Okay we are looking into free ranging our girls in the evening for a few hours while the dogs are locking in the house, however I am concerned about some of our weeds. I know for a fact that we have silver leafed nightshade. We have been trying to get rid of it but it is a serious problem in a quarter acre where the stuff is spreading faster than I can kill it. I know the stuff is toxic, will the hens eat it and get sick and/or die? I really want to let them loose but not if it'll hurt them.
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Chickens are smarter than people give them credit. If they do happen to eat something that doesn't agree with them, they won't eat it again. When I pull weeds, I throw them in the coop, and they pick through them for what they like. And one 60 foot side of my run is all Oleander, which they don't seem to eat. They know the difference between what is good to eat and what isn't. I find that the wider variety of diet on top of access to good old layer feed from the store produces higher quality eggs. I personally wouldn't worry about getting a "poison" egg based on their diet. However, it does seem that you can effect quality in a positive way.
My flock has access to the following year-round, and they produce the best eggs I have ever had:
Nutrena Layer Pellets
Bermuda Grass
Any bugs they can find (I have some old roof tiles that I move around their run, when I move them they eat all the bugs underneath)
Any leaf matter I pull from the garden, including all weeds
All fruit an veggie kitchen scraps that are not onions (I find they won't eat them anyway)
And I occasionally buy scratch and hide it around their run to give them something to do.
Tons of shade from a pecan tree, I also crack pecans for them when they are everywhere
Clean water 24/7
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/WEEDS/silverleaf_nightshade.html
Does not look like it would be a problem for the chickens. Birds have such different digestive needs and issues than humans. They do not have a stomach; rather they have a crop and gizzard. In addition, many items, which can be a problem for humans, are fine for birds and vice versa.
For example, milk can kill a chicken, they do not have any way of digesting it, no enzymes for the lactose, in milk, it sits in the crop, sours and can burst the crop or intestines of the bird.
People cannot eat Oleander, chickens can eat all they want and not have a problem, they won't though as it seems to have little nutritional value for most animals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium_oleander
Toxicity studies of animals administered oleander extract concluded that the rodent and avian species were observed to be relatively insensitive to oleander "cardioactive glycosides".[9] Other mammals, however, such as dogs and humans, are relatively sensitive to the effects of cardiac glycosides and the clinical manifestations of "glycoside intoxication".[9][10][11]
However, despite the common "poisonous" designation of this plant, very few toxic events in humans have been reported.
Toxicity it related to the type of digestive system an animal has!
Is there any risk of them laying "poisoned" eggs from eating it if they do? I'm not even sure if they will but I've been told chickens are too stupid to avoid things that are bad for them so I didn't want to risk it.
Read the material in the link, it will answer the questions.
As for being poisoned from what they eat, NO. However, if you feed them items with a high sulfur content, i.e. garlic, onions, the eggs will have an off taste to most people. Feeding them scraps and other low quality food is not very good to do for them in the first place though.
Chickens do best with food formulated for them, they are not wild animals and have not been for centuries, As such, they have lost most of their ability to forage for themselves, one of the reasons you do not see wild flocks of chickens running around the country. Swine on the other hand and horses or burros are examples of domestic animals running wild and thriving.
Just an empirical method of demonstrating how fragile chickens in fact are, and proof much of the mythology on the web about chickens and their diet is just that.
The evening hours? Can you define that? Our chickens often head to roost by 7pm or even 6pm.
I was thinking around 5pm until roosting time.