Yes, chickens can eat black rice, raw or cooked, as long as it’s plain and it stays a treat. But to a hen, it’s one more grain. It has about the same protein as white rice and almost no calcium, so it can’t stand in for layer feed, and the purple color doesn’t change that. I couldn’t find a single trial of black rice in laying hens. So toss a little on the ground after they’ve had their feed (never mixed into the feed). Throw out any that’s moldy or salty, or cooked and left sitting. By my math, a hen’s treats for the whole day come to 10 to 15 grams. So one 45-gram portion of dry rice covers three to four and a half of your hens.
I rewrote this page from 17 sources, all listed at the bottom. The rice numbers come from USDA FoodData Central. What black rice is comes from two 2025 reviews, one in a nutrition journal on black rice and one in a food science journal on colored rice in general. For hens I used Colorado State, Alabama Extension, Jacquie Jacob’s guide, the University of California’s Feeding Your Flock guide, UF/IFAS, Cackle Hatchery and the Merck Veterinary Manual. Feedipedia covers rice as a farm feed, and I’ll name the one hen trial as we get to it. Mold and leftovers come from the USDA, and those rules are written for your kitchen. And where a line is my own read of the sources, I’ll tell you so.
The old page opened with a feed store visit I can’t back up. The writer “nearly had a panic attack” at the feed choices, then spotted “this big bag of black rice”. Later the hens “came a running like I was offering bags of gold nuggets” and ate “every single grain of that black forbidden rice”. There was a talk with the owner of a farm supply shop, too. I can’t show you any of that happened, so it’s gone.
The worst part was the egg test. The old page said “I had some of our black rice eggs tested at a nearby lab out of curiosity”. Then it went on: “The results showed higher levels of anthocyanin antioxidants than typical white rice-fed eggs”. There’s no lab named and no numbers. Honestly, I couldn’t find any study of black rice and eggs at all. So that’s out, along with the line that “their eggs become more nutrient-dense”.
The health claims went next. Black rice isn’t “super high in protein”, as you’ll see from USDA’s numbers. Rice “loaded with antioxidants like anthocyanins which are great for their immune systems” had no hen study behind it. Neither did “anti-inflammatory properties”, or the line that “The amino acid profile of black rice is also excellent”. Now, the fiber line was half right. Black rice does have more fiber than white rice, but nothing I read backs “which helps aid their digestion” for a hen. I couldn’t find “black rice made specifically for chickens” in any source, and nothing I read backs “too high in fat for chickens” either.
The feeding advice got it backwards. The old page said to mix “no more than 10% black rice with the normal feed”. It said rice “should only be served mixed thoroughly within their overall balanced feed”. But my extension sources say the opposite about grains (I’ll show you why below). The “few days of chicken diarrhea explosions”, the hens that “hogged it all” and the soaked rice stirred into feed tubs were stories about birds I can’t show you. So was the “purple sticky rice and also some red cargo rice” in a “rainbow of colors”. The old page also said black rice comes from “Oryza sativa indica”, and that’s only half of it.
A word on the photos. All 10 are real stock shots, credited under each one. None of them shows a hen eating black rice, because I couldn’t find a free one that passed my checks. The jar of white rice stands in for the three rices USDA lines up, and the bowl of cooked white rice with sesame stands in for cooked black rice. The golden rice in the basket is rough rice, still in its hulls. The fried egg has nothing to do with the trial, and nothing in the stacked sacks is moldy. The three hen photos all come from one photographer on Flickr.
The short version.
- Plain black rice is a fine treat. To a hen it’s a grain, not a superfood.
- Per 100 grams raw, USDA lists 7.6 grams of protein for black rice and 7.0 for white. Alabama’s recommended layer diet has 16 percent protein or more.
- It has almost no calcium: 14 milligrams per 100 grams. Layer feed has about 170 to 280 times as much, by my math from Alabama’s and Jacob’s numbers.
- Keep it small. Colorado State says treats “should make up no more than 10% of their daily diet”. On Alabama’s 100 to 150 grams of feed a day, that’s 10 to 15 grams of all treats per hen, by my math.
- Toss it on the ground, apart from the feed. Alabama says to “avoid mixing scratch grains with your complete feed”, and my read is that rice is a grain like any other here.
