Washingtonians

[ReiMiraa]

Quote:
Just thought I would mention that Diatomaceous earth does not kill bugs by having them eat it. It is a dessicant and is abrasive to the waxy cuticle on the insects body... so they dry out. If you look at it closely you would see it has many sharp edges, they are made out of the fossil bodies of Diatoms.... The stuff that bugs eat and die from are BT or Sevin.... One causes an 'insect cold' and the other is a stomach poison.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Quote:
Just thought I would mention that Diatomaceous earth does not kill bugs by having them eat it. It is a dessicant and is abrasive to the waxy cuticle on the insects body... so they dry out. If you look at it closely you would see it has many sharp edges, they are made out of the fossil bodies of Diatoms.... The stuff that bugs eat and die from are BT or Sevin.... One causes an 'insect cold' and the other is a stomach poison.

Yep, and it's really cool if you look at it under a microscope, you can see all sorts of fossils.

 

[Ogress]

Quote:
If she's at the hospital for a long time, they will allow her to have it. My 3 months at Evergreen they had a tech team come and check my computer/cell phone/internet/boom box, etc; put approval stickers on it all and I was good to go! I can't imagine bedrest without the internet! Bedrest is what got me internet addicted - prior to that I'd check e-mail maybe once per week and that was about it. She'll need that computer! Send lots of photos of outdoor stuf too. I stayed in that bed for 3 months and watched the dogwood outside my hospital window change from snow-coated bare branches, to pink plowers, to fully leafed out. I cried to anyone who would listen that I had not breathed fresh air in months until one warm and sunny day my Dr. came into the room with "the charriot" a wheeled recliner and brought me out to a beautiful garden courtyard. I thought I would enjoy my time outdoors, but I felt so self-conscious. Everyone was nicely dressed and here I was laying in this big blue recliner in nothing but a hospital gown and stupid no-skid socks (senseless when you are not even allowed to stand up!) with legs that had not been shaved in 3 months! It wasn't like I could hide them either. I was upsidedown for my pregnancy so gravity could keep things in. My head was always lower than my legs!

Bring Michelle her computer, her music, make sure to send her photos and updates of everyone. Books on tape were wonderful too because it is hard to read when you have to hold the book above you. I picked up needlepoint then too - it was easier to do; no pages to fall shut when you hold it up to work on it. I'd listen to Harry Potter and stitch away. There are also college courses on tape. My friend brought me a music appreciation series.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
There are BYCers all over the planet raving about Eprinex...and have used it with fantastic results, so next time that is the route I go, especially the no egg waite AND ease of application verses the Ivermectin injectible...yuk, or Ivermectin soluble drops in the mouth..what a hassel that is...counting drops in a wiggling hens mouth, especially when you have so many birds !
NOTE: I always do the Wazine treatment first, suppose to relieve a good portion of the parasite load first, then a few days later do the Ivermectrin or Eprinex.

Yeah, I need to look into Eprinex; I'll swipe my sister's Jeffer's catalog when she's not ticked off at me/I'm not ticked off at me.

I've got to get the chicken run finished and the coop at least finished on the inside and tarped so I can worm the chooks and then put them in a clean place. I'm a firm believer in clean ground as the best pest control, but it gets tricky to manage when you have limited access to labor.

Do their website, there may be more up to date deals & specials.
They did just have an easter special, with hidden 'bunny' & Easter egg & Chick icons throughout the on line catalog where if you spot one you could "write your own deal" on whatever you were ordering...of course, I had JUST ordered a few days before..

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
There are BYCers all over the planet raving about Eprinex...and have used it with fantastic results, so next time that is the route I go, especially the no egg waite AND ease of application verses the Ivermectin injectible...yuk, or Ivermectin soluble drops in the mouth..what a hassel that is...counting drops in a wiggling hens mouth, especially when you have so many birds !
NOTE: I always do the Wazine treatment first, suppose to relieve a good portion of the parasite load first, then a few days later do the Ivermectrin or Eprinex.

I ordered some eprinex last week. I'm so mad at myself - I threw out 24 bottles of Ivermectin - enough for hundreds of cattle! I used to have llamas and a friend of mine who ran the animal research lab at another pharmaceutical company sent me 2 CASES of 250mL bottles because they were also moving from using animal tissues to using cloned cell-lines and had no use for the Ivermectin anymore. It was a year out from the expire date, but the large animal vet said the stuff does not really expire (I found that to be true of most of the pharmaceutical products we used at work - companies are required to put an exiration date on products, but if the packaging has not been opened, it is not likely to break down without any contaminants growing in it. Some chemicals are light sensitive, so I store everything in the dark. Some may break down at a rate of maybe 10% per year. Antibiotics do break down, so I always get rid of those.)

I need to to the wazine treatment, but my girls are laying so well now! I want to wait until some of my chicks start laying so I won't be without eggs! I wonder when the last time was that the BCM from zgoatlady and RFF's Light Sussex were wormed? Maybe I can still get eggs from 2 birds... How old do the chicks need to be before they can be wormed? My hens are 9-10 months old and I've seen nothing to suggest they may be carrying a heavy load of worms, but I would hate to kill the hens off by using Eprinex first.

Turns out my sister will sell me a syringe full of Eprinex.

Ivermectin is amazingly stable; that's one reason it was about the first thing tried for River Blindness: it doesn't need refrigerated and is not degraded through agitation (light is another matter: everything does better in the dark). WHO and the Carter Center were thrilled when it worked, because even in Africa it was widely available through agricultural distribution supply lines. Eprinex is a next-generation thing, and works against helminths that had developed resistance.

