Okay, so while I was doing my daily check of new posts I came across a past post discussing whether or not it's a good idea to give earthworms to chicks. Having already given my 5 day old chicks a big fat earthworm to eat/play with once a day for the last couple of days I began to panic and looked for what to do next. I found a weblink about food grade DE and it seems to be great stuff but this gives me something else to worry about. The area where we are building the coop and run used to be where my pool was. The filter used to be a DE filter but we changed it to a cartridge filter about 3 years ago. However the ground out there is still very powdery (was covered by a deck) from the DE filter being backwashed in that area. It's true that this stuff is great for keeping insects away because even after all this time there's not a single ant pile anywhere in this area while the rest of my yard is a mine field of them. But since it was not food grade DE it was treated with chemicals (according to that weblink) and not safe for my chicks. Does anyone know if I should cover up all of this powdery dirt in their run area or has enough time gone by to wash away any chemicals and make it safe and maybe even beneficial to have in their run?
Thanks!
Thanks!
