by Meredith Chilson Some years ago, we had a lovely neighbor who could grow anything. I would take my babies to visit with her, and we would come home with the back of the car filled with cuttings and clippings of various herbs and pots and buckets of perennials. I think of her every spring when my English violets and white forget-me-nots bloom, and again when I harvest borage, mints and comfrey. The herb teas steeping beside the fragrant little bouquet sitting on my table bring back special memories and reminders of stories and advice imparted by my old friend.
One summer afternoon I was admiring the beautiful leafy plants growing along my neighbor’s back pasture…many of which she had been pulling up and stuffing in garbage bags for compost. She told me it was comfrey, “a nuisance, but wonderful for making poultices to treat bruises and sprains”, and “if I had a cow, I could feed the stuff to her.” I believed I had just the place for a plant, so I was given a tiny piece of root and told to plant it where it could spread—and not to tell anyone where I had gotten it, since she didn’t want to be blamed! My friend and neighbor is gone now, so I suppose I needn’t keep it a secret, but—the plants that have grown from that first tiny root truly have established themselves in corners of my garden where not much else will grow!
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| Prickly stems |
Until I began raising chickens, most of my interaction with comfrey was limited to trimming it back in the summer, hauling it out after the autumn frost, and relegating it to the compost pile. I knew to wear gloves when I worked with it, because the prickly little hairs on the stems made me itch, but I always admired the beautiful large green leaves. After chickens became part of my life, however, and I was on the look out for leafy greens to add to their diet, I remembered my old friend’s comment about using comfrey for cow feed and decided to investigate the possibility of using the herb for the chickens.
I have a wonderful resource book, Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs. Armed with this book and the Internet, I began my research.
Rodale’s section on comfrey (Symphytum officinale) begins this way:
“Throughout history comfrey has been acclaimed a great healer. In the last 100 years, it has been seen—in addition—by a few visionaries as a crop to feed the world’s hungry.”
Well, how about that? At just about the same time, I discovered a that a book had been written in the 1950’s by a man named Lawrence Hills, promoting the use of comfrey: Russian Comfrey: A Hundred Tons an Acre of Stock feed or Compost for Farm, Garden or Smallholding.
Sounds like a terrific idea, right? Reading further in the Rodale Encyclopedia, however, I found, “….fairly recent scientific studies indicated that comfrey might be carcinogenic, and this herb fell from grace. Now it stands caught in the crossfire of opposing opinions.”
SUSPECTED CARCINOGEN. That’s right at the top of the “Comfrey” page.
I needed to know more, so from the beginning:
Historically since the early Greeks, various healers have used comfrey. The rhizomes contain a slippery substance that, when heated, becomes sticky and glue like. Healers felt that teas, poultices or compresses made from this substance ought to help heal broken bones, wounds, even diarrhea. The large shredded leaves were used in teas and salads; dried and given to pigs and cattle.
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| leafy greens! |
As far as I can tell, comfrey was used in and on animals and humans for hundreds of years. In the mid-20th century, Lawrence Hills wrote his book, and it seems there was some definite interest in growing large amounts of comfrey for use as livestock feed. In 1974, Mother Earth News printed two articles explaining the ease of cultivation and the possibilities of use. And then, at nearly the same time, some research was done on rats that showed a possible connection between eating dried comfrey and development of liver tumors. The fields of comfrey were left to go wild, and I wasn’t able to find much that has been written recently about the herb. (I wasn’t able to find who did the research, either.)
The substance in question, which comfrey contains, is allantoin. If you look this up, you’ll find that it affects tissue and cell growth. It is found also in parts of a fetal placenta and in breast milk, and a synthetic allantoin is used in the production of face creams and lotions. Because of the regenerative properties of comfrey, it can speed healing of wounds and burns, and if you take all this a step further, it would stand to reason that it could accelerate cancerous cell growth as well.
Comfrey has been deemed safe to handle and to use externally. Internal use is not advised.
Do I want to feed this to my chickens?
To be honest, I have been feeding comfrey to my chickens. There’s a large patch of it right near the chicken run, and they often snip off pieces of those leaves. And, once or twice a summer, I’ve hung a bunch of those nice leaves from a cross arm over the run and let them pick and peck. I’ve not noticed any adverse effects, but I really don’t know how much comfrey might have caused problems in those rats, or if those lab rats were fed only comfrey. Any comfrey that my hens have eaten they’ve shared with the whole flock—and they are eating commercial laying feed, too.
Will I continue giving bunches of comfrey to my chickens?
Well…maybe. I wondered if, other than ease of cultivation, there might be some healthful reason farmers had used and recommended comfrey as a livestock feed for so many years. Yes, the leaves are lovely, green and leafy.
In doing further research, I discovered that dried comfrey is nearly one-quarter crude protein. It has been used for pigs and poultry because it has less fiber than most grasses. Lawrence Hill’s book suggests that lower fiber greens, like comfrey, are more easily digested by chickens, and we chicken-farmers know that to be a fact.
This is still not much of a recommendation for steady feeding of comfrey. Cabbage also has less fiber than grasses.
Rather than directly feeding comfrey to my chickens, I intend to feed it to my human family—indirectly. I believe I can do this in a safe, yet healthful way–a way that was also suggested to me by my old gardening friend and neighbor. Comfrey makes wonderful compost, and I use compost in my gardens to grow lovely, green and leafy vegetables!
13 Comments
One of the reason that comfrey is so good in compost is that it’s what permaculturists call a “dynamic accumulator”. It has incredibly deep root systems that mine minerals from deep soil layers and bring them up and concentrate in their leaves. So the leaves are a source of important trace minerals. Cycling them through your compost pile or your chickens makes them available to the plants in your garden. I think feeding them as an occasional treat is probably good for your chickens 🙂
One of the reason that comfrey is so good in compost is that it’s what permaculturists call a “dynamic accumulator”. It has incredibly deep root systems that mine minerals from deep soil layers and bring them up and concentrate in their leaves. So the leaves are a source of important trace minerals. Cycling them through your compost pile or your chickens makes them available to the plants in your garden. I think feeding them as an occasional treat is probably good for your chickens 🙂
Most bugs and diseases arrive with new plants. You can prevent a lot of problems by simply inspecting a plant thoroughly before bringing it home.
weed
Ellen, Yes you can. I’ve always just used cuttings or roots, but it’s available by seed from various catalogues. I think it has a fairly long germination period, so if you try the seeds, don’t give up! I’d like to hear how it works!
Can you buy it as seed and plant it? Ellen from Georgia
Thank you for all the feed back! It seems as if this is another one of those: “a little is good-a lot isn’t” herbs. I am planning to make some “tea” this weekend, and now I also have suggestions for a couple more books to read. to Seed-Sower: I wondered about another agenda, too.
I would recommend to all to check out the books of Juliette de Bairacli Levy. She was an allopathically trained veterinarian who spent the bulk of her career traveling & studying the systems of medicine of itinerant cultures. I have used many of her remedies for both myself & my animals with great success. Comfrey was one of her favoured herbs. (This is a woman who had champion Afghan hounds that lived to 22 years on average!)
I first learned about comfrey from my grandmother, who grew comfrey in a garden box so it wouldn’t spread. The leaves were as big as tobacco. She had it to make into salve, and for a poultice for bruises. She drank a little as tea, but not regularly. In the book “City Chicks” by Patricia Foreman, she talks about comfrey a lot. She likes to plant it along a wire fence, so the chickens nibble a bit as it comes through the wire. She also made a salve out of it that cured one of her chickens that was caught by a dog. I think in a balanced diet of many other options, comfrey is a great addition to your flock’s diet.
Now a days just about anything can be considered to be a cause of cancer.. Comfery like many other herbs are suspect..but could it bea slander by feed companies and their push of GMO into the feed supply? Or the work of an over zealous researcher? Comfery has been used as a supplement for protein in herd animals for as long as time..animals will graze the stuff if found in the wild; and leave things that are poisionous alone, ( It’s kind of like they know the difference between the good and the bad).. The key to using comfery like all things is moderation! While it is a great source of protein it lacks in other areas.. It’s best use is in the compost pile or as a tea fertilizer; how ever with this said and this is the problem I have with many foolish ideas that come from the USDA and FDA.. if they are placed in the compost pile or as a tea, do not the chemicals that are “suspect” in comfery leach into the soil? Are they not then applied to the leaves of edible plants, drawn up through the roots? Common sense would tell you they would have to be.. Maybe it is time we defunded a lot of the nonsense coming from the USDA and FDA, and let people make up their own minds.
My only personal experience, and this includes no scientific info to back it up, comes from a group of 3 brown leghorns I got from a comfrey farmer in NC. This was early on in owning chickens, and they were part of a small flock. The farmer was very into comfrey, and stated to us many of the properties you mention in the blog, including it’s healing abilities. He raised his chickens in the comfrey field, so I’m guessing that it as a massive percentage of their diets.
None of the 3 survived more than 5 months. I never had an issue with the rest of the flock. They all became unthrifty, sickly, would rarely eat, and just stand around with their wings out, trying to soak up some rays. We finally put them out of their misery.
I could have got a necropsy done I guess, but it was more important for us to keep building our flock, so we moved on. After more time, and lots of reading, my OPINION ONLY, is that too much comfrey may have done some damage to internal organs, with a cumulative effect that finally put them down. I have no other idea what could have done it.
I have had chooks for over 8 years and have comfrey growing. the chooks love it and would eat it to death if I didn’t fence off the plants and only allow the chooks occasional access. About every 2nd or 3rd day I allow the chooks to eat one plant down then cage the plant again to regrow. They also eat what grows out thru the cage. They get fair amounts and I don’t know if it hurts them but they all seem to do OK. Our oldest died only recently, she was 8.5 years old. They get comfrey all summer and autumn till the plants die down for the winter.
“Smelly” is right. I’ve made the tea and it gets pretty rank by the time you’re ready to use it. Even so, it’s a good choice AND it’s relatively inexpensive because one plant begets another begets another. And you get at least two cutting from it in a season. (and that’s cutting it down to the ground)
Make Comfrey Tea to fertilize your other plants. Soak comfrey leaves in the bucket of water for a couple weeks. The leaves break down into a smelly dark liquid. Dilute that with 5 parts water and give to your plants. Organic fertilizer.