Giving Garlic

[ruthieharris]

Interested to know how people give Garlic to their Birds & Chickens please eg. fresh boiled cloves , or granules, or Garlic chives etc
Thank You

[Tiaris]

Crush a clove & put it in a fine kitchen sieve & pour through hot water. Dilute the hot garlic water in cold water for drinking.

[mattymeischke]

What is it used for?

[Danny]

Garlic oil in it's fesh and pure form is a recognised antibacterial agent. Used as Tiaris suggests is appropriate. You can also buy pure gralic oil for birds vis Colin Walker. Dropping a clove in your bird's drinking water, as used by some who should know better, does nothing but drown an innocent garlic bulb and create a festering mess around it's bloated carcasse.

[ruthieharris]

Thanks Tiaris thats nice n easy ,I'm trying to used good old fashioned herbs n things for them these days , came across some Neem Leaf Tea too that sounds great as is meant to be an Insecticide and can be givin to Birds.

[BrettB]

Garlic oil in it's fresh and pure form is a recognised antibacterial agent

As in this instance it is being given orally, I assume it is being used to treat intestinal infections?
Or are the active agents absorbed and treat systemic infections?
Or are there other properties of garlic that influence health?
It seems to be widely used in the aquarium industry as well.

Cheers
Brett

[Tiaris]

I'd be very cautious with neem. I know of a bloke who lost a whole mob of cows when he cut down a neem tree & they ate it - all dead next morning.

[ruthieharris]

holy jesus ... wow might think twice about that one then , thanks for that

[Danny]

Garlic oil in it's fresh and pure form is a recognised antibacterial agent

As in this instance it is being given orally, I assume it is being used to treat intestinal infections?
Or are the active agents absorbed and treat systemic infections?
Or are there other properties of garlic that influence health?
It seems to be widely used in the aquarium industry as well.

Cheers
Brett

This covers it well http://allicincenter.com/pdf/Allicin.pdf

[BrettB]

Thanks for that Danny, it is an interesting read.

The reactive allicin molecules produced have a very short half-life

This comes from the article, and it made me wonder how long a garlic extract would stay biologically active for.

one would have to regularly eat large amounts of cooked garlic to obtain any beneficial effect and few of us can eat large amounts of raw garlic.

This comment reminded me of one of my patients, an old Italian man that regular consumed about 6 large garlic cloves daily that he grew himself and used to eat raw. Even his skin reeked of garlic, you could almost smell him before he entered the room. His wife, who ate minimal garlic lived for 10 years longer than he did. Perhaps you need to sleep with the garlic to get the maximal effect.

Cheers
Brett