Can Chickens Eat Frogs? Yes, and Toads Were Tested Too

Yes, chickens can eat frogs, and a hen on free range will catch one without asking you first. Nothing I read says a wild frog now and then hurts a hen. What most folks really worry about is toads, and even there, a trial in Australia fed cane toads to chickens and saw no harm. I’d still keep the two big US toads out of the run, and I wouldn’t go frogging to feed the flock. Here’s why.

I rewrote this page from 16 sources, and you’ll find every one at the bottom. For the toad trial, I went to a 2010 paper by Beckmann and Shine. It sits behind a paywall, so I read the abstract and I quote only that. Most of the toad warnings come from the Merck Veterinary Manual and the University of Florida’s cane toad guide. Anything on Salmonella is the CDC’s. For what a hen should eat, I used three extension feeding guides and USDA’s food data.

A word on the photos. That little frog at the top was shot in a garden, and the cane toad lives in a reptile house in Belgium. Out in Arizona, the Colorado River toad was sitting in a yard. All three farm photos come from a USDA visit to a farm in Oklahoma in 2018.

The short version.

• Yes. Chickens are omnivores, and a free-range hen goes after small animals along with bugs. A frog that hops into the run may get eaten.
• Toads were tested. In a 2010 Australian trial, one chicken ate 45 small cane toads and didn’t get sick.
• Big toads are another story. Merck names two US toads, the cane toad and the Colorado River toad, as big enough to cause serious poisoning in dogs and cats. Nobody I read fed a big adult toad to a hen, so I’d lift any you find out of the run, with gloves on.
• A frog isn’t some better feed. Gram for gram, a frog leg has about the protein of layer feed and a sliver of the calcium, by my math from USDA’s numbers.
• Salmonella is the CDC’s worry with frogs, and it’s about you, not the hens. Wash your hands after you handle frogs or your birds.
• Don’t catch frogs for the flock. Moving wild frogs around spreads chytrid, a fungus that has wiped out whole frog species, and in some states frogs are game with seasons and limits.

Why a Hen Goes After a Frog

Chickens aren’t vegetarians. UC Davis’s feeding guide says it plainly: “Chickens are omnivores meaning they eat both animal protein and plant produced foods.” Colorado State adds that “Free-range chickens will consume insects to add to their protein intake.” A hen scratching through wet grass doesn’t sort her finds by kind. If a small frog hops, she’ll chase it the way she’d chase a grasshopper.

How good are chickens at it? There’s a newspaper story from Hawaii worth a look. In 2006 the Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran a piece about people on the Big Island who said wild chickens kept the noisy coqui frogs away. A nursery owner in Keaau told the paper she had seen chickens catch and eat coqui. She also said her chickens got the taste for them after her husband put dead coqui in their feed.

Turns out the scientists in that same article weren’t sold. University of Hawaii entomologist Arnold Hara said “there is no evidence of chickens eating coqui”, and he pointed out that Kauai has plenty of wild chickens and the coqui still got a foothold there. He was planning an experiment to find out. Herpetologist William Mautz said that even if chickens do eat coqui, “it wouldn’t be enough to make a difference” to the coqui across Hawaii.

So yes, hens eat frogs. They just aren’t frog control, any more than they’re fire ant control. Our page on chickens and fire ants found the same thing with ants.

The Toad Scare, Tested

Most of the fear around this question is really about toads, and it goes back a long way in Australia. Folks there got the idea that cane toads poison chickens almost as soon as the toads showed up. Christa Beckmann and Richard Shine set out to test it. Their abstract says the idea was “discredited by scientists in 1938, within 2 years of the toads’ introduction to Australia”, and that the myth “continues to flourish” anyway.

They ran two kinds of trials. Some chickens got toad-contaminated water, and some ate toads. In their words: “No ill effects were seen, with one chicken consuming 45 small toads without falling ill.” They concluded that “cane toads do not imperil domestic poultry.”

That’s pretty good news, but it’s only an abstract. I couldn’t read the full paper, so I can’t tell you how many birds were in it or how big “small” was. Here’s the part I’d hang onto. A cane toad guide from the University of Florida says “Cane toads are poisonous throughout their life cycle” and “Adults are most toxic”, because of the poison stored in the big glands on their shoulders. That trial chicken ate small toads. Nobody I read fed a hen a big adult.

Some wild birds do eat cane toads. That same Florida guide says American crows and red-shouldered hawks “have been seen rolling the toads onto their backs, eating certain parts and avoiding toxins.” That’s a bird picking around the glands, though. It isn’t a hen gulping down a whole adult toad.

