Help wormer question

[jmsissy]

I heard that you can get diameteous earth (for worms) at lowes. I am here now and they have a brand called safer BUT...it says it has other baits in it. :as anyone used this? I'm sitting out in the parking lot waiting for an answer as I have a long drive home. Someone please help. I don't want to kill my chickens.
Thanks,
Sissy

 

[TrixiePA]

I have heard that for internal stuff it should say FOOD GRADE on the bag.

 

[AmyBella]

Gosh, I don't know. I have always read that it needs to be "food grade" DE. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

 

[jmsissy]

Well I ran down to the feed store and got the food grade stuff. Now I have to figure out how much to put in their feed. I feel much better getting it at the feed store.
Sissy

 

[purpletree23]

Oh my gosh!!!! You did the right thing. The stuff called safer has poisons in it plus DE. I'm glad you went to the feed store.WHEW!!!

 

[jmsissy]

It scared me when I read the bag but the thing is I was on a site and they were telling everyone to get it at lowes or depot. Well I work at lowes so went and read the bag. While I was waiting for an answer in the parking lot I googled it to see where I could get food grade and it said a lot of feed stores carry it so off I went. I sure am glad I did now. I would have been sick if I would of killed my guys. Glad I read the bag and just didn't take someones word on it.
Sissy

 

[foxcove4]

I haven't heard of people putting DE in the chickens food before. Why, how and how much do you put in the feed?

 

[threehorses]

Do NOT get your DE at a hardware store. If you ever feed DE to help possibly decrease parasite risks, it should only be human food-grade DE, preferably freshwater. Using garden or pool DE is harmful as it's a way different sharpness and not at all recommended for consumption.

DE is used to help control worms hopefully, but will not prevent them totally. Only a worming program will really do that, and then it doesn't even prevent all worms. It just decreases the numbers that might be in your bird for a while.

Worms, in the intestines, literally borrow into the sides of the gut. For every place they burrow, a scar eventually forms causing a lack of digestion in that spot. Additionally, any time the protective lining of the intesting is breached, you risk undigested foods and proteins entering the bloodstream o f the bird too early and causing health issues. Nevermind all the nutrition they're literally stealing from your birds. So that's why I personally recommend a twice-annual worming with a broad spectrum wormer, and then using DE in between in their environment.

I like to avoid chemicals whenever possible. But as strong a 'naturalist' as I am, my many years with chickens and livestock have taught me when a few chemicals are really worth using.

Use DE, but always food grade, and then worm 2x's a year anyway.

By the way, i've used DE in my chickens' food ages ago for a number of years. I found that 'then and now' are about the same because of my worming program. Because I only used freshwater human-grade food-grade DE, I had no problems with the birds using it less than 2% the weight (not volume) of my feed. In fact, I used to be chided about using DE and more natural products.

Not so much now.