- Raw or cooked are both fine, by my read, as long as it’s plain. No salt, no sauce, no fried rice.
- Cooked rice left out more than 2 hours (1 hour above 90°F), or kept more than 3 to 4 days in the fridge, goes in the trash. Those are USDA’s rules for people, and I use them for hens.
- Moldy or musty rice goes in the trash too, every time.
- Zhao’s review says the health work on colored rice is almost all lab-dish tests. I found no hen trial of black rice.
- Chicks get only starter for at least the first two weeks, and Alabama wants complete feed alone to 6 weeks.
What Black Rice Is
Black rice is rice with a dark coat. A 2025 review of colored rice by Zhao and colleagues says its color comes from “the accumulation of anthocyanins in the pericarp and seed coat”. A second 2025 review, on black rice alone by Javed and colleagues, says those pigments are “concentrated in the aleurone layer”. My read is that both name outer layers of the grain. Javed’s review also counts it as a whole grain, in a line about “whole grains, especially black rice”.
It isn’t one kind of rice, either. Zhao’s review says “Black rice grains are found both in Oryza indica and Oryza japonica species”. It splits black rice into “glutinous and non-glutinous categories”, and glutinous is the sticky kind. So my read is that the “purple sticky rice” on the old page may well have been black rice too. The same review says “The grain is deep black in color and after cooking turns dark purple”. That’s why it also goes by purple rice, the review says.
Then there’s the name forbidden rice. Javed’s review says “In the past, it was known as forbidden rice”. It says that in China and Indonesia, ordinary people were “prohibited from storing, cultivating, or consuming black rice during the imperial era without official authorization”. It says the rice was kept only for royalty and aristocrats, as “a tribute food”. That’s the review’s history, and I’m passing it on as it tells it. But none of it matters to your hen. My read: to her it’s a grain like any other.
Black Rice Next to Brown and White, by USDA’s Numbers
USDA FoodData Central has an entry for each of the three as dry, raw grain. Here’s what each has per 100 grams (rounded):
- Protein: black 7.6 grams, brown 7.3, white 7.0.
- Fat: black 3.4 grams, brown 3.3, white 1.0.
- Calcium: black 14 milligrams, brown 8, white 4.5.
- Fiber: black 4.2 grams. USDA gives brown and white rice two fiber numbers each, from two lab methods: 3.0 or 4.3 for brown, and 0.1 or 2.8 for white.
- Starch: black 71 grams. That’s most of the grain.
So “super high in protein” doesn’t hold. Black rice has about half a gram more protein per 100 grams than white rice. The fat line has nothing behind it either. Black rice has more fat than white rice, but about the same as brown rice, and none of my poultry sources calls either one too fatty for hens. The fiber claim is the one that’s sort of true. Black rice beats white on either of USDA’s white rice numbers, and it lands in brown rice’s range.
The thing is, USDA’s black rice entry gives one fiber number and doesn’t say which method it used. So I’d only tell you black rice has more fiber than white rice and is close to brown. It’s still a starch food first (71 grams of starch in every 100), and that’s how your hen’s body will see it, by my read.
Next to Layer Feed, It’s Thin
Alabama Extension says “Laying hens should receive a layer diet with around 18 percent crude protein”. Its table of a recommended layer diet lists “Protein 16% or more” and “Calcium 3% to 4%”. Black rice is about 7.6 percent protein, so it has less than half of that. But calcium is where it really falls short. Its 14 milligrams per 100 grams works out to 0.014 percent. At 3 percent, layer feed has 3,000 milligrams per 100 grams, so by my math that’s more than 200 times as much. Jacob says “Laying mashes typically contain 2.5% to 3.5% calcium”, and even at 2.5 percent it’s still about 170 times.
Colorado State wants you to “Ensure your birds have free access to grit and a calcium source like oyster shell or eggshells”. And rice brings you almost none of that. Colorado State also warns that “It is important to not over feed your chickens with scraps as they need to get enough protein to meet daily requirements”.
Alabama puts the risk plainly. When treats are given in excess, “the birds will fill up on these incomplete feeds and not consume enough of the complete feed to sustain egg production or growth”. Jacquie Jacob says “Scratch grains are relatively low in protein and high in energy or fiber, depending on which grain is used”. She also says “Scratch grains are like french fries”. My read: black rice belongs in that same group. The University of California’s guide puts it best: “treat the scraps like a treat not like the main course”.
