Will sulfur hurt my ducks or geese?

[Amiga]

Peter, I am with you on avoiding treatments with neurotoxins and carcinogens.

Your information is very helpful, and I hope that duck and chicken keepers can use it to develop a healthy approach to manage parasite problems safely.

I want to emphasize that using sulfur, or diatomaceous earth, or anything that can produce clouds of dust, we all need to be cautious so that we and our animals don't end up with it in our lungs. These things can cause damage to mucus membranes when inhaled or ingested, so care needs to be taken. I sound like a label on the back of the can, don't I?

And I am cautious when transferring information that has been well studied and documented on chickens and applying it to ducks. Many times it works out fine. But not always. There are some differences between chickens and waterfowl. From what I have read, ducks seems to be more sensitive to lung irritants. And then there is the consideration that there are individual ducks that seem to be more sensitive to nutrient deficiencies and environmental stresses.

Go figure.

Thanks again for your thorough presentation on the benefits of sulfur as an alternative to a number of miticide products that can have more, worse, long-term effects than a prudent application of sulfur.

 

[PeterNaomiGray]

Amiga,
I'm not so familiar with how this forum works. I got your email through BYC, but with a "support at BYC" return address, so I'm guessing it won't get back to you that way. I wrote a reply probably too long to inflict on everyone else, and I don't see your message in the thread anyway. How can I reply to you? I suppose it's not too risky to provide you my address: peter dot gray at wsu dot edu.

Peter Gray

 

[Amiga]

If you click on my name a menu should appear that links you to the PM - private message screen. Then we can correspond.

 

[Amiga]

If you click on my name a menu should appear that links you to the PM - private message screen. Then we can correspond.

 

[Amiga]

Amiga,
I'm not so familiar with how this forum works. I got your email through BYC, but with a "support at BYC" return address, so I'm guessing it won't get back to you that way. I wrote a reply probably too long to inflict on everyone else, and I don't see your message in the thread anyway. How can I reply to you? I suppose it's not too risky to provide you my address: peter dot gray at wsu dot edu.

Peter Gray

When a member subscribes to a thread, notice of the next post to that thread goes to the member's email. If there are other posts subsequent to that, no additional e-mail is sent - for that I am grateful.

Anyway, just a technical note. I look forward to your pm.

 

[terrimotherof6]

Thank you so much for the helpful information! Both of you address the concerns I was having about using a sulfur product on my turkey. Its a product called Nu Stock & now that I have followed up on your comments with my own research I will be adding powdered sulfur to my birds dust bath area.

 

[dotporter]

Since I just stumbled on an article, I thought I'd share it. I'd thought that sulfur was relatively safe, and for the most part it is. Yet, after reading a research paper at http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/3/180.full.pdf Well, let's just say that while I can't imagine feeding a bird feed which is ten percent sulfur; the description of the destroyed rectal muscle and accompanying leakage was a bit offputting. Even the two percent seemed to have physiological effects to some degree.

I use sulfured molasses in the poultry water which seems to cut down on tummy troubles, but I've never noticed any effect on mites or lice. Maybe because the amount of sulfur is so small?

In any case, I just thought I'd throw that article out there, since it's a research specifically on pure elemental sulfur and it's effect on chickens.

 

[PeterNaomiGray]

This is when it's good to remember the old saying "the dose makes the poison." Like you, I can't imagine why (or even how) someone would feed 10% sulfur to chickens. I've probably used 20 pounds of powdered sulfur in the past two years, along with at least a ton of feed, plus all their forage. The sulfur would thus amount to less than 1% of their diet - if they ate it! But I've put the sulfur on the ground, in their dust pits, by the soup ladle every several months, along with some amount in the garden for soil amendment. They've probably eaten less than 1% of the 1%, or 1/10,000 of their diet. So if toxic effects show up at 10% or even 2%, that's irrelevant.
Obviously chickens need some sulfur in their diet, for it to show up in their eggs (at about 0.2%). Sulfur is ubiquitous, and humans have used and studied it for millennia. In elemental form and in plausible doses or exposures, it's quite safe to call it non-toxic and handle it that way. That doesn't mean doing something stupid.
For perspective, consider that sodium and potassium are both essential human nutrients, in doses of several grams per day. Now imagine, or look up, what would happen if you made table salt or potassium chloride into 10% of your diet. Sulfur might irritate or damage the rectal muscle, but I'm pretty sure that sodium or potassium at this extreme dosage would be lethal within a couple days. I'd take my chances on Even water is deadly if you drink too much of it. The dose makes the poison.
For the paper you linked, they were testing powdered sulfur as a treatment for highly lethal coccidiosis - and they found that in some forms and doses it appears to be an effective treatment, with some serious side effects. It seems to me that comparing their regimen with light, occasional external sulfur dustings to control mites, is like comparing chemotherapy with a daily half-aspirin tablet.

 

[dotporter]

I think you misunderstand me. I use sulfur. Agricultural feed grade, 99.5% pure, commercial flour. It's excellent in deterring mites, fleas, and garden pests. I use feed grade in case the birds ingest it. Limed sulfur is great for treating raspberries and fruit trees. As I said, I use sulfured molasses in my ducks water to help prevent stomach illness (as coccidiosis).. Muscovy are highly susceptible to certain types of coccidiosis which live in the soil and free range birds can become infected from grass being cut too short, from weed roots when I'm weeding the gardens, and from dabbling in ground puddles after a rain.

Unfortunately sulfured molasses is becoming less available in the states and I was looking into whether or not Regular sulfur could be administered in some way to achieve the same results. I believe that the digestibility and high absorption rate of sulfur in molasses is what makes it so effective, but garlic and onions which also contain sulfur have failed to work in the same way.

