Yes, chickens can eat purslane. It’s a fleshy garden weed that people eat too, and a grown hen can have a handful of it. The catch isn’t the purslane. It’s the plant that grows right beside it.
That one’s spotted spurge. It sprawls across the same bare dirt and sidewalk cracks, and its stems bleed a milky sap that blisters a mouth. So before anything goes over the fence, you want to know which one you pulled.
I rewrote this page from 14 sources, and they’re all listed at the bottom. Most plant facts come from UC IPM and NC State, with a Nevada fact sheet filling the gaps. The food numbers come from USDA’s FoodData Central. The hen trials are two published feeding studies. Where something is my own math or my own call, I’ll say so.
The short version.
- Purslane is safe for hens in small amounts. It’s a green, not a feed.
- Gram for gram, it has about an eighth of the protein in layer feed. It’s 93 percent water.
- The omega-3 eggs in the studies came from dried purslane mixed into the feed every day. A handful from the garden isn’t that.
- It’s high in oxalate. Keep it to a handful now and then.
- Snap a stem first. If it bleeds white, it’s spurge, and it doesn’t go to the flock.
Yes, and It’s an Easy Weed to Share
Purslane is a summer weed with juicy stems and small paddle-shaped leaves. UC IPM’s weed gallery calls it “a summer annual broadleaf plant” and says the mature plant “grows prostrate to spreading.” The leaves run about a fifth of an inch to an inch and a fifth long, and their edges are sometimes red.
Nevada’s extension guide puts it in gardens and lawns, and adds, “It will also grow in cracks in the pavement.” So if you’ve got a vegetable bed, you’ve probably pulled it.
People eat it on purpose, too. UC IPM’s pest note says “Common purslane is edible, with a sweet, yet acidlike flavor.” NC State’s plant database says the leaves and stems can be eaten raw, as in a salad, and “It is eaten throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Mexico.”
Nothing I read names purslane as a poultry poison. The same NC State page does flag something worth knowing, though, and we’ll get to it. Honestly, the bigger risk is what you think you’re pulling.
A Cup of It Is Mostly Water
Here’s what USDA measured in 100 grams of raw purslane (FoodData Central, FDC ID 169274):
- Water: 92.9 grams
- Calories: 20
- Protein: 2.03 grams
- Fat: 0.36 grams
- Calcium: 65 milligrams
- Potassium: 494 milligrams
- Vitamin C: 21 milligrams
USDA weighs one cup of it at 43 grams. That’s a lot of plant for not much food.
Now put it next to what a laying hen needs. Alabama Extension’s layer diet calls for “Protein 16% or more” and “Calcium 3% to 4%.” So 100 grams of layer feed carries at least 16 grams of protein and 3,000 to 4,000 milligrams of calcium.
Purslane has about an eighth of that protein. It has roughly a fiftieth of the calcium. That’s my math from those two sources.
None of that makes it a bad treat. It makes it a treat. Alabama says “A laying hen will consume between 100 and 150 grams of feed per day,” and Colorado State says “Treats should make up no more than 10% of their daily diet.” The bag from the feed store is still dinner.
The Omega-3 Eggs Came From Dried Purslane in the Feed
This is the part most purslane pages oversell. They’ll tell you it’s loaded with omega-3s and your yolks will get richer. There’s something real under that, but it’s smaller than it sounds.
A 2014 review in The Scientific World Journal (Uddin and coauthors) says “Purslane is a very good source of alpha-linolenic acid.” That’s the plant omega-3, ALA for short. USDA’s purslane entry doesn’t list fatty acids at all, so I can’t give you a number from it.
Then there are the hen trials. In a 2010 study, Aydin and Dogan fed sixty 80-week-old layers dried purslane at 10 or 20 grams per kilogram of feed for 84 days, against a control group that got none. Both purslane groups laid heavier eggs. At 20 grams per kilogram, the hens also laid more of them, and their yolks carried more omega-3 fatty acids. Egg cholesterol didn’t change. Those hens weighed less than the control birds, too.
