Natural Remedy or Farmer's Wives' Tale?

[julesapple]

Yesterday, the BH went in search of Flubenvet at our local aggri place. They were sold out. As he was getting into the car a lady stuck her head in the window and hissed 'pureed carrots!' at him. She had overheard him asking for Flube and had decided to let him in on her secret weapon for chook worms.

Apparently, you get a load of cheap carrots, boil them up and mash them to a pulp. The chooks then greedily devour this delicacy and it naturally scourges worms and eggs from the inner bits of your chook. Only problem I have with this is that my girls hate carrot, cooked or otherwise. Guess I'll stick to Flube.

I have never heard of this remedy. Does anyone else know about it or any other 'natural' cures for chooks?

Jules

[Nicos]

Other than garlic I don't know of anything else ( it'd be interesting to ask the old farmers here wouldn't it???)
I did find this- which is rather interesting!

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/afspoultry-fi...l_remedies.pdf

[Suechooks]

Dandelion leaves are supposed to be good wormer. I cultivate them especially on my allotment! (Well thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

[RichmondHens]

I suspect old wives tale, but who knows. I doubt very much it kills them, just possibly makes the gut inhospitable and flushes them through, like garlic does, although I suspect boiling them probably renders the "active ingredient" useless. Raw carrots may be more effective. I also imagine the ground would need more attention as the birds would be passing live worms and eggs into the environment, rather than dead.

[Nicos]

Some of these remedies are more likely to work on free rangers where the infestation would probably be less because of less overcrowding????

(I know horses hunt out certain herbs/wild flowers to help reduce symptoms/ailments- but once limited to a field their roaming to find certain plants is clearly limited)

[RichmondHens]

I tend to agree Nicos. The majority of back garden/allotment chickens are kept in fairly restricted areas, often in use year round, thus making the ground foul (excuse the pun) and "chicken sick". Hens that can free range over much larger areas are much less likely to be heavily burdened with worms, although ALL hens need worming as the worms are picked up through earthworms among other things, obviously available anywhere. Certainly hens like to change their dustbath areas frequently, an instinctive way I think of leaving the nasties behind and bathing in a clean space.

I have a bit of a theory that chickens kept in limited spaces generally suffer more with common ailments as they are stressed, making them more receptive to viruses etc. We have very few problems with illness here and I put it down to the fact that our chooks have huge (by most standards) enclosures which allow them to roam around as nature intended. It is always tempting to get lots of different breeds of chooks, as we all know chicken keeping is addictive, but one must look at the space available and be sensible. If you really only have space for two or three chickens, stick to that. Don;t be tempted to "squeeze in" a few more. Problems inevitably arise at some point down the line as the ground becomes exhausted and the chooks are desperate to move onto (literally) pastures new.

[petal]

this is very true, also its beneficial to have enough space so you can rest one area and reseed it. I always thought freeranging hens were more likely to pick up worms due to eating worms and slugs? I would worry about sour crop developing with a mashy carrot slop?

[Snadger]

I have always believed that dandelions were a natural wormer for chooks as well. In England they are referred to as 'piss-a-bed' because of there diuretic qualities.Taraxacum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bearing in mind that chooks wee is part of there poo, the diuretic effect may have something to do with why they are seen as a wormer?

Apart from anything else, my chooks love em and all the vitamins and iron they contain can only do them good!

[salome2001]

if you want to make sure your chooks are wormed, use the Flubenvet. It works. Or you could try pureed carrot and hope for the best. What do you reckon your chooks would want?

[julesapple]

if you want to make sure your chooks are wormed, use the Flubenvet. It works. Or you could try pureed carrot and hope for the best. What do you reckon your chooks would want?

Please don't misunderstand - I'm sticking with the Flube. My girls hate carrots as I said before. I just wondered if this woman who suggested it was right. I will, however, be sticking all the dandelion leaves in for the girls between Flube doses.

Jules