Colloidal silver for respiratory problems

This is Clementine - she sneezed for 5 months.

The symptoms

It was not a dry sneeze, but a wet, hacking sneeze. It started with a sort of wheeze when she was breathing, like she had a runny nose. There was no discharge from eyes, ears, or beak - but you could hear her rattily breathing at night when in the coop.

At first I thought it might be the bedding (pine shavings) so I swapped it with hemp. But as she continued to sneeze over the next few days, I decided it was time to go to the vet.

The vet

We did. I was told she looked fabulous except for the sneeze. Long story short and 6 weeks of various antibiotics (oxytetracycle, doxycycline, amoxyclav), she was still sneezing.

We also flushed her sinuses, tried anti-inflammatories, checked her poop, looked down her throat... nothing.

I decided it was allergies, the vet was out of ideas, so we decided to hope for the best.

The immune support

Clementine stayed sneezing but healthy, and I learned to live with it. On the vets advice, and after talking with my fantastic breeder, I just worked on natural supplements to keep her healthy so her immune system could continue to deal with whatever it was we were dealing with. . A lot I was already using, but I upped the regime. The girls were getting a mixture of:

• Oregano oil

• Apple cider vinegar

• Antoine wellness tonic

• Probiotics

• Turmeric

• Kelp

• Cayenne pepper

Plus the usual fresh veggies, pelleted feed, free ranging goodness and fresh water.

Silver for the win

Five months later and that chicken was still sneezing. What. The. F@@@.

She still looked great, was laying, active... totally healthy except for LOTS of sneezing.

Until one day, one faithful day, I was cruising through Chemist Warehouse and grabbed a bottle of coloildal silver.

I'd been googling and my googling had told me that silver has been used to successfully reduce the mycoplasma count (a kind of bacteria that causes illness in animals and is a common cause of respiratory problems in chickens) in humans.

This stuff is also used to sanitise water.

So, I grabbed a bottle, added 1 tsp per litre to the chickens drinking water and by the next day the sneezing had stopped. Completely. Stopped.

Was it really the silver?

Who knows. Could have been that a random allergen finally buggered off, that her immune system dealt with it, or some other random event. Sure was a coincidence though!

Don't go blue now

While this worked for my chicken (at least it seemed too), silver has also got a whole bunch of random claims associated with it. And most of these claims don't have a whole lot of scientific evidence backing them up. There are groups that claim it's a bit of a miracle liquid, and some people have turned blue from using it all the time to treat a variety of ailments.

So, you should always use your judgment and take all natural remedies with an open-minded, but sensible (and a little skeptical) approach.

Always, do your own research. Even with natural stuff. And remember, you're playing with your animals health, so if in doubt, it never hurts to consult a vet.