who doesn't use DE and why?

[Moabite]

I'm appreciative of this thread. I was wondering the same thing about DE in the compost. Micro-skeletons made of quartz crystal that act like static charged sand that grind away at the joints of insects. Diatoms look like various 'macaroni' wheels and other geometric shapes with extremely sharp protrusions. Silicon Dioxide is water soluble (slowly by our time scale) and when wet, would loose its static charge. Small amount caught in the lungs should not be much of a problem, but Siliconosis is a serious illness that is usually caused by prolonged exposure to breathing quartz dust. Good to be careful. I'm gonna use it (when I need it) as it seems to be the best choice as large amounts of our planet's crust is made of it and life thrives here.

 

[speckledhen]

DE feels like plain old white flour to us, cutting properties or not. You don't want to snort a cloud of any powdery substance, including bread flour. I put a cup or two in feed bags to kill whatever bugs may somehow get in there, but not up to 2% of the total as some folks do because I'm not depending on it to worm my birds.

For an all natural bug killer that is safe for the birds, you could use Orange Guard, carried by ACE. It is orange oil and smells wonderful. You cannot put it on the birds, but you can spray it into crevices around the roost, etc. I use it when we do a complete coop cleanout.