Two cases... riches! such riches! Expiration dates, according to an Ag Health specialist I once sat next to on an airplane, are almost all for opened containers of liquids, and the ones (like any clostridiuum vaccines) that are time critical are "aggressively labeled" rather than having a little 3 point type stamp on the bottle.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
Just thought I would mention that Diatomaceous earth does not kill bugs by having them eat it. It is a dessicant and is abrasive to the waxy cuticle on the insects body... so they dry out. If you look at it closely you would see it has many sharp edges, they are made out of the fossil bodies of Diatoms.... The stuff that bugs eat and die from are BT or Sevin.... One causes an 'insect cold' and the other is a stomach poison.

Yep, and it's really cool if you look at it under a microscope, you can see all sorts of fossils.

Yes, it cuts them up internally and they loose their bug juice & die.
It is good in your intestines (or the birds) as internal parasites eat it in the intestines and die..It is amazingly smooth too,
A heaping Tablespoon mixed in a little water and drink it down (food grade) and it tastes & feels like nothing in your mouth.
I thought it would be sand-like, but is not.
I mix some poultry dust with some DE & dust birds or put it in the sand in their dust bath.
I also mix some DE in their feed.
I also mix DE in the garden box I grow radishes & root crops in, to prevent root maggots.
Haven't seen a root maggot since.
I dust my lettuce with it before I row cover (as rain will wash it away) to kill earwhigs & deter baby slugs...they must eat the DE to eat the leaves.
Have not had any bug issues there either.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
I'd just forgo the needle altogether and use the bare syringe nipple for safety's sake; if you feel like you need the extra length for surety of reaching the skin, you can cut the point off with a hack saw** or grind it down with a Dremel fine flat disc grindstone or even file it off*. Vet needles are cheap, and Ivermectin pour on stings even on unbroken skin; no sense in keeping the point for reuse and hurting the chicken, especially because any OUCH to any animals tends to quickly turn into an OUCH for the humans handling it.

*Best not to cut needles with utility shears/tin snips/wire cutters because the tips fly off and lie in wait for bare feet, hands, or inquisitive chickens. If you do it that way, put the whole needle on a strip of duct tape, and then fold the tape over the loose point so it can be disposed of without poking through the garbage bag. ** The tape thing also works for hack saws although it gums up the teeth.

Yep, I don't use needles with Eprinex either. And actually, I've also stopped using syringes with it, because the Eprinex quickly eats at the rubber on the plunger and makes it REALLY hard to depress the plunger. I use an eye-dropper that has 1/4 and 1/2cc marks on it. You can check with your vets office and see if they have any laying around from Clavamox or Amoxicillin drops.

Good idea- I think properly marked droppers are also in the baby department at the grocery/drug store.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
I ordered some eprinex last week. I'm so mad at myself - I threw out 24 bottles of Ivermectin - enough for hundreds of cattle! I used to have llamas and a friend of mine who ran the animal research lab at another pharmaceutical company sent me 2 CASES of 250mL bottles because they were also moving from using animal tissues to using cloned cell-lines and had no use for the Ivermectin anymore. It was a year out from the expire date, but the large animal vet said the stuff does not really expire (I found that to be true of most of the pharmaceutical products we used at work - companies are required to put an exiration date on products, but if the packaging has not been opened, it is not likely to break down without any contaminants growing in it. Some chemicals are light sensitive, so I store everything in the dark. Some may break down at a rate of maybe 10% per year. Antibiotics do break down, so I always get rid of those.)

I need to to the wazine treatment, but my girls are laying so well now! I want to wait until some of my chicks start laying so I won't be without eggs! I wonder when the last time was that the BCM from zgoatlady and RFF's Light Sussex were wormed? Maybe I can still get eggs from 2 birds... How old do the chicks need to be before they can be wormed? My hens are 9-10 months old and I've seen nothing to suggest they may be carrying a heavy load of worms, but I would hate to kill the hens off by using Eprinex first.

Turns out my sister will sell me a syringe full of Eprinex.

Ivermectin is amazingly stable; that's one reason it was about the first thing tried for River Blindness: it doesn't need refrigerated and is not degraded through agitation (light is another matter: everything does better in the dark). WHO and the Carter Center were thrilled when it worked, because even in Africa it was widely available through agricultural distribution supply lines. Eprinex is a next-generation thing, and works against helminths that had developed resistance.

Two cases... riches! such riches! Expiration dates, according to an Ag Health specialist I once sat next to on an airplane, are almost all for opened containers of liquids, and the ones (like any clostridiuum vaccines) that are time critical are "aggressively labeled" rather than having a little 3 point type stamp on the bottle.

Sweet, I am going Eprinex next time I worm my birds, it is all the rage.

 

[broodytood]

Ok...I'm startin to feel like the little fat kid running behind all the other kids, struggling to keep up!

I've been pages behind everyday! But we are getting stuff done outside between the rain. Thanks for askin about me CL!

RFF- I just knew it was gonna be fine. They did the same thing to my neighbor, had her in tears! Now only tears of happiness for you! Beautiful baby girl, cool pictures!

Thanks for all the bug/worm info. I'm still learning and you all make it easy to glean knowledge!

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
Yep, I don't use needles with Eprinex either. And actually, I've also stopped using syringes with it, because the Eprinex quickly eats at the rubber on the plunger and makes it REALLY hard to depress the plunger. I use an eye-dropper that has 1/4 and 1/2cc marks on it. You can check with your vets office and see if they have any laying around from Clavamox or Amoxicillin drops.

Good idea- I think properly marked droppers are also in the baby department at the grocery/drug store.

Drppers are rubber, too.
And cost more.
In the Jeffers on line catalog, they sell syringes CHEAP.
You only need 1 for dropping wormer on birds as there is no cross contamination really like injecting, and I think I got individually wrapped 50, for a few bucks.
Will last me my lifetime if I live to be 100.