Worming with DE

DE isn't manufactured. It comes from the earth, being fossilized algae. It's long been used for treating of internal parasites and external bugs. It's also a great source of certain minerals and vitamins. Because it's not manufactured, I doubt the research into it's use is very biased. People resell it because it works, not because they manufacture it or say, "I want to become a DE merchant". I think they'd pretty much have to believe in it for that to happen. If you use it, be sure it's FOOD GRADE and not the one with the clay added to it like Stall Dry. The clay is added for it's extra absorbent properties and that's okay for bedding but I wouldn't use it for consumption. My birds have had no illness and are shiny and healthy looking and are virtual laying machines with nice, thick shells on their eggs.

Take it for what it is.
 
DE isn't manufactured.  It comes from the earth, being fossilized algae.  It's long been used for treating of internal parasites and external bugs.  It's also a great source of certain minerals and vitamins.  Because it's not manufactured, I doubt the research into it's use is very biased.  People resell it because it works, not because they manufacture it or say, "I want to become a DE merchant".  I think they'd pretty much have to believe in it for that to happen.  If you use it, be sure it's FOOD GRADE and not the one with the clay added to it like Stall Dry.  The clay is added for it's extra absorbent properties and that's okay for bedding but I wouldn't use it for consumption.   My birds have had no illness and are shiny and healthy looking and are virtual laying machines with nice, thick shells on their eggs.

Take it for what it is. 


Same with mine and I don't use DE. That's no proof. That's why I'd like to see an actual proper study using sound scientific principles.

If you are comfortable with it and want to use it, fine, that is your business and none of mine. You use it and get good results. I don't use it and get good results. Whether DE has anything to do with your results is the great unknown question. Just the fact that you think it makes a difference makes you feel better. There is value in that too.
 
I also would like to see some true research into DE taken internally by someone reliable. That means someone without an agenda on either side, usually a university study. I would want to see the actual study, what they are testing for, how they set it up and the results, why it works, not just a summary. Way too often people take things out of context in these studies.

There won't be such studies because the unbiased people who would conduct them understand how diatomaceous earth works to kill arthropods. I think that if folks understood how it works and under what conditions, a lot of the confusion could be cleared. DE does not work by cutting the exoskeleton. Interestingly, this was not definitively known until 2008. DE works through adsorption of the cuticle; think of it as a sponge sucking up the waxy coating on the surface. However, this damage to the cuticle is not what directly kills the insect. The insect will die if it cannot maintain water balance-- if it loses more water than it can take in it will slowly desiccate. The rate at which DE kills is dependent on a variety of factors, but largely varies with the ambient relative humidity, the dose of DE and the particular target creature that you're trying to kill.

Because DE kills by desiccation, the amount of moisture in the air will have a large impact on the speed with which it kills. It is largely effective within days at 70% RH or lower, but may be ineffective at killing some species at higher humidity levels. This also underscores why DE takes time to work--it takes time to lose internal water and the drier it is outside, the faster it works. This is why you often find folks living in places like western WA or GA or SC (where humidity levels are often high) say DE doesn't work while here in the bone-dry desert where I live it is highly effective for most times of the year (not so much during monsoon season). This is also why DE is unlikely to be effective against internal parasites. It's too wet inside a chicken. However, DE would be effective against secondary hosts and any eggs exposed to the environment (outside the chicken) if it is dry.

The dose at which DE kills some common pests is surprisingly low. For example, one study showed that the LD50 for adult flour beetles (a common pest of stored grains) is 250-600 ppm or lower when held at 5% RH for 7 days (faster mortality rates with higher doses).

To complicate matters, different species of insect and even different stages of the same insect will have differing sensitivities to DE--largely because of differences in the lipid composition of the cuticle and its susceptibility to adsorption. For example, adult beetles of the common mealworms are far more susceptible to DE than are the larvae.

So, under certain environmental conditions, DE can be very effective against some common pests. There may be other benefits to ingesting DE, I don't know. As a worming agent, it's likely not very effective.
 
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Just my opinion. I've never used DE for worming but use it in there water for keep them worm free. It does work on worms and there's plenty of research to prove it. Don't take much stock in the researchers that make de-worming products. After all, the tobacco companies still say that cigarettes are safe and Monsanto's research says that Roundup is safe for bees when all other research points to it as the number one cause in the decline of bee populations.

