St. John's Wort

[seminolewind]

Sorry if I understood this thread to be from those chicken owners who think of their chickens as pets or pets with benefits. I would think anyone trying the Hypericum is here because they are seeking something to save their beloved chickens .

There are many diseases in the world that have no recourse but protection from a vaccine. It's unfortunate that in over a hundred years, science has only come up with a Marek's vaccine that works for symptoms only and the chicken can be a carrier for life if just exposed.

Like Trident and me and many others, members with pet chickens are looking for something that will help their chicken survive. A vaccine is really the most likely thing to ensure their life. Not perfect but very good. The other thing I've had success with ONE time was with a pullet with paralysis that did walk again after 6 weeks. I have to say it was because she had the time to recuperate , and kept her weight and ate well. It may have been a rare occurrence. I don't think she recovered because of the naps we had together, LOL.

I vaccinate because I don't want a chick to suffer from Marek's and die. I don't use Hypericum, but I have the same goals as people on this thread do.

Way back, the OP had stated that this Hypericum was a cure. It is not. It's something that may or may not work. The goal here, I imagine , is to verify that it really works. That can only be done with a pathologist and a PCR before and after the Hypericum treatment. I look at this as the next step following layman documented trial and error. Not making people feel bad that it worked or not and posting their results.

 

[casportpony]

All these posts are making my head hurt, lol, will have to read them in detail later.

-Kathy

 

[chooks4life]

Like Trident and me and many others, members with pet chickens are looking for something that will help their chicken survive.

Generally, yes. But in the context of this thread specifically, they are looking for something to treat chickens that are already symptomatic, and by the time they know enough to look for SJW to treat possible Marek's, I'm sure they already have learned that vaccination is the usual prevention method. If somehow they'd missed that, now they know, several times over; if they've somehow still missed it, well, it wasn't for lack of chances, lol.

Good advice for prevention, I'm sure nobody is disagreeing with it. Not helpful advice for treating symptomatic birds though.

A vaccine is really the most likely thing to ensure their life. Not perfect but very good.

To be advising vaccination now won't do anything whatsoever to help people trying to treat already symptomatic chickens, and you know that even vaccinated chickens can become symptomatic.

I know your intentions are to help, I reckon everyone here has that intent, but the persistent derailing of threads on Marek's onto irrelevant subjects is unhelpful to everyone and to their chickens most of all; this just keeps happening, and when I try to point that out, for some reason some people respond by repeating statements nobody is disagreeing with... Page after page after page, it's like an infinite loop for some reason. I really don't get it.

I don't use Hypericum, but I have the same goals as people on this thread do.

The goal of the people on this thread is to specifically test SJW against symptomatic animals, and learn from it and gather info on it. So I don't quite see how your goal here is the same, since if I've understood you correctly your goal is complete prevention, not actually experimenting with SJW as treatment. Related, yes, but not the same.

Way back, the OP had stated that this Hypericum was a cure. It is not. It's something that may or may not work.

Even if a cure only works for a certain percentage, by definition, it's still a cure. Universal cures to any disease are very few.

The OP and others who said it was a cure later redefined their generalized statements, nobody is denying or challenging that, but it seems we must repeat this with every new page of the thread for some reason. Come on guys, this isn't helping anyone nor their chooks, can we please move past this?

The correct statement is not a universally generalized one, especially without official proof, we all agree on that. Many times over. No need to rehash it every page.

The goal here, I imagine, is to verify that it really works.

Yep. So amateur investigations and advice to vaccinate are clearly irrelevant to the thread subject, wouldn't you agree?

That can only be done with a pathologist and a PCR before and after the Hypericum treatment. I look at this as the next step following layman documented trial and error. Not making people feel bad that it worked or not and posting their results.

That's all true and not being contested by anyone here as far as I know.

Best wishes to all and their flocks.

 

[casportpony]

Too tired to read the last few posts, but let me say that even though a few people may not like what I post here, I will continue to post what *I* want to post on the subject.

-Kathy

 

[tridentk9]

If it was indicated, I might use St Johns Wort as an herbal remedy for one of my pests, I mean pets. Once the concentration is stabilized, herbal and western drugs pretty much follow the same basic rules. It makes sense to me.

I do find myself though not understanding homeopathy. To *me* it doesn't make sense. It doesn't help that SJW (herbal) is used for the same symptoms as hypericum (homeopathic).

Ahh Chooks, I re-read bits of the stuff you posted a few weeks back on SJW studies. The parts I read were using herbal strengths of SJW not homeopathic dilutions of hypericum. I certainly hope we can discuss both strengths. The liquid SJW could be used by those more interested in an herbal approach.

 

[chooks4life]

Too tired to read the last few posts, but let me say that even though a few people may not like what I post here, I will continue to post what *I* want to post on the subject.

-Kathy

As long as it's within forum rules, why not? Nobody here has an objection to that, as far as I know.

As I've said, it's perfectly valid to raise certain points, seek further info, and make certain clarifications, nobody's got an issue with any of that.

My comments were mostly about the pattern all threads on Marek's seem to follow. Constant hijacking with off-topic posts. Anyway, everything that needed to be said about all that has been said, I reckon, no point going over it.

Best wishes.

If it was indicated, I might use St Johns Wort as an herbal remedy for one of my pests, I mean pets. Once the concentration is stabilized, herbal and western drugs pretty much follow the same basic rules. It makes sense to me.

I do find myself though not understanding homeopathy. To *me* it doesn't make sense. It doesn't help that SJW (herbal) is used for the same symptoms as hypericum (homeopathic).

Ahh Chooks, I re-read bits of the stuff you posted a few weeks back on SJW studies. The parts I read were using herbal strengths of SJW not homeopathic dilutions of hypericum. I certainly hope we can discuss both strengths. The liquid SJW could be used by those more interested in an herbal approach.

It'd be great to continue to see people add their experiences whatever form of it they use. It'd be even more helpful if people took note of brands, I know there's plenty of herb sellers whose products I'd use for garden mulch at best, personally.

Best wishes.

 

[seminolewind]

If it was indicated, I might use St Johns Wort as an herbal remedy for one of my pests, I mean pets. Once the concentration is stabilized, herbal and western drugs pretty much follow the same basic rules. It makes sense to me.

I do find myself though not understanding homeopathy. To *me* it doesn't make sense. It doesn't help that SJW (herbal) is used for the same symptoms as hypericum (homeopathic).

Ahh Chooks, I re-read bits of the stuff you posted a few weeks back on SJW studies. The parts I read were using herbal strengths of SJW not homeopathic dilutions of hypericum. I certainly hope we can discuss both strengths. The liquid SJW could be used by those more interested in an herbal approach.

I always thought that SJW and Hypericum were the same thing.

 

[chickmom22]

I am reposting my experience with St. Johns Wort and Mariks disease from another thread. Maybe it will be helpful to someone else.

We've lost 2 chickens to Mariks disease in the last 3 months (both confirmed by Calif food & drug poultry lab through necropsy). So when the 3rd one began showing the same symptoms (weak legs, walking sideways, wry neck, not eating), I read through this post, then went to Walmart as the health stores were closed for the night. They had St.John's Wort in capsule form, so I bought that, opened one and dumped it into 2 tablespoons of 'pure' water. I used a glass bowl and plastic spoon (no metal). I gave her 15 drops in an eye dropper am and pm. I fully expected her to be dead the next morning, but she was alive but weak. After 2 days of treatment, she was dramatically better (sitting on the roost, strong wings, walking quite well), so I stopped the treatment. She again began walking crooked so I started treatment again. She started walking well again, scratching for bugs in the yard and eating grass. She's not back to eating grains yet, but eats some yogurt, oatmeal and ACV in the water. I've treated her for 5 days now, so will stop the treatment and see how she does. After losing the other two, this truly seems like a miracle. One was sick a month, getting so weak we had her put down, and the other was gone 2 days after we noticed symptoms. They both had internal tumors. So we are amazed at the difference with this treatment and hopeful that she will recover from this horrible disease!

Update: It's been nearly 3 weeks since we stopped the SJW treatment and Roxie is doing beautifully. She eats dry grains and seeds, and fermented every few days, she's busy scratching in the yard all day, growing feathers after a serious molt (at the same time she was ill) and at this point, you'd never know she was so sick. I firmly believe SJW is the only reason she is still with us and doing so well. Since everyone seems to think only the pill form of hypericum can be used, I want others to know that the powder form in St. Johns Wort did the job for us.

 

[tridentk9]

I am reposting my experience with St. Johns Wort and Mariks disease from another thread. Maybe it will be helpful to someone else.

We've lost 2 chickens to Mariks disease in the last 3 months (both confirmed by Calif food & drug poultry lab through necropsy). So when the 3rd one began showing the same symptoms (weak legs, walking sideways, wry neck, not eating), I read through this post, then went to Walmart as the health stores were closed for the night. They had St.John's Wort in capsule form, so I bought that, opened one and dumped it into 2 tablespoons of 'pure' water. I used a glass bowl and plastic spoon (no metal). I gave her 15 drops in an eye dropper am and pm. I fully expected her to be dead the next morning, but she was alive but weak. After 2 days of treatment, she was dramatically better (sitting on the roost, strong wings, walking quite well), so I stopped the treatment. She again began walking crooked so I started treatment again. She started walking well again, scratching for bugs in the yard and eating grass. She's not back to eating grains yet, but eats some yogurt, oatmeal and ACV in the water. I've treated her for 5 days now, so will stop the treatment and see how she does. After losing the other two, this truly seems like a miracle. One was sick a month, getting so weak we had her put down, and the other was gone 2 days after we noticed symptoms. They both had internal tumors. So we are amazed at the difference with this treatment and hopeful that she will recover from this horrible disease!

 
Update: It's been nearly 3 weeks since we stopped the SJW treatment and Roxie is doing beautifully. She eats dry grains and seeds, and fermented every few days, she's busy scratching in the yard all day, growing feathers after a serious molt (at the same time she was ill) and at this point, you'd never know she was so sick. I firmly believe SJW is the only reason she is still with us and doing so well. Since everyone seems to think only the pill form of hypericum can be used, I want others to know that the powder form in St. Johns Wort did the job for us.

Fantastic!

I'm not sure if you realize it, but you used a herbal concentration and dosage of SJW. Very different than the homeopathic concentration. This is similar to the strength used in the human studies linked by chooks a few weeks ago. How funny, extrapolating human studies for use in animals instead of the other way around!.

Given the reaction of SJW to light- if used on a naked neck, sunscreen would be good

 

[chooks4life]

Fantastic!

I'm not sure if you realize it, but you used a herbal concentration and dosage of SJW. Very different than the homeopathic concentration. This is similar to the strength used in the human studies linked by chooks a few weeks ago. How funny, extrapolating human studies for use in animals instead of the other way around!.

Given the reaction of SJW to light- if used on a naked neck, sunscreen would be good

It really is amazing how many parallels there are in how naturally occurring chemical substances work in both humans and animals, even of quite different types. (Read some interesting bits of info here and there about people using the same herbs for the same types of disorders on even aquatic animals that would never naturally encounter such plants.)

I didn't take much note of strengths used in the info I linked to, just the active properties and results, lol, but at least that info's there for posterity now.

Interesting thought about the sunscreen, lol... Wonder if exposure to excessive sunlight once the dose is in the animal could have a negative effect on the strength of the SJW... I know sufficient sunlight can knock vit A levels down and place more demand on the dietary intake of it, and affect other vitamin and chemical levels too, so it's a possibility. The topic of lighting types and endocrine and chemical reactions to them within the organism is probably a bit too complicated and irrelevant for this thread, we'd need more studies to take that info into account... If I use SJW or Hypericum in future I'll try to note any discrepancies observable. I've read that LED lighting can knock serotonin levels down by 6 times as much as fluoros, and low levels of serotonin are positively correlated with higher incidents of cancer and sometimes lower production of leukocytes.

Best wishes.