Feeding Garlic to Chickens

okay. here it is.  I am quite skeptical of feeding garlic to my chickens.   I do have some slight reasoning, but what I am wondering is if my reasoning is really, well, reasonable!!
I have heard that you should stay far far away from fish meal when mixing your own feed because the the eggs can take on a very strong horrible fishy smell and taste.

so now I have it in my mind, well if fish meal could do that, wont garlic??  seriously.  I love garlic.  I do not want my baking though to taste strangely of garlic.

I have a wonderful natural herb concoction for deworming, and overall health of the chickens, but I balked at feeding it to them, and honestly in finishing of the mixing at all, because it called for garlic.

and now I was just reading that you should have raw garlic available to the chickens all the time-- even as chicks!  that it is really good for them.

is it???  really, is it that good for them??  and HONESTLY!! will it give the eggs a garlic taste/smell??


the only dumb questions are ones we do not ask, so I am putting myself out there.  go gently, oh skeptical and cynical ones!! 


for the record this is one of the sites I was just reading, and I am putting it out there because it does have some really interesting info--- food for thought so to speak
Herbs for Spring Eggs and Breeding...

I think that's a totally legit question. I've also heard that eggs take on the flavour of what the hen eats, to a point.  I don't know if this is quantifiable though, but I'm interested to hear what peoples' experiences are.

We have an older neighbour who eats raw garlic constantly to keep his health good.  He is early 70s I think.  He walks and hitch hikes everywhere and I feel obliged to give him a ride when I see him.  But really, windows down in the truck, for the rest of the day.

Never been much of a believer in the virtues of garlic.  Aristotle and I agree, moderation in all things.

I do feed my chickens garlic, but only the end bits of the cloves, the dry stiff bits or whole dry stiff cloves.  Not huge quantities but regularly.  No thoughts of any particular medicinal benefits, it just goes in the chicken bowl in the kitchen and ends up in the run.  They eat it.  They also get shrimp tails raw and cooked, salmon skin and carcasses.  I even give them salmon heads in season but they don't like them as much as my LGD who is allowed into the chicken run if he begs and takes out the salmon heads.

I don't think I've ever noticed any fishy or garlicky taste in the eggs.

A long way of saying I think it might take a lot of garlic or fish to create that taste in the eggs.

I would be interested in the concoction recipe you are trying to make?  Has anybody fed their chickens garlic scapes? We have tons of them.

I put dried garlic slices in my chicken waterers. About the equivalent of a small clove per gallon of water. The chickens love it and when I open the waterers to replenish them they gobble up the garlic bits. Never affected the eggs, but definitely healthier chicjens since I started.

garlic DOES have some good qualities, and even for us two legged creatures.  since I got sick one of the ND's concoctions was heavily garlic based.  again I balked.  dude.  I do NOT want to stink of garlic.  its supposed to be something in the oils, makes it an antimicrobial??   anyhow.  still skeptical. 



I will go and try to find the herbal concoction I made.  trying really hard to remember where I even read about it-- whether it was in a book or here...  I do remember one of the main ingredients was a wormwood herb (?? well pretty sure that was what it was called anyhow! haha)  and I had found it online and bought all the stuff from the same store, herbs in bulk....

There are many around who read/participate in this forum who will STRONGLY disagree with what I'm about to say.

In general, if it helps us, it helps other animals in the same ways.  With the odd exception for plants that one species finds poisonous and another not (like goats and nightshade, for example), if you're looking for specific properties, you CAN find them the same way for them as you do for you.  What effects are you after out of the garlic?

I have also heard onions and garlic, in excess, can make eggs pungent, but then, so can wormwood (russian herb/absinthe) and my chickens go, well, ape, over wormwood and will fight each other for it (by the way, excellent anti-parasitic).  I think the 'moderation' thing is right.

I LOVE garlic, and my interest in it has just gotten intensified over the years.  When I bake chicken now, I bake a whole clove along side it and nom it down.  MmmmMMM!  When I start smelling like a tossed salad, I'll change my mind, however I don't do it daily so it hasn't caused that problem.

A whole clove or a whole bulb? 

Can goats eat nightshade? 

No wonder wormwood is wormwood.....always wondered that!

I know for my own system it was for the antimicrobial affects.  to help clear my system of the infection, or at the very least some of its side symptoms. 

I think its base in the chicken herbal concoction it was the same idea.  the wormwood being the deworming part, and the other herbs with the garlic all doing their things for overall good health.
I think it was supposed to be used as a top dressing on their feed once a week or two, nothing too serious, unless there was an actual problem and then used more.  

still trying to remember where I saw my recipe and all the stuff that went with it.  but I am a bit like an A.D.D. crow today--- ooooo looky  something shiney.

A whole bulb, sorry.  A whole bulb.

Goats can eat nightshade.  In fact, they cleaned all the leaves off my potatoes and at my tomato plants.  They're all still kicking and healthy, that was a couple weeks ago now.

You need your tinfoil cap Lanaire, that should help!

I didn't know that about goats and nightshade.  Not so good about the tomato plants though!

Take a garlic clove and rub the bottom of your foot with it ...........in a while your body will be letting it out through your sweat glands ( the smell that is ) .........if it can do that then feeding it to a chicken would be worse I think , myself I stay away from it just for that one reason alone .My father ate a lot as well for health reasons and I do believe they have some merit , but we had to tell him to lay off  of it because we couldn't come close to him on some days .Garlic , Curey , they all come through ever sweat gland that you have so in moderation maybe ?

When I was in University we did some feeding trials with some coloured (purple) feed wheat.  The idea is that this wheat was designed to be a feed wheat only, but the University wanted to know if it would impart the purple colour on the eggs.  When we did this we did several feeding trials with a bunch of different things to see if it would impart smell/taste/or colour on eggs.  One of the things we tested was garlic.  We also tested paprika, and a few other herbs and things I don't remember.  There were 7 different groups....l

Long story short, the garlic did impart smell and flavour on eggs.  Each group had to boil up some of the eggs and we did taste tests for a lab.  The garlic group also make some deviled eggs to see if they had come up with a new culinary masterpiece.  They were awful!  Was a really cool experiment.

Bowker Acres wrote:When I was in University we did some feeding trials with some coloured (purple) feed wheat.  The idea is that this wheat was designed to be a feed wheat only, but the University wanted to know if it would impart the purple colour on the eggs.  When we did this we did several feeding trials with a bunch of different things to see if it would impart smell/taste/or colour on eggs.  One of the things we tested was garlic.  We also tested paprika, and a few other herbs and things I don't remember.  There were 7 different groups....l

Long story short, the garlic did impart smell and flavour on eggs.  Each group had to boil up some of the eggs and we did taste tests for a lab.  The garlic group also make some deviled eggs to see if they had come up with a new culinary masterpiece.  They were awful!  Was a really cool experiment.

thank you!  that is some really good information    (about the garlic)


and did it impart a purple colour? the wheat?  it would be cool if it did ...

so I cant find the recipe I used.  I cant find it in the books I have, so maybe I borrowed a book?? maybe its in the one natural goat book that took a round-about on me?  dunno.

could of sworn I even saw the shipping box not that long ago, but now, nothing.    of course, just when I open my mouth to talk about something, I cant find the thing I was talking about so I cant even go into it further!!

I did however find the sealed tub of herbs I had mixed up and then put away because I didnt have the heart to put the garlic in it.
oregano, and pretty sure thyme were the first smells.  oregano for sure. 

so the list so far that I can deduce is wormwood, oregano, and garlic.  there are at least three others in the bin.  and seriously for being sealed up for at least three years, gosh it must of had a good seal because it smelled really fresh still!

lanaire-ranching wrote:

Bowker Acres wrote:When I was in University we did some feeding trials with some coloured (purple) feed wheat.  The idea is that this wheat was designed to be a feed wheat only, but the University wanted to know if it would impart the purple colour on the eggs.  When we did this we did several feeding trials with a bunch of different things to see if it would impart smell/taste/or colour on eggs.  One of the things we tested was garlic.  We also tested paprika, and a few other herbs and things I don't remember.  There were 7 different groups....l

Long story short, the garlic did impart smell and flavour on eggs.  Each group had to boil up some of the eggs and we did taste tests for a lab.  The garlic group also make some deviled eggs to see if they had come up with a new culinary masterpiece.  They were awful!  Was a really cool experiment.

thank you!  that is some really good information    (about the garlic)


and did it impart a purple colour? the wheat?  it would be cool if it did ...

It did not, it was not supposed to, but we had to do feeding trials non-the-less.  Strangely that was well over 10 years ago and have never heard of the wheat on the market. 

About the garlic - we were feeding quite a lot of dried garlic.  I am sure smaller amounts would not be so bad.  Strangely, with all the crazy things we fed those birds, it did not have an affect on how much they ate - good or bad.  That was my first and last experience with battery birds and hated every minute of it -even if I did like the the fun of the feeding trials.

At the same time the University was testing our "group housing" of layers and environment enrichment.  I did like that study.  Oh, how I wish I could go back to University again......