s review! Which animals can consume dairy? Not any of the nonmammals. That’s 92% of all animals off the list from the get-go. Among most mammals, only babies can digest milk. Among adult mammals, only humans. And among adult humans, only about 35%. Quite a rare group!
And which animals drink the milk of other species? Only that same tiny group of humans. Within that tiny group is an even smaller subgroup of individuals who try to give milk products to their adult, non-mammal domestic animals. By now, we all know that’s a bad idea.
But What’s the Big Deal if My Chickens Can’t Digest Lactose? It’ll Just Pass on Through, Right?
If lactose isn’t digested and absorbed in the small intestine of a human, chicken, or some other animal, it goes on down the pipe to the large intestine. A normal, healthy large intestine is teeming with microorganisms. Many of those microbes do have the ability to process lactose and they get right to work. That’s not a good thing. The waste products of microbial digestion include gas and acid.
The end result for the human, chicken or other animal? Gas, bloating, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. If you know somebody well enough who is lactose intolerant, ask them about their symptoms. This is what your chickens experience if they get a big dose of lactose. It’s not a pretty picture.
But Yogurt is Fermented! Haven’t the Yogurt Microbes Digested All the Lactose?
While the lactose content in yogurt is decreased compared to fresh milk, most yogurt still has some lactose. The amount varies depending on the type and brand of yogurt. Also, the lactose content of live-culture yogurt continues to decrease as the yogurt ages because the microbes continue to metabolize the lactose, even if the yogurt is refrigerated. So, the amount of lactose present in any particular container of yogurt is a bit of a crap shoot. Bear in mind that chickens have zero ability to digest any lactose.
There’s also this to consider: When lactose is acted on by microbes, much of it gets fermented to lactic acid. But some of it gets hydrolyzed into its base sugars, glucose and galactose. In a 1980 study in Sweden, the lactose content of yogurt samples “decreased to about 2.3 g/100 g compared to 4.8 g/100 g in nonfermented milk. During that same period, galactose content increased from traces in milk to 1.3 g/100 g in yogurt.” Galactose is a problem. Scientists have demonstrated in many studies – some conducted as early as the 1950’s—that galactose is toxic to birds when given in high enough amounts.
Why even consider yogurt/dairy when there are treats available for your flock that are healthy and carry no risk?
Should I Give Yogurt/Dairy to My Chickens?
Nope.