A 2022 study in the Czech Journal of Animal Science went big. Dalle Zotte and Pranzo mixed 20 percent dried purslane into the feed of young layers for 21 days. The yolks got a little more polyunsaturated fat, and the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio improved from 11.3 to 10.4. But the hens’ laying efficiency dropped to 0.69, against 0.88 in the control group, and the authors blamed “The poor palatability of the PO diet.” The hens didn’t like it.
Both trials used dried purslane, ground into the ration, every single day. Two percent of 100 to 150 grams of feed is 2 to 3 grams of dried purslane a day. Fresh purslane is about 7 percent solids, so that’s very roughly 30 to 40 grams of fresh leaves, close to a cup, every day for 12 weeks. That’s my math, and it assumes the dried purslane held almost no water.
I wouldn’t expect a few handfuls tossed in the run to change your yolks. If omega-3 eggs are the goal, flax is what egg producers use, and our flax seeds post covers that.
Oxalate Is Why a Handful Beats a Bucket
NC State’s purslane page carries a warning, though. Under “Poison Toxic Principle,” its purslane page lists “Soluble calcium oxalates,” and adds “hamful to livestock in high amounts” (their typo, not mine). Nevada’s guide says “Large amounts of purslane can be toxic to livestock and people.”
The 2014 review puts a number on it. It says “Purslane is amongst the group of plants with high oxalate contents,” and gives 671 to 869 milligrams per 100 grams of fresh leaves. That’s more than ten times the calcium in the same leaves, by weight. My math, from that review and USDA’s 65 milligrams.
The Merck Veterinary Manual explains the worry. Its page on oxalate plants is written for pets and livestock, not chickens. It says a taste or a nibble “may result in GI upset” at most. With large amounts, “soluble oxalates released from the plant initially bind to calcium, resulting in hypocalcemia,” and calcium oxalate can damage the kidneys. Merck says that’s “more readily seen in livestock grazing large quantities.”
A laying hen goes through a lot of calcium. Alabama’s page says “The eggshell is composed of around 96 percent calcium carbonate,” which is why it wants layer diets so heavy in it. I couldn’t find a source that gives a safe amount of purslane for hens. So I’m not going to invent one.
My call is a handful for a few hens, a few times a week, as one of several greens. I wouldn’t dump a bucket of it in the run every day just because the garden’s full of it. The 2010 trial did feed it every day, but at 1 to 2 percent of the ration, dried, and it measured eggs, not kidneys.
Snap a Stem Before You Pick. Spurge Bleeds White
Nevada’s purslane guide has a photo with a caption that says it plainly: “It’s not uncommon to see purslane growing with other weeds, such as spotted spurge.” Both are flat summer weeds that love bare dirt and pavement cracks. Both can have reddish stems.
They’re not the same plant, and spurge is the one you don’t want in the run. UC IPM says “Spurges have a milky, sticky sap that can cause contact dermatitis in humans and animals.” NC State lists spotted spurge as poisonous, and says that if it’s eaten, “blistering can occur on lips and oral mucosa.”
Here’s how I’d tell them apart, all from those extension pages:
- Stems. NC State calls purslane’s stems thick and succulent, with a smooth surface. Both plants can have reddish stems, so color won’t settle it.
- Leaves. Purslane leaves are fleshy and shiny (Nevada). Spurge leaves are thin and 4 to 17 millimeters long, “often marked with a characteristic dark, reddish spot” in the middle. New ones are “typically hairy, especially lower leaf surfaces” (UC IPM).
- Sap. Break a spurge stem and “a milky, sticky sap oozes from the stem” (UC IPM). That’s the quick test.
Wear gloves for that last one. NC State says spurge sap “can cause skin irritation or a rash.” If a mat has both plants tangled together, I’d skip it rather than sort it leaf by leaf.
Pull It Before the Yellow Flowers Go to Seed
Purslane’s flowers are small and yellow, with five petals. UC IPM says they “typically open only on hot, sunny days from midmorning to early afternoon,” from May through September. Once you see them, seed isn’t far behind.
