Recent content by Dianemarie

Use the science to come to a conclusion. It is all here, people have provided links and plenty of scientific information.

Good point, when you have a well draining dust bath you are extra safe. However I don’t know anyone using a non porous vessel as a dust bath that would leave it full of water for days, especiaply one with 100% hard wood ash, that’s what would be needed to make lye.

All dust can be harmful to bird, however you weight out the benefits. Sand/ dirt is dusty and potentially harmful but so is ammonia in dropping so they use dirt and sand and wood chips as bedding. Birds make a great deal of dust in their coop for bedding and outside playing in dirt, how you...

Chickens will peck are the large pieces while dust bathing and charcoal is good for them. Do a google search it is very interesting. Also I forgot to add that charcoal will help reduce the spread of foot pad dermatitis.

I do too. I had typed out a comment that listed the pH according to the of type of wood and which has the highest pH after burning. Willow is 50% but getting willow ash wet isn’t going to be POTASH, either you expose it to heat or you mix it in a jar with a lot of water and let it sit for days...

That is so cute. 🐓💨

I was trying to find a cheep way to get lavender in my chickens nest and I looked up herbal teas and I found this and a couple new studies that say they are useful to chickens with very specific dosing of course, and it should be read carefully, I am not suggesting to feed their chickens...

This is a very old post but my opinion intended is to raise questions and generate a new idea for someone who is currently having problems. Who decided that stripping the animal to a zero parasite load is necessary or even beneficial? They eat off their own poo and WILL in fact re-infect...

Don’t let this comment scare anyone reading out of using wood ash in a dust bath. They left out that you have to boil the wood ash, with soft water for about an hour and skim off the lye and you will have to do this more than a few times to gather enough lye to saponify soap. My background...

I wanted to read more on calcium being toxic and calcium overdose when I clicked the link it linked back to a thread on this site about feed hens yogurt for supplementation. i am going to be left wondering if they used actual peer review studies and collected data or thing people throw around...

So did you get another Polish to keep your chickie company? If you did is it helping her? (I edited my comment so many times I edited out my questions.) No I don’t think you are being silly, I have been looking at Polish or even a Polish Bantam for her I know she is partially blind I would say...