Apple cider vinegar?

[Debbie292d]

ACV can also inhibit the bird's ability to absorb calcium.

Plain fresh water is best.

So does spinach. All in moderation.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

So, there's some studies. Most are relatively small scale and brief duration.

There are some tiny benefits of using ACV (or any acid, actually, lactic acid actually outperfrms acetic acid in several studies) if your water is particularly alkaline (think pH 8+)

There are other studies which show very tiny benefits to using the "mother" (live/active cultures) as a dietary suppliment. Again, whether that's ACV, or yogurt, or kombucha doesn't much seem to matter.

How small? differences are measured in grams. This is one of the longer studies - 42 days. It confirmed a few smaller/shorter studies, that there is measurable benefit in the first 10 days or so of life - benefits which almost completely disappear over the next month in the ways most people measure. Morphologically, you see longer, heavier intestines, with deeper villi crypts - but most of us aren't in the business of producing chicken intestines for sausage making...

 

[Farmgirl283420]

Oh good I never put that much!

That's only if it's excessive. If you do it controlled, as in no more than 1 Tablespoon per gallon of water, and raw (with the Mother in it,) it's fine.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Most of the studies look at inclusion rates between one and three percent. There are 256 tablespoons in a standard gallon. Or perhaps more accurately there are 256 standard tablespoons in a gallon. In any event one tablespoon per gallon is less than 1/2 of 1%.
To the extent that ACV has any consistent effect at all one tablespoon per gallon would be expected to have less than the tiny effects found in the studies.