How much Diatomaceous Earth per 50 lbs. of feed?

[Joe.G]

My local agway sells it for 32 Bucks for a 50LBS Bag Food Grade.

 

[Brammer]

I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and Tractor Supply Company has 20lbs. of the food grade DE for $11.99 this week. Hope this helps someone. Oh, they have a little 4lb. plastic jug for $5 too. The brand I got is called Red Lake Earth Food Grade DE- The SKU # is 1019864.

 

[kimandkaren]

Hi - I have (yet more) questions about DE. I too have found it marvelous for fly elimination. I am worried about inhaling in when I deal w/the food that has it mixed in. What type of mask do you use, and how careful do I have to be? Also, do you mix it in with the feed, and also spread it around the coop? Thanks for the info.

kim and karen

 

[lakeandme]

I don't know how long ago this was posted but I bought a 20 lb. sack of diatomaceous earth @ our local Tractor Supply Co. for $12.99 here in Louisiana. They do have a website.

 

[mcshane]

There has been scientific studies done on Diatomaceous Earth at the University of Britsh Columbia.

The stuff works.

Effect of diatomaceous earth on parasite load, egg production, and egg quality of free-range organic laying hens.

D.C. Bennet, A.Yee, Y.J. Rhee and K.M. Cheng

Avian Research Centre, Faculty of Land and Food System, University of British Columbia (Canada)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21673156

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

There has been scientific studies done on Diatomaceous Earth at the University of Britsh Columbia.

The stuff works.

Effect of diatomaceous earth on parasite load, egg production, and egg quality of free-range organic laying hens.

D.C. Bennet, A.Yee, Y.J. Rhee and K.M. Cheng

Avian Research Centre, Faculty of Land and Food System, University of British Columbia (Canada)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21673156

If you actually read their study, it "worked" on about half the birds of ONE specific breed, but not well enough to reach any real conclusions.

Some of their data is questionable, since some of the parasites they mentioned aren't common in chickens, and one where they mentioned a "lower FEC" is one that does NOT lay eggs at all.

This is just one of the studies that is always brought up as "proof", even though it's not very credible, since everyone using it as proof seems to totally ignore this line from the report itself:
Quote:

In it they state, "DE had no effect
on the number of hens infected, FEC, or worm burdens. However, body mass and egg production were greater in hens consuming the DE diets.[/B]

These hens also laid larger eggs with thicker shells. The results of this study suggest that there is
no evidence that DE is an effective treatment to control gastrointestinal parasitic infections of free-range laying hens.

 

[PeterNaomiGray]

We just got hit by mites for the first time, evidently a couple months ago, though it wasn't until about a week ago that my wife figured it out (she was getting bitten all over, with an itchy rash and welts). We used the DE, mainly by directly hand-dusting all the chickens and spreading some of it around the coop, dust bath areas, etc.. Several of our birds had not been dustbathing, and they were hit the earliest and hardest. DE knocked out most if not all of the mites promptly, but this led me to do some research online, and I discovered a few interesting things:
1) DE seems to mainly work by absorbing oils and waxes from arthropod (insect and mite) exoskeletons, causing the bugs to dehydrate. Somewhat contrary to the notion that the sharp edges of DE particles scratch the cuticle, not that the difference is very important...
2) ...except that there's no evidence that using DE internally has any benefits beyond providing some trace minerals/elements, in case the animal or human is deficient in those. Despite all the anecdotal stories about it, DE does not seem to be effective against internal parasites. Makes sense if dehydration is the mechanism - how's that going to happen inside anyone's gut? There's an "alternative medicine" movement by people trying to profit from selling DE as a cure-all for a long list of ailments. If you have some experience in this kind of thing, it's pretty easy to spot the pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo about imaginary benefits of eating silica, DE in particular. It's all over the web; you can hardly enter "diatomaceous earth" without tripping over this scam/fad. In case you have better uses for your hard-earned cash, take all that with a healthy grain of...um...salt.
3) Because I had successfully used sulfur powder in the past to prevent chigger bites (chiggers are a very close relative of chicken mites), I looked into sulfur as a mite treatment. It turns out that someone published the results of a careful research project about a year ago, comparing the anti-chicken-mite effects of DE, kaolin (a type of clay, common in many soils), and sulfur powder. See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2915.2011.00997.x/full. To my surprise, DE was fairly effective, but no better than kaolin (i.e., common everyday dusty dirt), and neither of those came anywhere close to the effectiveness of sulfur.
4) Perhaps the most interesting results of this research are that the mite killing effects of sulfur last a lot longer than those of DE, and that even the chickens that don't dustbathe, but live together, benefit almost as much as those that do bathe. That does not seem to be true of DE.
5) Elemental sulfur is non-toxic, and it qualifies as an organic treatment, when used in a reasonable and moderate way. It seems to be even safer than DE to breathe in small quantities of dust. Sulfur can burn if used stupidly, but it's not highly flammable like gasoline, or even like sawdust, shavings, straw... It is an abundant element, common as a nutrient in many foods, including egg yolks as I think everyone knows, and it's tolerated by most large animals across a wide range of compounds and dosages. Fortunately for us, mites and lice don't deal with pure sulfur so well!
6) Sulfur powder, also called "sulfur flowers," is pretty cheap, only a little more per pound than DE - but you don't need to use nearly as much of it. I found it on Amazon for about $25/10 lb, which should be several years' supply. Drugstores used to carry it, since it was popular in the past as a mild laxative, but it's not so common locally now.

For more about this, see the discussion at: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/672392/will-sulfur-hurt-my-ducks-or-geese#post_10995482

 

[maddogVince]

the feed store around the corner from me in Hernando FL (called Hillbillies of all things) sells food safe DE they buy in bulk and then I buy it for like $8.00 a really large freezer bag


Hillbillies

Hillbillies Tack & Feed Inc,
5844 N Carl G Rose Highway
Hernando, FL 34442
Phone: (352) 341-1200

 

[Glos Girls]

Thank you for all of the info. Finally have DE and will be adding it to their food & cleaning coops today so will be putting in in there also. Using my flour sifter that only sits in the cupboard anywho is a great idea, thank you. I found DE at Tractor Supply also.

 

[bucky52]

I mix 2 cups in a 50lb of feed.