I mix DE in the bedding in the coop, in their water and in their feed. It's not a poison so don't expect those kind of results. It 'shreds' the worms because of it's structure. Imagine a worm crawling through tiny pieces of cut glass. Same principle. On hard shelled insects, it gets in their joints and causes them to dehydrate and die a slow death.

BTW.... Monsanto has purchased the largest bee research company in the U.S. Let's see how long it takes for them to come out tell us that all of the research was wrong and that Roundup is a safe product even though it's been shown to kill bees, cause cancer and birth defects.
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How does it help in the water? Doesn't it sink to the bottom of the water container?
In the bedding and on roosts is also my use.
That's scary. I live in Monsanto's hometown and we have a lot of beekeepers (including myself) that feel very threatened. I can't imagine that research will surface with a negative view of Roundup.

DE isn't manufactured. It comes from the earth, being fossilized algae. It's long been used for treating of internal parasites and external bugs. It's also a great source of certain minerals and vitamins. Because it's not manufactured, I doubt the research into it's use is very biased. People resell it because it works, not because they manufacture it or say, "I want to become a DE merchant". I think they'd pretty much have to believe in it for that to happen. If you use it, be sure it's FOOD GRADE and not the one with the clay added to it like Stall Dry. The clay is added for it's extra absorbent properties and that's okay for bedding but I wouldn't use it for consumption. My birds have had no illness and are shiny and healthy looking and are virtual laying machines with nice, thick shells on their eggs.

Take it for what it is.
Lots of natural products are sold at a profit if a market can be created - from salt to pet rocks.
I happen to be a proponent of natural products but am also skeptical when a lot of hype around a particular one results in a myriad of companies marketing XYZ plant extract.

The DE one uses is unlikely to have any other minerals and most certainly not vitamins. DE is about 90% silica, some alumina, clay and iron oxide. If any other minerals are present, they would be from those present in the various deposits that are the source of the particular DE.

Good point on the Food Grade DE. I fear that if people can't find Food Grade, they may use the DE for pool filters. I know it happens. I teach classes on chickens and when I mention DE, someone will invariably say, "oh I have some of that, I use it for my swimming pool".

That last point is anecdotal. I have healthy birds penned and healthy birds free ranged. I can't draw any conclusions from that.

Same with mine and I don't use DE. That's no proof. That's why I'd like to see an actual proper study using sound scientific principles.

If you are comfortable with it and want to use it, fine, that is your business and none of mine. You use it and get good results. I don't use it and get good results. Whether DE has anything to do with your results is the great unknown question. Just the fact that you think it makes a difference makes you feel better. There is value in that too.
X2
I use when I clean out the coop to dust the corners, cracks, crevices and nests prior to putting new bedding down. That's what I feel comfortable with. Everyone has their own management techniques. Most work for them.

There won't be such studies because the unbiased people who would conduct them understand how diatomaceous earth works to kill arthropods. I think that if folks understood how it works and under what conditions, a lot of the confusion could be cleared. DE does not work by cutting the exoskeleton. Interestingly, this was not definitively known until 2008. DE works through adsorption of the cuticle; think of it as a sponge sucking up the waxy coating on the surface. However, this damage to the cuticle is not what directly kills the insect. The insect will die if it cannot maintain water balance-- if it loses more water than it can take in it will slowly desiccate. The rate at which DE kills is dependent on a variety of factors, but largely varies with the ambient relative humidity, the dose of DE and the particular target creature that you're trying to kill.

Because DE kills by desiccation, the amount of moisture in the air will have a large impact on the speed with which it kills. It is largely effective within days at 70% RH or lower, but may be ineffective at killing some species at higher humidity levels. This also underscores why DE takes time to work--it takes time to lose internal water and the drier it is outside, the faster it works. This is why you often find folks living in places like western WA or GA or SC (where humidity levels are often high) say DE doesn't work while here in the bone-dry desert where I live it is highly effective for most times of the year (not so much during monsoon season). This is also why DE is unlikely to be effective against internal parasites. It's too wet inside a chicken. However, DE would be effective against secondary hosts and any eggs exposed to the environment (outside the chicken) if it is dry.

The dose at which DE kills some common pests is surprisingly low. For example, one study showed that the LD50 for adult flour beetles (a common pest of stored grains) is 250-600 ppm or lower when held at 5% RH for 7 days (faster mortality rates with higher doses).