The Two US Toads I’d Still Keep Out of the Run

Every toad makes some toxin. On its page for pet owners, the Merck Veterinary Manual says “All toads produce venom, but the potency of the venom varies with species and geographic locations.” Its page for vets says the toxin comes from big glands behind the eyes and from small glands all over the skin. Serious poisoning in dogs and cats, it says, “generally occurs only after exposure to large toads”. It names two that live in the US.

• The cane toad, also called the giant or marine toad. Merck calls it “The most toxic species of toad in the US” and says it’s established in Florida and Texas, and out in Hawaii too.
• The Colorado River toad. It lives in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, and Merck says it’s big enough to carry “potentially lethal amounts of toxins in its skin secretions.”

Merck’s page is about dogs and cats. I didn’t find a vet page on toad poisoning in chickens, so read this as the nearest guide we’ve got, not a chicken rule. In dogs, the first signs are heavy drooling, head shaking, pawing at the mouth and retching. Merck also says “A specific antidote for toad toxins is not available.” If you think a hen has mouthed a big toad, call a vet who sees poultry. I won’t hand you a home remedy, because none of my sources has one for chickens.

Florida’s guide helps you tell them apart. Adult cane toads run three to six inches long, the guide says, and a few reach eight or nine. Their shoulder glands are “enlarged and somewhat triangular, tapering back to a point.” Florida’s native southern toad is “Rarely larger than 3 inches”, and the guide says its small oval glands are “no danger to pets.” Small toads are what the trial chicken ate, too. Here’s the catch, though: the babies. Young cane toads just out of the water “are the size of raisins and are easily confused with native toads.”

If you live where either big toad lives, here’s what I’d do. Walk the run in the early evening now and then. Florida’s guide says cane toads are “most active” from dusk on through the night. A big toad in there gets picked up with gloves, the way Florida’s guide says to handle them, and you wash your hands after. Careful with those glands, too. Florida’s guide warns that the toxin “will squirt when parotoid glands are squeezed, such as by the mouth of a predator or pet.” It also says pet food left out at night draws cane toads, and that “Toads may also soak in a pet’s water bowl, especially during extended dry periods.” Sure, the 2010 trial found toad water didn’t hurt chickens. I’d still rinse a waterer after a big toad has been sitting in it.

What’s in a Frog for a Hen

The old version of this page said frogs give hens a protein boost that helps egg production. So I checked. USDA’s food data has numbers for raw frog legs, the kind people eat. Per 100 grams, they hold:

• 16.4 grams of protein.
• 0.3 grams of fat and 73 calories.
• 18 milligrams of calcium and 147 of phosphorus.
• 81.9 grams of water.

Now hold that up against a bag of layer feed from the feed store. Alabama’s extension guide says a complete layer feed carries “Protein 16% or more” and “Calcium 3% to 4%”. Gram for gram as eaten, a frog leg has about the same share of protein as the feed, 16.4 percent against 16. Calcium’s where it falls apart, though. Three to four percent works out to 3,000 to 4,000 milligrams per 100 grams, so the feed has roughly 170 to 220 times the calcium of a frog leg, by my math.

That matters for a laying hen. Alabama’s guide says the eggshell “is composed of around 96 percent calcium carbonate”, and that laying hens need far more calcium than phosphorus in the diet, “from 4:1 to possibly as high as 7:1.” A frog leg runs the other way, with about eight times more phosphorus than calcium. One caveat on all of this: these are numbers for leg meat. A whole frog has bones and skin too, and I found no data on a whole wild frog.

Then there’s size. Alabama’s guide uses 0.25 pounds of feed a day for a laying hen, which is about 113 grams. Colorado State says “Treats should make up no more than 10% of their daily diet.” That’s about 11 grams of treats a day. USDA weighs one frog leg at 45 grams, roughly four times a hen’s treat budget, by my math. Wild frogs come in all sizes, but the point stands. Whatever a hen catches counts as her treat for the day, so there’s no need to add more. Our feeding guide for Rhode Island Reds goes through what a hen eats the rest of the time, by age.

Worms were the old page’s other scare, and that one didn’t hold up either. Merck’s table of poultry worms lists the small animals that carry them to birds. Earthworms are on it, and so are slugs and snails and a whole run of insects, from grasshoppers to earwigs. Frogs aren’t. I didn’t find a source that says a frog gives a hen worms.

