Do chickens explode when you feed them uncooked rice?

Exploding Birds

This is a common misconception. No chicken, seagull, dove, pigeon, or any other bird for that matter has ever "exploded" after eating uncooked rice.

The rice WILL expand in the body, but it is usually not enough to cause any problems. However, sometimes the rice will cause an impactation in the crop or the stomach which will eventually kill the bird.

"Explosions" don't happen with uncooked rice.

Answer

May lead to crop rot, but I hardly doubt even that.

ACTUAL Answer

No, uncooked rice will not cause any bird to explode. And, contrary to previous posters, it will not even expand in the stomach. Uncooked rice expands by absorbing hot (usually boiling) water. Though the water doesn't have to be boiling for absorption to take place, absorbtion slows greatly at normal avian body temperatures. So, even if the water was available in the bird's stomach, it would take hours, perhaps days, for the rice to expand significantly. Acid in the stomach would break down the rice and pass it through to the next stage of digestion long before this became an issue. Moreover, birds just don't drink a lot of water, because the weight makes it harder for them to fly. And what little water they do drink passes through their digestive system much faster than the rice. But, even if the water and the rice stayed there in the stomach for long enough for full absorbtion to take place, the total volume of the rice and water does not increase when the rice absorbs the water. If you had 2 teaspoons of water and 1 teaspoon of uncooked rice in a bird's stomach, when the rice absorbs the water, you would have, at most, 3 teaspoons of "cooked" rice, the same total volume as before the water was absorbed. Whether it's water, uncooked rice, cooked rice, or any combination of the three, 3 teaspoons is 3 teaspoons. If 3 teaspoons of cooked rice is enough to explode a bird's stomach, then so is 2 teaspoons of water and 1 teaspoon of uncooked rice.

If you believe that uncooked rice will explode in a bird's stomach, I invite you to travel to Southwest Louisiana during rice planting season. Hundred of millions of blackbirds overwinter down there, waiting for the rice farmers to plant before they fly north to become pests in corn and soybean fields in the Midwest. Rice is planted by broadcasting from an airplane. When the blackbirds hear a plane flying over, they will actually follow the plane to the field being planted, and as soon as the seed (which is the rice grain itself, essentially identical to "uncooked rice") is dumped in the field, the blackbirds will land and will literally pick the field clean. As you can imagine, this is quite an inconvenience to hundreds of rice farmers in Southwest Louisiana. They would very much like to eradicate blackbirds. If you could kill them by simply letting them eat all the rice they wanted to, until they exploded, then you would see tens of thousands of dead blackbirds lying in every rice field in the area. But the only dead blackbirds you will find in a Louisiana rice field are the ones that the farmers killed with shotguns (or that the USDA killed with poison).

As for chickens, specifically, they generally eat corn. Not because rice is bad for them, but because corn has more nutritive value per cost. But here's the thing. Corn, like rice, is a cereal grain. And dry corn will expand, under the right conditions, just like rice will ("grits" is ground corn, cooked similarly to rice, by boiling in water). So, if rice will expand in a chicken's stomach, then so will corn. So if uncooked rice caused chickens to explode, then so would corn. But corn doesn't cause chickens to explode. And neither does uncooked rice.

Birds have been eating "uncooked" grains for as long as mankind has been growing them (and even before that, birds were eating the wild pre-cursors to such grains for millions of years). Except for predatory birds, uncooked grains and similar seeds make up the majority of most birds' diets. In fact, most "bird feed" is composed mostly of a variety to these uncooked grains. All of these grains will expand when soaked in water for a sufficient period of time (though the length of time decreases as the temperature of the water increases). And yet, birds don't die from eating uncooked grains. If they did, they wouldn't be around anymore.

It is true that many churches (and other places where people get married) have banned the throwing of rice at weddings. Though some of these bans were probably established after this myth started making the rounds, the original bans were established because dry rice on concrete or other hard surfaces can cause people to slip and fall, causing injury. Rice kernels are roughly cylindrical in shape, and will roll, similarly to marbles, though in only two directions. Ironically, many places that have banned the throwing of rice allow "bird seed" as a substitute. But the primary ingredient in most birds seeds is grain sorghum, which is almost perfectly spherical, and therefore much more likely than rice to roll (because a sphere can roll in any direction) and cause people to slip and fall.

If you are at a wedding, and the church forbids the throwing of rice, I strongly recommend that you abide by that rule, for the safety of humans, not for that of the birds. But don't replace it with bird seed, as this is potentially much more dangerous to humans. I have been in weddings where the guests were given small containers of bubble soap and tiny bubble wands to blow bubbles at the happy couple, and that was kinda cool. But I'm sure that, once the environmentalists get wind of it, they're going to want to ban that too, because of all the detergents that end up "polluting" the environment.

First answer by ID2392994820. Last edit by Takamo. Contributor trust: 75 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 42 [recommend question]