Sea weeds, kelp, potassium Iodide?

[Notus]

Here in Scotland I have direct access to the sea. I am well aware of the health benefits of sea weeds to us humans and in use as an organic fertilizer. Personally I do not like the stuff.
However I do wonder of what benefit if any this would be to the birds and then the soil as I compost for my garden?
Then there is silver nitrate which is also a natural antibacterial agent. I believe it was an initial source of silver nitrate for photographic film. (Oh I'm a physicist, not a chemist) :/
What I do know is that if I were to use is to blanch in fresh boiling water then dry, due to Norovirus.
Yeah I know if we have nuclear fallout my wee friends would be protected... lol



Anyone?

 

[chooks4life]

Here in Scotland I have direct access to the sea. I am well aware of the health benefits of sea weeds to us humans and in use as an organic fertilizer. Personally I do not like the stuff.
However I do wonder of what benefit if any this would be to the birds and then the soil as I compost for my garden?
Then there is silver nitrate which is also a natural antibacterial agent. I believe it was an initial source of silver nitrate for photographic film. (Oh I'm a physicist, not a chemist) :/
What I do know is that if I were to use is to blanch in fresh boiling water then dry, due to Norovirus.
Yeah I know if we have nuclear fallout my wee friends would be protected... lol

Historically, a lot of rocky coastal regions with very little topsoil have been farmed by harvesting and using seaweeds as fertilizer, specifically kelp. Great for the garden, but can really stink, according to some noses. Can make the soil too rich for certain plants though; it was sowed in during fallow years for some crops, and applied directly during growth for other crops.

For chickens and other animals, it's very beneficial. It's an endocrine regulator that has many health impacts of a very positive nature; it's laying promotant that can even get non-layers into lay and help keep old hens laying regularly, it can completely prevent severe/visible moulting, supports growth of very shiny, healthy, strong feathers that stand up to rough roosters and rough weather alike, it's an overall health booster, and the iodine in it is very valuable (especially in places like Australia where I live, where almost every animal and human is deficient in iodine; even the commercial feeds with supplementary iodine don't have enough pretty much as a rule and therefore adding it helps a lot).

I found it really made my chooks more disease resistant overall, I've been testing with and without various dietary additions for years and have tested kelp repeatedly. The benefits become more visible with every generation kept on it. All it takes is a little pinch per hen per day, easily added to a home-made mix. I found chicks started showing gender earlier and earlier with each generation, making sexing easier until I could tell the gender by crest development alone before the chick had even fully emerged from the egg. I keep completely mixed mutts for the most part, the majority of them with no purebred anything in their ancestry for dozens and dozens of generations, with a very wide range of phenotypes and genotypes and unrelated family lines, so to see a consistent result across the board is certainly not coincidental or able to be put down to being due to breed alone. Also, I don't have hens stopping laying when I travel them, nor stopping in winter, and I've traveled them enough times to lose count, so there's always that as well.

The WHO documents that humans born to mothers deficient in iodine suffer permanent brain damage without being symptomatic (they pass as 'normal') and during the average iodine deficient human lifetimes people can lose around 16 IQ points due to low iodine levels, and for this reason among others, the WHO considers iodine deficiency a global health epidemic.

I feed it to my animals (sheep, dogs, chickens, etc) to increase intelligence and help ensure social cohesion, since intelligent and well-nourished animals are in my experience more likely to avoid violence and be content, and not prone to many of the behavioral issues other less nourished animals show.

It can change coloration of eyes, legs, claws, beaks, eggs, feathers, skin, etc, though because some animals revert to pale or white coloration in all those anatomical regions when the diet does not support true phenotype showing, in a kind of reverse example of why pale livestock breeds are more often developed in and local to nutrient-poor regions. This can be generational, so for generations you could be breeding pure white birds with all the appearance of being purebred and according to breed standard, only to find that once on a kelp-inclusive diet for a year or one moult's time, their true colors show and aren't anything like their original coloration.

If you're a scientist you'd have a good idea of how to conduct a decent test, so I'd suggest you test for yourself, giving one group a year on kelp to see how it goes.

As for silver nitrate and potassium iodide, I'm a fair bit new to those topics, read some interesting stuff on them, but don't offhand have anything to share at the moment. Still learning. And it's my bedtime, well, past it ages ago.

Best wishes.

 

[Notus]

Well you have pretty much backed up my hypothesis and taken much time to write with regard.
When it comes to the methodology though I am not looking to write a paper so I will run tests but not for research purposes. Sometimes we have to escape the workplace... lol

Only when I think about it there is everything from zinc to iron to silver to potassium to iodine. Iodine is interesting for me being radioactive.
Suggestion is a transition buffer, allows an intermodulation between the energetic state of the environment and the organism.
But that leads me down methodology pathways. **** shut it down.... lol

 

[chooks4life]

Interesting thoughts... Certainly there's still so much to be learned about why things work the way they do.

I hope your own tests/experiments are educational and successful and that you share your results sometime. It'd be great to hear others' experiences, especially with a background like yours.

I'm very much a learner myself, still... Always will be, really.

Best wishes.