Why do chickens eat Styrofoam?

In a nutshell: I have no idea.

OK, here’s the long version. I’ve raised many chickens over about a dozen years now, and not one of them could resist a bit of Styrofoam packaging or a stray construction panel with Styrofoam insulation.

Chickens will go for Styrofoam even when they have fresh pasture

My chickens consume a diverse diet of layer feed, kitchen leftovers, and pasture. They choose Styrofoam over their feed, vegetable peels, fresh grass, and any food you can imagine. No, they won’t only eat Styrofoam, given the choice, but they’ll eat it before anything else.

It seems this isn’t an anomaly. Chicken owners all over the world report the same thing: their hens and roosters can’t resist Styrofoam. If I ever publish an updated edition of The Basic Guide to Backyard Livestock, I’ll be sure to include this phenomenon.

What do chickens find so appealing about Styrofoam? Its texture, I suppose. It’s easy to peck at, and when it scatters, it looks like crumbs. But surely when they taste it they should be disappointed?

Compared to humans, chickens have very few taste buds, so they don’t respond to taste the same way we do. However, they generally have an innate ability to choose nutritious foods. Styrofoam doesn’t quite fit the profile, though.

Will Styrofoam harm your chickens? I can only speak from experience. For years, I have tried to discourage my birds from eating Styrofoam. I offered distracting treats and shooed them away. I herded them out to patches of succulent fresh grass teeming with bugs. To no avail. If Styrofoam is available, they’ll come back to nibble on it. So far, my flock hasn’t sustained any visible damage.

Naturally, eating Styrofoam can’t be good for chickens. Theoretically, Styrofoam could impact a bird’s crop and cause suffocation. The only practical way to deal with this problem is to avoid leaving any Styrofoam lying around.

Do your chickens go crazy over Styrofoam too? Tell me in the comments.

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Author: Anna

An Orthodox Jewish mom and freelance writer enjoying a simple life with her family and chickens, somewhere in the north of Israel.

40 thoughts on “Why do chickens eat Styrofoam?”

    2. Dealing with any impacted crop right now, and chicken got loose and ate a lot of Styrofoam. With my crop massages, it seemed to mix with the fibrous material and helped it come out. Maybe the draw is that it’s a good consistency for the natural instinct of crop layering.

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  2. A hen showed up one day and stayed. Heard thumping sounds. Chicken was pecking at a styrofoam cooler. Didn’t leave a mess. Obviously ate it.

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  3. Yes. My layers attack styrofoam. And im eating that? Yeah. Hide it, get rid of it, or cover it. I am in construction and i have seen them destroy it on many applications.

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  7. Thank you for posting this! I googled it not expecting to actually find this issue and laughed when I did! I have a few beautiful hens that free range my fenced back yard. They have almost an acre of grass, all the bugs they could want, and things to perch on and explore. But I can’t keep them away from the wooden dog house with foam insulation under its roof that sits by the back door! They are obsessed with it! I never even knew it had foam insulation until I was out back enjoying a cup of coffee and the one noise I heard above the sounds of nature I was enjoying was my hens pecking away and revealing pink foam under the tin roof of the dog house! Lol
    I’m going to find a way to cover it with small pieces of wood. It can’t be good for them! Thank you all for your input!

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    2. So- It didn’t kill Your chickens, caused no problems? Out of all the responses on this thread, I haven’t found one saying styrofoam killed my chicken. What we don’t know can hurt us- What a chicken knows, hardly ever kills them

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      1. I noticed no problems with my chickens after eating Styrofoam. I suspect they just poop it out and go about their day. Other people’s responses suggest the same. However, I’m sure it can’t be healthy for them.

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  8. Yeah my chicken too. They love it but I’d rather avoid them to eat styrofoam đŸ˜¹. My father would angry too if I see them eating styrofoam but I don’t prevent.

    But I love how they act like we as the owner don’t afford them good and delicious food đŸ™ƒ

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  10. I just started raising laying chicken, had broilers for years, but now I have some laying chicken, they are following me around the farm. Sometimes I open the gate, and they immediately go outside, eating foam from the ground. I was just looking around for information about the oddity. I’m feeding them wheat grain, corn and there are piles of fresh clover for the cows that they also eat, but they leave all of that to ravenously eat foam. The ungrateful chicken brained idiots. -.-

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      1. no one has said their chickens died. Mine didn’t and the fact is they eat it till they are content if they find it-I don’t feed it to mine, They found a piece of board and I let them consume all they wanted. none died. Think i;ll go find a piece and let em have another go .

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      2. I wouldn’t intentionally feed my chickens Styrofoam, but at this point I don’t panic when they find and eat some, either.

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  13. I was so worried to find my son’s boogie board (was in their fenced off area after all the rain our boys have been ‘surfing’ in the garden) nearly all eaten!!! So glad to find your article!

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  14. Yes, we had some Styrofoam insulation behind our shed and my chickens would go there as soon as we let them out of their run to free range. I ended up throwing it all away.

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  15. in fact the door of our garage is made of styrofoam and so there are chunks missing from it. It must be some sort of alien instinct because the styrofoam on the door is behind a layer of plastic. So unless our chickens can smell styrofoam idk how they knew it was there.

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  16. My chickens LOVE styrofoam. They come running when I have some to cut out in the yard. They even sneak into the garage to find where I store it to eat it. Unbelievable!

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  18. We are dealing with an impacted crop issue currently, and recently the chickens escaped. The one with the problem ate a lot of Styrofoam, and it seemed to mix with the impacted grass and some came out. Wondering if the consistency of Styrofoam is good for the crop layering that birds do for good digestion.

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  19. Nice article Anna, my Chickens love it too, I had big blocks of styrofoam like 2m x 2m behind my shed and its almost all gone after a few years. They ate caves and tunnels into it.

    What I can’t work out is, as it is meant to be non biodegradable, where does it go? I use their droppings for compost for the vegetable garden and I’ve never seen any styrofoam in there.

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    1. I’ve wondered that too. Since what goes in must come out, my guess is that the grit chickens consume breaks down Styrofoam into smaller particles which aren’t visible in the poop.

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