To complicate matters, different species of insect and even different stages of the same insect will have differing sensitivities to DE--largely because of differences in the lipid composition of the cuticle and its susceptibility to adsorption. For example, adult beetles of the common mealworms are far more susceptible to DE than are the larvae.

So, under certain environmental conditions, DE can be very effective against some common pests. There may be other benefits to ingesting DE, I don't know. As a worming agent, it's likely not very effective.
X2
You phrased it better than I could have but the wet environment inside the chicken is the primary reason I had a tough time believing it had any impact.
Another old timer around here had a good thought on it's efficacy for flies. He surmised that, if ingested by the chicken it would end up in the feces and may have an effect when the feces dries.
 
Same with mine and I don't use DE. That's no proof. That's why I'd like to see an actual proper study using sound scientific principles.

If you are comfortable with it and want to use it, fine, that is your business and none of mine. You use it and get good results. I don't use it and get good results. Whether DE has anything to do with your results is the great unknown question. Just the fact that you think it makes a difference makes you feel better. There is value in that too.

Ridgerunner.... if you don't want to use it, don't! It's that simple. I use it and I have no wormy chickens. I have no sick chickens and I have no medicated chickens. My workshop was infested with Brown Recluse Spiders (BRS). I've tried everything to control them from traps to poisons but when you have them infesting a 1500 square foot shop with lawn tools, mowers, cars, work bench, etc., traps just aren't effective. The DE took care of them and I rarely see any now where before if someone wanted to see what a BRS looks like I could, without fail, show them one within minutes. I guess it didn't really kill the spiders though. Like you said, probably what happened was that I thought it did and it made me feel better about it and that was the only difference. DE also kept my broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, etc. free of cabbage worms and other garden pests. I didn't dust the flowers so bees and beneficial wasps were unharmed.

By using the DE, I'm not putting medications in my chickens or man-made products. My chickens are organic and because of that, DE is the answer. I don't need to prove to you that it works because it works for me and after all, I'm only interested in what works for me. If I'm able to pass along some good information then I do. If you need proof, do the research because it's out there. That's all there is too it.

For those of you who would like to know more about DE, here is some useful info with a list of references. Yes, some of these are resellers of the product but then again, I don't know of many families that are doing scientific research so I guess we'll have to figure it all out for ourselves what's good information and what's not. I wrongly explained it as being fossilzed algae but it's actually fossilized diatoms that build their shells with silica, which is found in our bodies. It also contains numerous trace elements.

The Links:

http://www.naturalnews.com/033367_silica_diatomaceous_earth.html

http://www.pinnaclefarms.ca/Gaia_Tree/PhoebeDE.html

http://diatomaceous.org/
 
There won't be such studies because the unbiased people who would conduct them understand how diatomaceous earth works to kill arthropods. I think that if folks understood how it works and under what conditions, a lot of the confusion could be cleared. DE does not work by cutting the exoskeleton. Interestingly, this was not definitively known until 2008. DE works through adsorption of the cuticle; think of it as a sponge sucking up the waxy coating on the surface. However, this damage to the cuticle is not what directly kills the insect. The insect will die if it cannot maintain water balance-- if it loses more water than it can take in it will slowly desiccate. The rate at which DE kills is dependent on a variety of factors, but largely varies with the ambient relative humidity, the dose of DE and the particular target creature that you're trying to kill.

Because DE kills by desiccation, the amount of moisture in the air will have a large impact on the speed with which it kills. It is largely effective within days at 70% RH or lower, but may be ineffective at killing some species at higher humidity levels. This also underscores why DE takes time to work--it takes time to lose internal water and the drier it is outside, the faster it works. This is why you often find folks living in places like western WA or GA or SC (where humidity levels are often high) say DE doesn't work while here in the bone-dry desert where I live it is highly effective for most times of the year (not so much during monsoon season). This is also why DE is unlikely to be effective against internal parasites. It's too wet inside a chicken. However, DE would be effective against secondary hosts and any eggs exposed to the environment (outside the chicken) if it is dry.

The dose at which DE kills some common pests is surprisingly low. For example, one study showed that the LD50 for adult flour beetles (a common pest of stored grains) is 250-600 ppm or lower when held at 5% RH for 7 days (faster mortality rates with higher doses).

To complicate matters, different species of insect and even different stages of the same insect will have differing sensitivities to DE--largely because of differences in the lipid composition of the cuticle and its susceptibility to adsorption. For example, adult beetles of the common mealworms are far more susceptible to DE than are the larvae.

So, under certain environmental conditions, DE can be very effective against some common pests. There may be other benefits to ingesting DE, I don't know. As a worming agent, it's likely not very effective.

Thanks for the info, Gallo. Hopefully it will provide the original poster with what they need.
 
How does it help in the water? Doesn't it sink to the bottom of the water container?
In the bedding and on roosts is also my use.
That's scary. I live in Monsanto's hometown and we have a lot of beekeepers (including myself) that feel very threatened. I can't imagine that research will surface with a negative view of Roundup.

Lots of natural products are sold at a profit if a market can be created - from salt to pet rocks.
I happen to be a proponent of natural products but am also skeptical when a lot of hype around a particular one results in a myriad of companies marketing XYZ plant extract.

The DE one uses is unlikely to have any other minerals and most certainly not vitamins. DE is about 90% silica, some alumina, clay and iron oxide. If any other minerals are present, they would be from those present in the various deposits that are the source of the particular DE.

Good point on the Food Grade DE. I fear that if people can't find Food Grade, they may use the DE for pool filters. I know it happens. I teach classes on chickens and when I mention DE, someone will invariably say, "oh I have some of that, I use it for my swimming pool".

That last point is anecdotal. I have healthy birds penned and healthy birds free ranged. I can't draw any conclusions from that.

X2
I use when I clean out the coop to dust the corners, cracks, crevices and nests prior to putting new bedding down. That's what I feel comfortable with. Everyone has their own management techniques. Most work for them.

X2
You phrased it better than I could have but the wet environment inside the chicken is the primary reason I had a tough time believing it had any impact.
Another old timer around here had a good thought on it's efficacy for flies. He surmised that, if ingested by the chicken it would end up in the feces and may have an effect when the feces dries.

The flies is one other issue that I don't have in my coop. I clean it regularly and good maintenance goes a long way in avoiding problems down the road. I add DE to the floor before adding pine shavings. I then sprinkle some on top because the chickens love to dust bathe in it. I also add it to the nest boxes both top and bottom. Sure, there are flies around the coop but not as many as I've seen around others. I grew up working on a ranch. If you want to see flies, check out your local horse or cattle barns. ;)

As far as putting it in the water, I don't know if it settles out or not. I'm sure it does to some extent but as the water refills the water dispenser, from the bottom, I'm sure they get some benefit from it. I knew too that the DE kills by desiccation but I didn't really feel it necessary to go into all of that detail. I'm glad you did because there are obviously some who need scientific proof, those same scientists that tell us that we evolved from monkeys but have never found the missing link.
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Monsanto is a big problem. If what I read was true, they just purchased the largest bee research laboratory in the U.S. (scientists, research, studies). If they can't get scientists to prove that their bevy of cancer causing products aren't bad for us then they can always buy the laboratories, and the scientists, to get the results they need. Wonder how long it'll take for them to 'find' that Roundup isn't killing bees.
 
I can see this can quickly spiral out of control.

The topic of this thread is “DE as a wormer”. Do you have any proof that DE is an effective wormer? I don’t use DE. I have never used chemicals to worm my chickens. My chickens don’t have worms. That’s why I can’t accept “My chickens don’t have worms” as proof. You say there are studies out there. If you can produce one about DE’s effectiveness as a wormer, I’d like to see it.

Gallo, I understand all that. The topic is worming a chicken. I know DE has its uses.
 
I can see this can quickly spiral out of control.

The topic of this thread is “DE as a wormer”. Do you have any proof that DE is an effective wormer? I don’t use DE. I have never used chemicals to worm my chickens. My chickens don’t have worms. That’s why I can’t accept “My chickens don’t have worms” as proof. You say there are studies out there. If you can produce one about DE’s effectiveness as a wormer, I’d like to see it.

Gallo, I understand all that. The topic is worming a chicken. I know DE has its uses.

It's not going to spiral out of control unless that's your intention. You want proof that it works. I want proof that it doesn't. I'm assuming you don't use your product because your chickens DON"T have worms so let's agree that we both have differing opinions and let it go at that. I need to move on now bud. Have a nice weekend.
 
DE will not prevent nor kill these types of worms in chickens: I cant locate pics of capillary nor gizzard worms.
Cecal worms:

Large roundworms:

Tapeworms (segments in chicken feces)

Eyeworm:
 

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