Description
Animal Grade Diatomaceous Earth (aka DE) has been used for centuries as a natural worming remedy. You should feed it every day to your animals for a period of 30 days (at least). Thus, ensuring to kill hatching eggs and worms moving in and out of the stomach. For external control, simply rub the powder at full strength into the coat for fleas and sprinkle on bedding to kill any parasites nesting there. It is perfectly safe for all animals so don’t worry if your pet licks their paws.
CHICKENS
Dusting your chickens with Animal Grade Diatomaceous Earth is particularly good as it will kill mites and lice. Ensure to spread the powder in all areas of hen house. For example, pay particular attention to nesting boxes, roosting bar, cracks and crevasses and eves in your chicken coop.
It works as a dewormer by preventing larvae from maturing into adults. If your chickens have worms, it can take up to two months to get rid of them and to break the worm life cycle. Regularly adding DE to your chooks diet to prevent internal worms is a no brainer. Because DE is a dust-like substance is it best to wear a mask when distributing. We highly recommend wearing a face mask anyway when cleaning out poultry housing due to the chicken dander, fine bedding particles and general airborne spores etc.
Is it effective as a mineral supplement? Finely ground DE may provide a broad-spectrum of naturally occurring trace minerals including calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphate, sodium, titanium, potassium, and others. The main component of DE, silica, gives many benefits to chickens. Research shows chicks on a high-silica diet attained maximal bone re-mineralization much quicker than those on low-silica diets.
Your Order
Will come in either 500g bags or 1kg bags.
For example, if you order 3 kgs your order is sent out in 3 x 1kg bags.
Orders of 5kg – Please note the price showing includes the 10% discount.
All orders come with an information sheet.
I started using DE when we got problems with external parasites with chickens. I put it in nesting boxes, wood shavings on the shed floor and into their favourite sand bath places. We have never had any problems since. I have used it on mites in pigs as well, even in the ears (mixed into olive oil and with some garlic and rosemary added – without any bits of course) and it stopped the itch.
I feed it to the chicken, the pigs, my horse, my dog and the cats (roughly 2% of the dry feed). I check regularly for parasites in all of the animals. We were relatively problem free. No parasites so far in chickens or dog (cats not checked, because not tame).
Horse, pigs, sheep had and have fluke (possible reasons: 1) mostly live on grass, therefore dose of DE in total diet relatively low; using same/similar fields; 2) particularly good conditions over the winter for fluke; 3) fluke lives mainly in liver and bile ducts, therefore they only have a very short exposure to the DE when taken up).
Adult pigs when tested have been negative for worms, but a previous set of piglets had problems with Ascaris (possible reason: they were kept in, because we didn’t have a field for them to go out and graze). DE doesn’t keep animals free from internal parasites (but neither do wormers, a lot of resistance), therefore I keep testing, and hope to control the parasite load in animals and fields with DE and additional measures as field rotation, crap collection (only horse mind ;o) and if needed use a wormer.
I feed DE as well as a supplement, because it contains a lot of (trace) elements of nutritional value. I order from Willow farm, because the service is very good and good value for money.
Gesa Staats, Northern Ireland
Vet in Medical Research & Smallholder