Garlic as antibiotic

deeschicks19

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I have read that garlic is good for hens as an antibiotic. Are you giving it to them raw or cooked?
 
You can put crushed cloves in the water if you have a plastic watered but not in a galvanised one. I just chop it up raw and mix it in with their afternoon treats, some love it, some hate it!
 
Ive read that there are various herbs and plants which are good for many different things, including mite control. I feed my hens Mint and lavender too.
 
If you feed your chickens lots of garlic it apparently makes the droppings smell like garlic and the eggs might taste a bit like that too!!

Weird isn't it!?
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It's best fed raw and fresh because the most potent antibiotic effects are formed from the interaction of the enzymes released after crushing or cutting. These dissipate over hours or days. Dried and raw is better than cooked. Garlic has over 30 different antibiotic/antibacterial/antimicrobial/antiviral compounds in it. The best known is Allicin. But even the natural sulfur in garlic serves a great purpose if fed regularly to animals (I feed it as a staple) --- it makes the blood of the animal toxic to parasites both internal and external, and it also speeds healing.

Rosemary, oregano, sage, rue and a bunch of other herbs are also great for poultry as well as other creatures including us of course. For poultry, rue is supposed to be even better than garlic, just so much harder to get hold of and grow... But in future I hope to try it out.
 
Rosemary, oregano, sage, rue and a bunch of other herbs are also great for poultry as well as other creatures including us of course. For poultry, rue is supposed to be even better than garlic, just so much harder to get hold of and grow... But in future I hope to try it out.

If you grow rue, be careful. It's very easy to grow but many people have a reaction to it similar to poison ivy. I'm one of those people and ended up with itchy bumps and blisters all over my forehead after wiping the sweat off my brow while working with rue.
 
I grew rue many years ago, this post made me remember that, You plant it to keep snakes away... don't know if it works, I thought it was a lovely plant/flower
 
That's interesting, and thanks for the info, both of you.

I've only handled small rue plants, and didn't have a reaction, but I do have a sibling who might react to it because they seem to react to many blueish-whitish-leafed plants which I'm not sensitive to. Given the increasing sensitivity to many natural things in our environment as well as unnatural, though, it's not even impossible that some chooks as well might be sensitive. It's a long shot but I'm now going to log that away as something to learn more about. ;)
 

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