Here is a link to the publication:
http://www.purewateroccasional.net/newnewsletter37.html
Here is the article:
We had provided water for dogs, horses, cats, song birds, and fish, but it was only recently that we learned of the garden hose filter's utility as a clean water source for backyard chickens.
Our customer Jerry (Steadfast) sent us pictures of his backyard chicken ranch where his birds enjoy the luxury of carbon filtered rainwater. Here's the way it works:
To my knowledge not a lot of research has been done to determine what constitutes healthful water for happy chickens. The large-scale commercial chicken and egg industries, of course, have spent tons of money on additives to water designed to promote freakishly abnormal body growth and hen-destroying egg production. Their aim, of course, is not the health of the individual chicken but their own bottom line, and a healthy chicken is defined as one who grows fast or drops lots of eggs, not one who lives a long time, doesn't have nightmares or develop osteoporosis. With factory chicken farmers, longevity and contentment aren't an issue.
The well being of chickens wasn't the aim of one fairly large research project that involved the effects of chlorine on chicken health, but it definitely should be something that backyard chicken keepers consider. (If you doubt that backyard chicken ranchers have the best interests of their birds at heart, please read some of the backyard chicken keeper blogs. Chickens with names, whose owners record their daily activities and pictures in blogs and newsletters, are more than mere food providers.)
The research project I'm talking about is that of Dr. Joseph Price. Back in the late 1960s, Dr. Price put forth a very plausible alternative to the cholesterol theory of the origins of heart disease in his interesting little book called Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine.
Dr. Price argued convincingly that heart disease was virtually unknown before the 20th century, although high-cholesterol food consumption certainly wasn’t. What was new in the 20th century, he pointed out, and what seems to parallel exactly the onset of heart problems as a major disease, is the practice of disinfecting public water supplies with chlorine.
To test his theory, Dr. Price did a pretty extensive experiment with chickens and seemed to prove that chickens who eat a diet containing oleo and lots of chlorine quickly develop heart problems, while chickens eating oleo without the chlorine don’t. The numbers were convincing, with 95% of the oleo/chlorine group of chickens developing arteriosclerosis fairly quickly. Price himself cautioned that no conclusion should be generalized to humans from animal research. But the theory and some of the evidence he presents are strong. Although an EPA scientist replicated some of his research and basically endorsed his findings, Price was totally ignored by the medical community, which is notoriously uninterested in any idea that doesn't support its own current dogma.
The implication for backyard chicken raisers is that it's a good idea to put a touch of chlorine into your water tank to keep things fresh, but it's also a good idea to use a carbon filter at the tank's output to protect your chickens from the chlorine and keep the water fresh and good-tasting.
For more on this and the work of another cholesterol heretic, see Hardly Waite's "Dr. Batman Thumbs His Nose at "Bad Cholesterol." For more on chlorine and heart disease, see Dr. Martin Fox, "Chlorination: A Link Between Heart Disease and Cancer."
There are step-by-step details for building Jerry's chicken watering device at www.backyardchickens.com.
Thanks to Jerry (Steadfast) for letting us use his picture.
.
.
http://www.purewateroccasional.net/newnewsletter37.html
Here is the article:
Cholesterol, Chlorine, and Chickens
by Gene Franks
When Pure Water Products started making garden hose filters a few years ago, our thought was that we were making a product for organic gardeners who wanted to spare their tomato plants a chlorine bath. We quickly learned, however, that water filters fitted to garden hoses are also useful to people who want to rinse off their patio without leaving hard-water spots, wash their car, fill their child's wading pool, put clean water into a bird bath, change the water in an aquarium, provide good tasting water for work crews, give horses clean drinking water, sprinkle the front lawn with chlorine-free water, fill a coy pond or a hot tub, or wash their windows.
We had provided water for dogs, horses, cats, song birds, and fish, but it was only recently that we learned of the garden hose filter's utility as a clean water source for backyard chickens.
Our customer Jerry (Steadfast) sent us pictures of his backyard chicken ranch where his birds enjoy the luxury of carbon filtered rainwater. Here's the way it works:
Jerry's gravity-driven watering system uses a converted 50-gallon pickle barrel as a holding tank. Rainwater is collected from the roof of the coop and stored in the tank. Pushed by gravity, it goes through the adapted garden hose carbon block filter on its way to the chickens.
The water is dispensed to the chicken via simple but effective devices called chicken nipples.
To my knowledge not a lot of research has been done to determine what constitutes healthful water for happy chickens. The large-scale commercial chicken and egg industries, of course, have spent tons of money on additives to water designed to promote freakishly abnormal body growth and hen-destroying egg production. Their aim, of course, is not the health of the individual chicken but their own bottom line, and a healthy chicken is defined as one who grows fast or drops lots of eggs, not one who lives a long time, doesn't have nightmares or develop osteoporosis. With factory chicken farmers, longevity and contentment aren't an issue.
The well being of chickens wasn't the aim of one fairly large research project that involved the effects of chlorine on chicken health, but it definitely should be something that backyard chicken keepers consider. (If you doubt that backyard chicken ranchers have the best interests of their birds at heart, please read some of the backyard chicken keeper blogs. Chickens with names, whose owners record their daily activities and pictures in blogs and newsletters, are more than mere food providers.)
The research project I'm talking about is that of Dr. Joseph Price. Back in the late 1960s, Dr. Price put forth a very plausible alternative to the cholesterol theory of the origins of heart disease in his interesting little book called Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine.
Dr. Price argued convincingly that heart disease was virtually unknown before the 20th century, although high-cholesterol food consumption certainly wasn’t. What was new in the 20th century, he pointed out, and what seems to parallel exactly the onset of heart problems as a major disease, is the practice of disinfecting public water supplies with chlorine.
To test his theory, Dr. Price did a pretty extensive experiment with chickens and seemed to prove that chickens who eat a diet containing oleo and lots of chlorine quickly develop heart problems, while chickens eating oleo without the chlorine don’t. The numbers were convincing, with 95% of the oleo/chlorine group of chickens developing arteriosclerosis fairly quickly. Price himself cautioned that no conclusion should be generalized to humans from animal research. But the theory and some of the evidence he presents are strong. Although an EPA scientist replicated some of his research and basically endorsed his findings, Price was totally ignored by the medical community, which is notoriously uninterested in any idea that doesn't support its own current dogma.
The implication for backyard chicken raisers is that it's a good idea to put a touch of chlorine into your water tank to keep things fresh, but it's also a good idea to use a carbon filter at the tank's output to protect your chickens from the chlorine and keep the water fresh and good-tasting.
For more on this and the work of another cholesterol heretic, see Hardly Waite's "Dr. Batman Thumbs His Nose at "Bad Cholesterol." For more on chlorine and heart disease, see Dr. Martin Fox, "Chlorination: A Link Between Heart Disease and Cancer."
There are step-by-step details for building Jerry's chicken watering device at www.backyardchickens.com.
Thanks to Jerry (Steadfast) for letting us use his picture.
.
.
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