Salmonella Is About You, Not the Hens

The old page also warned that frogs carry Salmonella that sickens a flock. I found nothing that says frogs pass Salmonella to hens. What the CDC does say is about people. Its page on reptiles and amphibians says they “often carry Salmonella bacteria in their digestive tracts. Even healthy reptiles and amphibians can carry the bacteria.” A 2003 CDC report put it more bluntly: “Frogs and toads are frequent carriers of Salmonella and have been linked by epidemiologic evidence to outbreaks”.

Young kids are more likely to get sick, the CDC says. In 2009 the CDC reported “the first reported multistate salmonellosis outbreak associated with exposure to amphibians”, traced to pet African dwarf frogs. By December 30, 2009, it counted 85 sick people in 31 states, and their median age was 5. Its most likely source, the report said, was “contact with water from the frogs’ aquariums.”

Your chickens belong on the same list. On its backyard poultry page, the CDC says “Outbreaks of Salmonella linked to backyard poultry are common.” Its advice for frogs and for hens lines up:

• Wash your hands with soap and running water after you touch a frog, a hen, or anything in the coop and run.
• Don’t kiss or snuggle your birds and then touch your face or mouth.
• Keep kids under 5 from handling frogs, toads, chicks or hens. That one’s on both CDC pages, amphibians and poultry.

So if a hen drops a half-eaten frog at your feet, use a glove or a shovel. Nothing I read says the frog will hurt her. What the CDC worries about is your hands.

Let Them Hunt, but Don’t Go Frogging for Them

The old page had tips on catching frogs and raising tadpoles for the flock. Honestly, I’d skip all of that, and I’ve got two reasons.

First, there’s a frog disease. Chytrid is a fungus that, according to a fact sheet from the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab and New York’s DEC, “has caused the DECLINE OR COMPLETE EXTINCTION of hundreds of species of frogs and other amphibians.” Those capital letters are theirs, not mine. Chytrid, the sheet says, “is easily spread by human activity”, and “Wild amphibians SHOULD NOT BE MOVED between habitats.” Hauling frogs from a creek to your run is exactly that. Even the American bullfrog, which seems to resist chytrid, “may still act as carriers,” the sheet says.

Second, there’s the law. In some states frogs are game. Missouri calls the green frog “a game animal” and runs a bullfrog and green frog season, June 30 to October 31 in 2026, with a daily limit of 8 and a possession limit of 16, as both a fishing and a hunting season. Your state’s rules will likely be different, so look them up before you take a frog for any reason.

None of that stops a free-range hen. If she turns up a frog in the grass, that’s her business, and it’s her treat for the day. Keep her on a complete layer feed and keep big toads out of the run if they live near you. Then wash your hands. For what else to keep out of the feeder, see our list of what not to feed chickens, or look up one food at a time in our Can Chickens Eat It? tool. If you’re still setting up where your hens roam, our page on a pen versus a run goes through that choice.

Sources

• Beckmann and Shine (2010): The power of myth: the (non) impact of invasive cane toads on domestic chickens, Animal Production Science 50(9):847-851 (abstract, Macquarie University).
• Merck Veterinary Manual: Toad Poisoning in Dogs and Cats (reviewed July 2026).
• Merck Veterinary Manual, pet owner version: Toad Poisoning.
• UF/IFAS Extension: The Cane or “Bufo” Toad (Rhinella marina) in Florida (WEC387, revised April 2025).
• Merck Veterinary Manual: Helminthiasis in Poultry.
• USDA FoodData Central: Frog legs, raw (SR Legacy 168148).
• Alabama Cooperative Extension System: Feeding the Laying Hen (ANR-2913).
• Colorado State University Extension: Raising Poultry the Organic Way (disease control and feeding).
• UC Davis and UC Cooperative Extension: Feeding Your Flock (PDF).
• Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Chickens believed to silence noisy Big Isle coquis’ cries (October 1, 2006).
• CDC: Reptiles and Amphibians.
• CDC MMWR (2003): Reptile-Associated Salmonellosis, Selected States, 1998-2002.
• CDC MMWR (2009): Multistate Outbreak of Human Salmonella Typhimurium Infections Associated with Aquatic Frogs.
• CDC: Backyard Poultry.
• Cornell Wildlife Health Lab and NYS DEC: Chytridiomycosis fact sheet (PDF, December 2025).
• Missouri Department of Conservation: Frog (2026 seasons).

Sources checked October 26, 2026. The protein and calcium math is mine, from USDA’s frog leg numbers set against Alabama’s feed guide. So is the treat math, from Colorado State’s 10 percent. We aren’t vets. If a hen looks sick, call a vet who sees poultry.

Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe