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Citizen Science Project: Backyard

Chickens and Lead in Oz

Is Your Commercial Chickenfeed Lead-

contaminated?

By Grandma Lead, aka Elizabeth O’Brien, BSc, Grad Dip

Health Edn; Lead Scientist and Lead Advisor, The LEAD

Group Inc, Australia, June 2024

2022

Volcano Art Prize (VAP) Entry. Photographer: Max Taylor,

age 11. Title: Max’s Chickens.

Lead-safety Message: Lead in the dirt contaminates our

eggs.

https://volcanoartprize.com/portfolio-item/maxs-chickens/

Enter your chicken photos and very short films in VAP at

https://volcanoartprize.com/submitentry/

Prevention is so much better than cure so in

September 2022 The LEAD Group embarked on a Backyard Chickens and Lead Citizen Science

Project and we thank you in advance if you decide to buy a LEAD Group Kit at

https://leadsafeworld.com/leadkits specifically to test an egg (this costs an extra $30 in addition to the

price of the Kit) and to test commercial chicken feeds you feed your backyard chickens that are

different or the same as the ones we have had analysed for lead (see results in the table below).

The Stock Feed Manufacturers’ Council of Australia has asked us to provide the batch numbers and

lead results for any stockfeeds tested for lead in our Backyard Chickens and Lead Citizen Science

Project. We can also report to your state primary industry department if your chicken feed lead results

don’t comply with the Maximum Recommended Limit for lead, so please let us know if you do feed your

chickens with any of the feeds that have been found already to not comply.

Please check out the key Macquarie Uni research in inner Sydney by Professor Mark Taylor (from The

LEAD Group’s Technical Advisory Board) and his team that inspired me to start the Project:

Lead poisoning of backyard chickens: Implications for urban gardening and food production by

Tahereh [Sara] Yazdanparast, Vladimir Strezov, Peter Wieland, Yi-Jen Lai, Dorrit E. Jacob & Mark

LEAD Action News Volume 22 Number 2 June 2024 55 of 73

Patrick Taylor, Environmental Pollution 310 (2022) 119798 / Volume 310, 1 October 2022, online 18 July

2022.

The Sydney backyard chickens study (Yazdanparast et al 2022) basically says that while soil lead is the

best predictor of egg lead, incredibly, 69% of the commercial chicken feeds XRF-screened for lead and

43% of the chicken water samples analysed for lead also had too much lead in them! So to prevent

lead poisoning of backyard chickens and their eggs and anyone who eats the eggs it is essential that

you ensure all the soil they have access to is extremely low in lead, that you choose commercial chicken

feeds with non-detectable or at least the lowest lead levels possible (see the 10 we had tested at the

National Measurement Institute (NMI) Lab in the above attachment and consider having yours tested

via a LEAD Group Kit so we can increase the number of Chicken Feed Lead results we can send to our

clients), and that you ensure low-lead drinking water for the chickens. Test your chicken water for lead

with a LEAD Group Kit if the tap is less than three years old or if you water the chickens with a PVC hose

or if the water source is rainwater or borewater.

2016 VAP Entry.

Photographer: Elizabeth O’Brien.

Title: Test your stock feed at a lab with a LEAD Group

Kit,

Lead-safety Message: Does your stock feed meet

the Stock Food Act lead, cadmium and mercury

limits? A LEAD Group Kit found a brand of chicken

feed (not shown here) had 5 times the lead limit but

there was no lead detected in the Organic chook

food / layer mash made by Country Heritage Feeds.

https://volcanoartprize.com/portfolio-item/test-your-

stock-feed-at-a-lab-with-a-lead-group-Kit/

If your poultry’s soil lead level is above 30

mg/kg (milligrams of lead per kilogram of soil), The LEAD Group recommends that you ask the doctor

to test the blood lead level of anyone who has eaten or may in future be regularly eating the eggs,

and that you have an egg (per laying chicken) tested for lead. Egg analysis for lead (and other heavy

metals and a scan for pesticides) can be done using a LEAD Group kit, available at

https://www.leadsafeworld.com/shop/ - by ordering a LEAD Group Kit and Egg Preparation for Testing

and just packaging up the whole raw egg - so it doesn’t break in the mail, and posting it with your

other LEAD Group kit sample containers, to our lab.

The lead analysis is included in the price of the kit, and you pay extra per sample:

● $30 for digestion (preparation for analysis) of each egg

● $15 for each other heavy metal you want analysed, and

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● $60 if you want the pesticides scan.

Please note that if you want both metals and pesticides tested in eggs, you need to send one egg for

the metal analysis/es and another egg for the pesticides scan (as it will be sent out from our lab to be

analysed/scanned at two other labs).

Currently, the cost of lead analysis, Other Heavy Metal analysis, Asbestos Detection and Egg

Preparation for Testing can be paid by Paypal or Credit Card when you order a kit at

https://www.leadsafeworld.com/shop/ so if you want to pay for more tests eg scan of pesticides in

soil, commercial chicken feed or eggs, you should first phone to check the price then pay by Direct

Debit and email us a copy of your online banking receipt for your transfer, along with your name,

phone number/s and postal address so we can send you the kit by email.

Our bank account details for these payments can be found at https://leadsafeworld.com/direct-bank-

transfer/ and are:

Account Name: The LEAD Group LEAD

BSB: 812170

Account Number: 101078452

Reference: [write what you’re paying for]

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Please check out the following lead results in Commercial Chickenfeeds available in Australia obtained

so far in this Citizen Science Project

Table: Chicken Feed Lead Results from National Measurement Institute (NMI) for The LEAD Group’s

Citizen Science Project: Backyard Chickens and Lead in Oz – Is Your Commercial Chickenfeed Lead-

contaminated?

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