Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Did You Know? Chickens Eat Kosher For Passover, Too

For Passover, observant Jews abstain from eating any leavened foods, or chametz, for eight days. As it turns out — chickens and turkeys in Jewish slaughterhouses eat kosher for Passover too.

“All poultry sourced for Pesach has to be fed on a non-wheat feed diet,” a spokesperson for the London Board of Schechita told the Jewish News. The board is a main purveyor of kosher meats and poultry in England.

The Orthodox Union kosher certifying agency in the United States also observes this restriction. Rabbi Zvi Nussbaum of the Orthodox Union said that all of their poultry are fed leavening-free food all year.

When wheat, barley, spelt, oat, or rye come in contact with liquid, they are considered chametz. Wheat-free poultry feed is used to prevent chametz from somehow making its way into the final product.

Contact Shira Hanau at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.