Old Wood Ashes... safe for dust bathing?

[Mouthpear]

Its unnecessary to get so mad. Whats done is done. My birds get into the ash pile all the time outside the coop. My main worry was using it in a semi-enclosed area.

Yes use it. I made a post here on how to make a fast draining drying dust bath.

PS I too had a burn pile in the run or outside of it and they loved it.

 

[Cryss]

Most of us learned as kids in school that lye is used to make soap. We learned that one must be very cautious handling lye because it acts like an acid and burns your skin. That little bit of knowledge almost made me stop using soap! I remember wondering why soap was safe to use! Thank goodness mom explains that it changes chemically when combined into fat.
Later at some point we learned that lye was made from water and wood ash.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. What you hopefully learn at some point is that the water and ash must be boiled to chemically change it to lye. Until that happens it is only water and ash.

 

[Timmytoogood]

UNDER NO CONDITIONS EVER EVER BURN POISON IVY!!!!
The oil that causes the rash does not dilute or dissipate when cut down, uprooted, or whatever. When burned the oils rise in the air and you and any creature nearby breathe this oil into the lungs producing poison ivy rash inside the lungs! This can be deadly for any human! I see no hope for a bird. http://www.kplctv.com/story/24090476/dangers-of-burning-poison-ivy/

I usually don't react to poison oak & ivy getting on my skin. But firefighting in that stuff and breathing it gives me a horrible itchy throat.

 

[rosieandfriends]

Pottery kilns seem like a special case. Most kilns gets much hotter and also have pottery treated with chemical glazes that could skew the chemical composition of the ash. It seems illogical to assume ash from a potter's kiln is the same as ash from a hearth. However, I appreciate your concern for the animals and agree that just because something is common practice does not make it safe or good.

As a person also dedicated to science, I decided to put wood ash to a pH test. I used Cardinal Health SP pH indicator strips from the university chemistry department. These strips have a test sensitivity of 1 pH and a range from 0 - 14. I tested wood ash in three forms: straight out of the fireplace with less than 6 hours of rest, day old ash, and ash mixed in to dirt in the yard (where the ash was still a large enough component of the mixture to make the dirt look grey). All of the ash was taken from my home fireplace where I burn wood from a pecan tree that recently died. I mixed 1 Tbsp of dry ash or ash mixture with 3 Tbsps of water in a pyrex glass test tube. The results of the test are as follows: fresh ash has a pH of 11, day old ash had a pH of 10, mixed ash has a pH of 9. My soil naturally (untreated by ash or fertilizer) has a pH of 8 to 9. I performed each pH test twice to increase accuracy. A test size of 2 is small but quality pH paper is not cheap. The results seems to suggest that while ash is high on the pH scale when fresh by the time it has rested and mixed with dirt it is not so caustic as to be of immediate alarm. I would be interested to see what pH other types of wood and/or soil conditions produce.

I love that you did this

 

[Dianemarie]

I have an old kitty litter pan that I keep full of ashes in the coop for the chickens in the winter. They love it. The ashes can't get wet, and my chickens hate the rain...even if they were covered in ashes, and then got wet the ashes would rinse off...doing no more damage than dish soap which is pretty alkaline as well. You can tell who has been dustbathing because when they run puffs of what looks like smoke trail out behind them. When they stir up the ashes it is heavy I guess because it settles super fast...Nobody is having any ill effects. So I say use it. Works for me.

That is so cute.

 

[Dianemarie]

I love that you did this

I do too. I had typed out a comment that listed the pH according to the of type of wood and which has the highest pH after burning. Willow is 50% but getting willow ash wet isn’t going to be POTASH, either you expose it to heat or you mix it in a jar with a lot of water and let it sit for days and the potassium & sodium hydroxide and other carbonate ions with rise to the top making that small amount of liquid caustic. It takes days of sitting in water or heat. I just don’t see a situation in a chicken where potash will happen. Because potash even if it gets soaked it is usually in a porous area or mixed with dirt and sand spreading out the potash, even then no one leaves their chickens in standing water. ( I hope) I don’t know if I posted the comment when I read Hishigata’s comment. I just want people to know this so they continue or start the practice of dust bathing in wood ash since it is healthy for them. I had started following a blog that had warned against this (and other healthy stuff) because of threads they found in this group. It is disheartening.

 

[Dianemarie]

I use it on occasion seasonally thing for me. I do however screen it first to get out the large chunks as they can be potentially problematic for foot injuries. Then again, some members would just prefer we all keep our chickens in sterile bubbles and feed them via tubes. chicks

Chickens will peck are the large pieces while dust bathing and charcoal is good for them. Do a google search it is very interesting. Also I forgot to add that charcoal will help reduce the spread of foot pad dermatitis.

 

[Dianemarie]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE TELLING YOU THAT THIS IS DANGEROUS!!!
It is a huge misconception that wood ash is safe!!! When mixed with water it can produce lye. Even if it only produces a small amount, consider how small chickens are and how thin their skin is.
Also, any dust is super dangerous to any birds. Instead of just lungs like we have, they have air sacs throughout their abdomen that just increase the mucous membranes that can get damaged by irritants. Both wood ash and DE should not be used for pest treatment on birds. There is a product called Elector PSP that is mixed with water and sprayed on birds. It is a byproduct of fermentation and is non-toxic!

All dust can be harmful to bird, however you weight out the benefits. Sand/ dirt is dusty and potentially harmful but so is ammonia in dropping so they use dirt and sand and wood chips as bedding. Birds make a great deal of dust in their coop for bedding and outside playing in dirt, how you control that dust? DE and wood ash is no more dangerous than dirt and dust.

Are you a sales rep for Elector PSP or something?

 

[Dianemarie]

Yes use it. I made a post here on how to make a fast draining drying dust bath.

PS I too had a burn pile in the run or outside of it and they loved it.

Good point, when you have a well draining dust bath you are extra safe. However I don’t know anyone using a non porous vessel as a dust bath that would leave it full of water for days, especiaply one with 100% hard wood ash, that’s what would be needed to make lye.

 

[bsshog40]

This was an interesting thread. My chickens have just hollowed out a small hole under their coop to bathe. I have 2 burn barrels and one is dedicated to fallen branches, leaves and pine cone. I was thinking of filling a 5 gal bucket of ash and just dumping a little in their hole occasionally. A lot of contradiction here. I still may try just a little here and there and keep an eye on them.