The Purple Color and the Superfood Talk
The anthocyanins in black rice are real, and the reviews spend pages on them. But look at how they were tested. Zhao’s review says “almost all the literature surveyed regarding the health-beneficial activities of bioactive compounds in colored rice used methodologies involving in vitro assays”. In vitro means in a lab dish, not in a living animal. There’s some animal work too. Javed’s review says some effects were “verified in animal models, even though human studies remain in the nascent phases”. Zhao’s review cites work in rats and rabbits, plus a few groups of people. But I found no study in hens in either review. So “great for their immune systems” is a big jump from lab dishes and lab animals to your run.
Plus, cooking takes some of it away. Zhao’s review says “since colored rice is not consumed raw but cooked, the polyphenol contents (phenolics and flavonoids) are reduced during such processing”. Then it adds a twist from lab digestion tests: that loss “rebounded during gastric and intestinal digestion phases”. Javed’s review puts boiling at a 15 to 30 percent loss of the water-soluble anthocyanins, and says steaming seems to cost less of the nutrients overall. That’s about rice cooked for people. But it’s the same pot you’d use for your hens.
The old page also tried red rice. Zhao’s review says “Red rice has a red pericarp”, and it covers red and purple rice right alongside black. None of its hen-free findings changes the feeding rules. My read: red, purple or black, it’s rice to a chicken, and it goes in the same small treat portion.
What Rice Did to Eggs in a Real Trial
I looked for a trial of black rice in laying hens and found none. The closest thing I found is a 2020 trial of brown rice by An and colleagues in Korea. They fed 252 Hy-Line Brown hens, 44 weeks old, diets with 0, 5, 10 or 15 percent brown rice for 5 weeks. The rice went in “at the expense of corn and soybean meal”, and the diets were balanced so each one had the same energy and digestible amino acids.
Turns out the result was dull, and that’s the point. The paper says “No significant differences were observed in laying performances”. Yolk color scored 7.1, 7.0, 7.2 and 7.2 across the four groups. The authors concluded that “up to 15% BR can be included into layer feed without any adverse effects on laying performance and egg quality, if its energy and digestible AA values are well evaluated”. That last condition carries a lot. The rice was built into a balanced ration by researchers who had measured its energy and amino acids first. It wasn’t poured on top of layer feed.
The same paper cites earlier work by Sittiya and colleagues. That team “reported that yolk color was significantly decreased with increasing levels of paddy rice (50% or more) without affecting other egg qualities”. An’s team wrote that “This negative effect can be attributed to low levels of xanthophyll in rice along with the presence of other feedstuff affecting yolk color”. So when paddy rice went in at 50 percent or more, yolks got paler, not richer. The paper doesn’t say if that’s half the diet or half the corn it replaced. At 15 percent brown rice, An’s yolks didn’t change.
Feedipedia, a feed database, backs up that rice can be a real feed. It says rough rice for laying hens “gives good results when it constitutes 20-30% of the diet”, citing Göhl in 1982. Again, that’s rice as part of a planned ration. If you want to know what really drives laying, my page on Rhode Island Red egg production goes through it by source.
How Much: Grams, Not Scoops
Start with the limit. Colorado State says treats “should make up no more than 10% of their daily diet”. It doesn’t say by weight, but that’s how I read it. Alabama says “A laying hen will consume between 100 and 150 grams of feed per day or roughly 0.25 pounds”. That makes 10 to 15 grams a hen by my math. And that’s every treat she gets that day (not just the rice).
USDA’s black rice entry lists one reference portion: 45 grams of dry rice. By my math, that one portion is the whole day’s treats for three to four and a half hens. A flock of six tops out at 60 to 90 grams, about one and a third to two portions, and that’s if they get nothing else.
Cooked rice weighs more than the dry grain it came from, because it’s soaked up water. I found no USDA entry for cooked black rice, so I used plain cooked white rice. USDA puts that at 68 percent water, and a cup at 158 grams. With 16 tablespoons to a cup, a hen’s 10 to 15 grams comes to about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of cooked rice, by my math. That’s less rice than the same weight of dry grain, which keeps you on the safe side.