And it makes a lot of seed. UC IPM’s pest note says “A single plant may produce 240,000 seeds, which may germinate even after 5 to 40 years.” It also warns that “seeds may continue to ripen a week later even after a plant is pulled.” And the fleshy stems “can remain moist and viable for several days after cultivation and hoeing,” then root again once the bed is watered.
Hens will pick at seeds, sure. But I couldn’t find anything on whether purslane seed survives a chicken’s gizzard. NC State does say seeds eaten by white-tailed deer pass through and stay viable. So my call is to pull it young, before it flowers, if you don’t want more of it next year.
One more thing about where you pick. UC IPM says “There are many herbicides that will control common purslane,” and Nevada suggests spot-treating it with broadleaf weed killers. Purslane in a lawn edge or a sidewalk crack may have been sprayed by a neighbor or the city. Only pick it where you know nothing was sprayed. If you did spray, read that product’s label before any animal eats from that spot.
How I’d Hand It to the Flock
Once you’re sure it’s purslane, this part’s easy.
- Pick it from a spot you know wasn’t sprayed, before it flowers if you can.
- Snap a stem. No milk, no spurge.
- Rinse off the dirt and toss in the whole stems.
- Give about what they’ll clean up in a few minutes. Colorado State says “Do not feed more than can be consumed in 5 – 10 minutes to not attract nuisance animals.”
- Rake out what’s left so it doesn’t rot into the bedding.
Keep the layer feed and the oyster shell out like always. Colorado State says to “Ensure your birds have free access to grit and a calcium source like oyster shell or eggshells.” Birds in a small run need grit from you, since they can’t pick up their own.
UC Davis’s feeding guide puts it about as well as anyone: “treat the scraps like a treat not like the main course.” Purslane’s a decent treat. It just isn’t feed, and it isn’t a cure for anything.
Got another plant from the garden in mind? Our can chickens eat it checker covers a long list of foods. We’ve also written up hostas and ferns, and there’s a longer list of what not to feed chickens.
Sources
- USDA FoodData Central: Purslane, raw (SR Legacy, FDC ID 169274).
- UC IPM Weed Identification Gallery: Common purslane (updated January 2026).
- D.W. Cudney, UC IPM Pest Notes: Common Purslane (UC ANR Publication 7461).
- Susan Donaldson and Wendy Hanson Mazet, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension: A Northern Nevada Homeowner’s Guide to Identifying and Managing Common Purslane (Fact Sheet 10-23).
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Portulaca oleracea.
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Euphorbia maculata (spotted spurge).
- UC IPM Weed Identification Gallery: Spotted spurge (updated January 2026).
- Md. Kamal Uddin and coauthors: Purslane Weed (Portulaca oleracea): A Prospective Plant Source of Nutrition, Omega-3 Fatty Acid, and Antioxidant Attributes (The Scientific World Journal, 2014).
- R. Aydin and I. Dogan: Fatty acid profile and cholesterol content of egg yolk from chickens fed diets supplemented with purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.) (Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 2010).
- Antonella Dalle Zotte and Gianluca Pranzo: Effects of dried Portulaca oleracea supplementation to the laying hen diet (Czech Journal of Animal Science, 2022).
- Renee D. Schmid, Merck Veterinary Manual: Houseplants and Ornamentals Toxic to Animals (the soluble oxalate section; updated September 2024).
- Wilmer Pacheco, Joseph Gulizia and Kevin Downs, Alabama Cooperative Extension: Feeding the Laying Hen.
- Colorado State University Extension: Raising Poultry the Organic Way: Disease Control and Feeding.
- Maurice Pitesky and Nancy Reimers, UC Davis / UC Agriculture and Natural Resources: Feeding your Flock.
Sources checked October 27, 2026. The protein and calcium comparisons, the oxalate-to-calcium comparison and the dried-to-fresh purslane math are my math from these sources. The handful-a-few-times-a-week amount, the steps and the advice on seeds and sprayed spots are my own calls. We aren’t vets. If a hen eats a lot of something and seems sick, call a vet who sees poultry.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe