Bob's vet put me on to colloidal silver. I thought it was a lot of nonsense but then did some research and there is a fair bit of evidence for it as both anti-bacterial and anti-viral.Very interesting ! Thank you for the discussion.
Since you use eos, not sure if you can find it easily in the US, I use ravintsara (the cineol chemotype of cinnamonum camphora) for respiratory issues.
I would add Vitamin K, the antidote to all anticoagulant rodent poisons (which are the only type used here). Comes in useful if a hen eats a poisoned mouse !
I have two possibly "sensitive" questions. I'm not asking for opinions on whether it's a good thing or not as it would lead us into an endless debate. I would however be very interested and grateful if some of you have scientifically valid information.
First, as you probably know in my country it's impossible to have antibiotics for animals at home. The vet will only prescribe the exact number of pills you need for the animal you brought. Now, I'm fully aware no other substances have the same antibacterial effects as antibiotics and I am not in the least discussing this. My question is whether any of you have scientific information on products that could be interesting to use for their antibacterial action when you don't have antibiotics, even if they are far less efficient? I use oregano essential oil in some specific cases but it's very strong and I would certainly not give it to a very sick chicken, or to a chick.
(How do people handle this in my country? Well either they go to the vet or they use natural mixture of products available commercially. This is also true for AG operations, where the use of antibiotics is a last resort for layers, and forbidden for meat poultry. )
My second question is in regard to CBD. We were very late approving it's use for medical reasons compared to some of the US states, just last year. I understand that for humans, it's also used as a confort treatment for anxiety. Do any of you know if this is also the case for animals, and more especially for our chickens, or has it's use only been validated as a pain killer ?
I would find it very useful to have something that could help the chickens with stress as it has such a serious impact on their health.
Thank you all and hope you have a great Monday !
This is just one article - when I looked into it I found many others.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7167925/
Surface infections are usually reasonably easy to treat without drugs. Dry, air, sun and removing debris are all effective. That can be true even for quite serious infections if they are localized and not spread around the body.
Same is true for abscesses - open them and get out the gunk and make sure they fill in from the base and not close over - in mammals that is usually all easy because the pus is liquid and drains out on its own or with the aid of a small strip of gauze. It is much harder in chickens because the pus is solid - that is what bumble foot is - an abscess in the foot.
Once an infection is established in the blood stream or in an internal organ that you cannot access it is down to antibiotics or luck.
The only other example I can think of are infections in the intestines. Some of those can be treated by helping good bacteria crowd out the bad ones. That is what all the yoghurt/kefir/ACV stuff is all about.
There is also a thread on BYC about using Chinese Skullcap (a herb) as an anti-viral - again there seems to be a fair bit of data on it in a range of viruses including Marek's. Dosing is hard to understand though.
I have had them in since day one and tried real eggs too. Nothing.