I think that the article is less like comparing aspirin to chemotherapy and more like comparing chemotherapy to an x-ray.

Obviously you already know the uses and benefits of sulfur. However, you never know if someone reading non toxic might think that adding a pound to a bag of feed from the store might be a good idea. One pound to a fifty pound feed bag is two percent, and one pound doesn't really LOOK like much. I've actually read about people feeding sulfur to their animals in order to reduce mites and lice. People do it.

I liked that particular article because of how thorough it was. I'm going to assume from your stance on sulfur that you've run into many of the same things I have in using sulfur. People saying that they can't use sulfur because they are allergic to sulfa drugs? Sulfa drugs are a compound and not the same thing. People thinking that it's toxic because of the toxicity of sulfides. Sulfides are a product of sulfur and CAN occur in the wrong conditions, but it's still not the same thing.

People will use pine chips which have irritating oils and then worry if a sulfur dust is going to irritate the ducks eyes. It's less irritating to the eyes and respiratory tract than pine chips when used responsibly. In fact, people use DE as a pest control powder on birds and air born DE can cause blindness and a respiratory illness similar to black lung. Yet, used responsibly, it's fine. Same with sulfur. Use it like you would DE, with caution and without getting clouds of it into the air, and it's a great product.

I completely understand having a defensive stance on sulfur.

The article merely points out that even with the ducks eating a feed with two percent sulfur, the effects are minimal when compared to the benefits, yet at higher doses it becomes far more detrimental to the health of the birds, thus negating the benefits.

If a bird can eat two percent sulfur and live (I was thrilled with the survival rates of birds given sulfur compared to those who weren't), then it's safe to assume that a bit of dust in the yard isn't going to do much harm (editing this, I meant to say that it won't do any harm, unless you put it in your fire pit, or in a bog where it can decompose into hydrogen sulfide) . I'd just hate to see someone read "Non Toxic" then they read about people feeding sulfur to animals to prevent fleas... then next thing you know someone has a flock of birds with leaky backsides because they "Just added one scoop of sulfur to the bag of feed".

 

[PeterNaomiGray]

I think we agree on the basic points, including the long-established value of elemental sulfur in gardening, and its low toxicity. I'm glad you get it about the difference between elements and compounds, which many people on these discussion boards really don't understand. Many have a similar misunderstanding about how some of these treatments should be administered. I don't doubt that many people add sulfur to animal feed. Apparently it can be good for some things, including coccidiosis. But part of what I've tried to explain here is that if sulfur is a good (maybe the best) mite treatment in the form of dust in dust baths, that in no way implies that it has similar effectiveness as a feed additive.
But then why bring up sulfured molasses as relevant to any of this? Sulfured molasses is an archaic term, a misnomer. It doesn't have elemental sulfur added to it. Instead, it's been treated with sulfur dioxide (a compound of sulfur) as a preservative. The old method for doing this was to burn sulfur in the presence of food to be treated, which created SO2 gas, which usually has its effect by changing into sulfuric acid when it contacts water.
So again, three huge problems with comparing sulfured molasses to sulfur powder in a dust bath. (1) It's a compound, not the elemental form. (2) It's in tiny trace quantities in the molasses, and it's practically non-existent by the time it's diluted in drinking water. And (3) it's applied internally instead of externally, so even if it were elemental sulfur mixed with feed, there's no good reason (and no valid research support that I know of) to suppose it would have any effect on external parasites.
I don't think I have a defensive stance on sulfur, since I have no stake in whether anyone buys or uses it or not. I'm simply trying to let people know about the strong evidence that it's highly effective and very safe, when used for this purpose and in the particular way described. I can't see why anyone would extrapolate to using it as a feed supplement, when it's at least as easy to just toss it on the ground where the birds dustbathe. Maybe some will put it in the feed - that's their business, I guess.
I don't understand your disagreement with my aspirin/chemo analogy. I was saying that based on the other article that I linked to long ago, putting sulfur powder in dust bath areas is like using an occasional aspirin, in terms of risk. Even that is probably an exaggeration, since aspirin entails known, if small, risks, while diluted outdoor external sulfur dust has essentially zero risk. According to the article you linked to, internal sulfur at high doses causes some serious side effects - so it's analogous to chemo - to be used only when the alternative is near-certain death.
Back to the sulfur compound issue, I think you're distracted by the phrase "sulfured molasses," which is an archaic misnomer, and by the folklore notion that garlic and onions are high in sulfur. Humans and chickens consume lots of sulfur every day, nearly all of it embedded in proteins that are made of amino acids, a couple of which contain one sulfur atom per molecule. The distinctive aromatic compounds in garlic and onions contain sulfur as well, but that doesn't mean the whole thing is high in sulfur. Onions contain about 50 milligrams of sulfur per 100 grams (0.05%), while scallops contain 570mg/100g, more than 11 times as much, but still only half a percent! (http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/info/books-phds/books/foodfacts/html/data/data5g.html). Garlic is probably similar to onion, but I haven't found numbers for it, just tons of handwaving and misguided assertions. So if you want your chickens to consume more sulfur, feed them more protein and skip the garlic and molasses. But it's not likely to do any good, and too much protein could be bad for their health.
You're partly right about DE (which according to the paper I originally cited, is about as effective as common clay-based soil against mites). Natural DE (uncalcined) does not pose anything like the breathing and eye hazards you mentioned. Calcining (cooking at high temperature) changes the silica from amorphous to crystalline, which is better for filtration, but causes silicosis when inhaled. I don't think many people would pay more for pool filter DE, to use on chickens, and then ignore the package warnings, but I guess it doesn't hurt to remind them.