Now watch the clock. Colorado State says to give no more than they can eat in 5 to 10 minutes, so you don’t draw in nuisance animals. Jacob’s limit for scratch grains is “as much scratch grains as chickens can finish in 15 to 20 minutes”. I’d go with the shorter one. Our Can Chickens Eat It? checker has quick answers on other foods, too.
Toss It Apart From the Feed, After They’ve Eaten
This is where the old page went most wrong. Alabama says to “avoid mixing scratch grains with your complete feed. This only dilutes the nutrients your birds need”. Jacob counts topping up complete feed with grain as a common mistake: “Supplementing complete feeds with cracked corn, oats, or other grains”. She explains that “When scratch grains are fed with complete feeds, they dilute the nutrition levels in the carefully formulated diets”. Her fix is about timing, which I’ll get to below.
Neither source names black rice. My read: “other grains” covers it, and pretty much every grain in your pantry too. Mixing rice into your feeder means every bite has less protein and calcium in it. And Colorado State warns that “Leaving the ingredients whole allows your birds to pick and choose what they prefer and leave other ingredients uneaten”. My read: a hen that likes rice can pick it out and leave the feed.
Jacob also gives the timing. She says to “feed them to chickens in the afternoon after birds have eaten complete feed”. Then you only give what they’ll clean up in a few minutes, as above. Here’s how I’d do it:
- Feed first. Keep the feeder and the drinker full all day.
- Weigh it once. Weigh out the flock’s share one time so you know what it looks like in your scoop or cup.
- Scatter it wide. Throw it thin over the run, away from the feeder, so a bossy hen can’t stand on all of it. That’s my call.
- Rake up what’s left. Do it once the clock runs out.
The same rule goes for any grain. My page on feeding chickens oats for horses walks through it with oats.
Raw or Cooked, as Long as It’s Plain
Raw rice is fine by my read, as long as the hulls are off. Feedipedia says “Rough rice can be fed to poultry though its use is limited by the presence of hulls and non-starch polysaccharides”. Weirdly, it even notes that “In some countries, rough rice is part of the natural diet of scavenging chickens, as observed for instance in Sri Lanka, where it accounted for 7% of the diet”. But it also says rough rice grains “are very hard and abrasive and should be ground before they are used as animal feed”.
Your black rice isn’t rough rice, though. Zhao’s review describes brown rice as “a whole grain rice with the hull removed, while the bran and germ layers remain on the grain”. Javed’s review counts black rice as a whole grain, too. So my read is that the black rice you buy has no hulls, and plain raw grains should be fine for a hen.
Grit is where my sources split. Alabama says “Birds that generally consume whole grains and seeds (songbirds, pet birds) need a source of grit in their diet”. It says backyard flocks don’t, since commercial feed is already ground. Jacob says “it is also important to provide grit” when you feed scratch grains. Colorado State wants grit always on offer, and says free-range birds “will pick up their own grit”. So my call: if you toss whole raw grain, keep some grit out.
Cooked rice has to be plain. Colorado State says to “Make sure they are not salty or have citrus or are moldy”. UF/IFAS warns that “Too much salt can quickly lead to dehydration and kidney damage in chickens”. So rice cooked with salt or butter, fried rice, seasoned rice and takeout leftovers stay in the kitchen. That’s my call, from those two salt lines and the University of California’s advice to “avoid fatty foods”.
Then there’s the clock for cooked rice. USDA says to “Throw away all perishable foods that have been left in room temperature for more than 2 hours (1 hour if the temperature is over 90° F, such as at an outdoor picnic during summer)”. It also says “Leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days”. Those rules are for people. But my call is to use them for your hens as well.
Soaking isn’t needed, by my read. Nothing I read asks for it. Wet rice sitting in a tub is a bit of a risk, too (it’s one more thing that can go bad).
Old or Moldy Rice Goes in the Trash
My guess is that a forgotten bag at the back of the pantry is the rice most likely to end up in the run. Jacob says “Old feed can lose its nutritional value and is susceptible to mold”. UF/IFAS puts the test simply: “If food is moldy enough that you would not eat it yourself, do not feed it to your chickens”. Colorado State’s line on scraps (quoted above) simply rules out moldy ones. And Feedipedia says it for farm feed too: “The feeding of mouldy rice should be avoided”.
