DE caused chickens to stop eating

[BoppiesHens]

Help!
My chickens stopped eating their usual pellets after I tried mixing DE into the food for a dewormer (I read that this was okay).

I’ve tried mixing some treats into the pellets and it only causes them to hunt for treats and make a mess of their run! I’m at a loss of what to try besides just feeding them scraps and treats. This also coincides with summer coming on

 

[NatJ]

Did you mix the DE into all the pellets you had? How much did you put in?

If there's a large amount of DE in the pellets, you might be able to put the pellets into a strainer and rattle them around so some of the DE falls off.

You could offer only pellets, as igorsMistress suggested, until they get back to eating the pellets.

You could put a few pellets in a dish and get them wet with water--sometimes chickens like them better that way.

If you're worried about the chickens not eating, you could buy new pellets to feed the chickens.

(If you buy new pellets, you could offer one feeder of each in hopes that they'll eventually eat the older ones, or you could just throw away the ones they're refusing.)

 

[igorsMistress]

DE is touted as a cure for many things but it's not for internal worms. Once wet it becomes ineffective. Just put out the pellets and don't give them anything else until they're back on their feed. Limit treats like scratch, they should be finding lots of bugs and if they free range they'll find seeds and greens.

 

[BoppiesHens]

Ended up as a “lesson learned”. Threw out old pellets and researched more info about deworming. Bought Strike 3 and no more poopy bum feathers