Grain mold is a bigger deal than it looks. The Merck Veterinary Manual says “Mycotoxins can affect cereal grains and other agricultural commodities before harvest or after harvest during transport or storage”. It adds, “Once formed, they are chemically stable and persist in the contaminated ingredient even through becoming a finished feed”. So you can’t cook or rinse your way out of moldy rice. That’s my read of Merck’s line.
And cooked rice is even easier to lose. USDA’s mold chart says to discard “Cooked grain and pasta” that has mold on it. It explains that “Foods with high moisture content can be contaminated below the surface. Moldy foods may also have bacteria growing along with the mold”. Jacob adds a warning for scraps in general: “Make sure that the scraps are not allowed to rot, or botulism might result”. I follow the same trash rule on my page about old carrots.
Chicks Wait
Cackle Hatchery says “Feed only starter ration for at least the first two weeks”. It says “Anything additional that you feed baby chicks will dilute these nutrients and can create nutritional imbalance”. Alabama goes further, with complete feed “from 1 to 6 weeks of age as their sole source of nutrition”. So two weeks is the earliest you’d start, and 6 weeks is the careful end.
Once treats start, Cackle says not to feed “more than 10% of the chicks’ diet by volume”. It says to “Chop everything into chick-size bits to prevent choking”. It also says to clear leftovers, since “moist foods in warm brooder can develop mold and bacteria”. My call: rice gives a chick nothing starter doesn’t, so I’d wait the full 6 weeks.
Sources
- USDA FoodData Central: Rice, black, unenriched, raw (FDC ID 2710825).
- USDA FoodData Central: Rice, brown, long grain, unenriched, raw (FDC ID 2512380).
- USDA FoodData Central: Rice, white, long grain, unenriched, raw (FDC ID 2512381).
- USDA FoodData Central: Rice, white, long-grain, regular, unenriched, cooked without salt (FDC ID 169757).
- Javed and colleagues, Frontiers in Nutrition (2025): Black rice as the emerging functional food: bioactive compounds, therapeutic potential and industrial applications.
- Zhao and colleagues, Foods (2025): Composition and Biological Activity of Colored Rice, A Comprehensive Review.
- Howard Enos, Colorado State University Extension: Raising Poultry the Organic Way, Disease Control and Feeding.
- Pacheco and colleagues, Alabama Cooperative Extension System: Feeding the Laying Hen.
- Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky, on poultry.extension.org: Feeding Chickens for Egg Production.
- Pitesky and Reimers, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources: Feeding Your Flock.
- UF/IFAS Extension Holmes County: 10 Foods You Should Never Feed Chickens.
- Dulmelis Sandu, Merck Veterinary Manual: Mycotoxicoses in Poultry.
- Gail Damerow, Cackle Hatchery: What to Feed Baby Chicks.
- Feedipedia: Rough rice (paddy rice).
- An and colleagues, Journal of Animal Science and Technology (2020): Evaluation of energy and amino acids of brown rice and its effects on laying performance and egg quality of layers.
- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service: Molds on Food: Are They Dangerous?.
- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service: Leftovers and Food Safety.
Sources checked November 2, 2026. Calling black rice a fine treat, raw or cooked, is my read, since no source I found tested it in hens. So is putting rice in the same group as scratch grains, and reading “other grains” to cover it. Treating 10 percent as a share by weight is my read too, and so is counting cooked rice by its cooked weight from USDA’s white rice entry. Saying the pigments are in outer layers of the grain, that cooking for hens loses them like cooking for people, and that you can’t cook or rinse out mold are my reads. So is reading store black rice as a whole grain with no hulls that’s fine raw, reading a hen picking rice out of mixed feed from Colorado State’s line on whole ingredients, and reading the old page’s sticky purple rice as black rice. My calls: scatter it wide, keep grit out with raw grain, keep seasoned and fried rice in the kitchen, and use USDA’s 2-hour and 3 to 4 day rules for hens. Waiting the full 6 weeks with chicks is my call too. Any figure I worked out in grams, tablespoons, percent or hens per serving is my math from the numbers these sources print, plus 16 tablespoons to a cup. We aren’t vets. If a bird looks sick, call a vet who sees poultry.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe
