ONE MORE ? ABOUT DE (DIOTOMACEOUS EARTH) & I'LL QUIT!

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We've pretty much covered everything there is to know about diotomaceous earth. One more question... does it work on ticks? We had a wet winter and for the first time in 7 years, my dogs have ticks. I'm dusting them and their doghouses with DE... I'm hoping if it works on scorpions, it'll work on these things. Any comments? Thanks, dh in nm

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), May 11, 2001

Answers

Response to ONE MORE ? ABOUT DE & I'LL QUIT!

The way I understand it it cuts the tender parts of bugs and causes them to effectively bleed to death. We chose not to use it because we had some infromation that eating it was probably not good. It is not a natural thing found just anywhere and we personally felt it was not what we would want on or in our food.

-- David (bluewaterfarm@mindspring.com), May 11, 2001.

Response to ONE MORE ? ABOUT DE & I'LL QUIT!

Dave,

Please double check that info about it not being good, because it is used in our food (worldwide). What was that source? Are you refering to non-food grade?

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), May 11, 2001.


Yes it helps with ticks and yes it is safe to eat the food grade DE, yes, it is a natural product, it is fosilized diatoms, only the pool filter type (which has been heated) is not safe.

-- Thumper (slrldr@aol.com), May 11, 2001.

P.S. breathing it is not good.

-- Thumper (slrldr@aol.com), May 11, 2001.

Diatomaceous Earth has been in the earth since there was earth! It's in many of the products you consume. It's been used by humans for 2,000 years. The way the government is pulling the poisons off the market, DE may be all we have left to fight the insects with. Food grade DE is approved by the EPA, FDA, AMDA. It is not a poison; it slits the outer skin of the insect/parasite and dehydrates it. Therefore the bugs can not become immune to it.

We don't have ticks, but there are many scorpians who will testify that DE does them in! -G- Any insect that crawls thru it is doomed, yet it does not affect earthworms. (Gardners love that!)

Food/Agricultural grade DE is what is fed to critters and used by gardners. It is available in feed stores and organic garden centers.

FILTER grade DE is heated/treated/ground different and used in swimming pool filters. It will not kill insects, but could kill your critters.

I've been feeding it to my livestock for quite some time (bovine, equine, swine, poultry and also the dog) and the fecals are clean. Flies can't breed in the manure.

When sprinkled on fire ant hills, it kills the mound in no time. Sprinkled in chook pens and there's no smell. Leave piles around for the chooks to dust bathe in and you'll never have mites on them.

You can't overdose DE ~ some free feed it to their stock ~ but if you don't feed the proper amount, it won't work.

The only thing to be careful of ~ like with any dusty product ~ don't stick your face in the bag and inhale. Well, I wouldn't even do that with a bag of flour (which is what DE feels like.)

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), May 12, 2001.



Hi, all. Thanks for the replies. Well, we had a pretty wet winter here, and for the first time in 7 years, I'm getting some pretty honkin' ticks off the dogs. I'm dusting them with it, dusting their beds with it, feeding it to them... maybe if I weren't I'd have many more ticks. Don't know. I'm also starting to feed it to the goats free-choice. They ignored it at first, but yesterday I noticed about three of them hovering over the bucket, just chowing down... their faces look like they've been in the flour bag! I hope it's not hurting their eyes and nose membranes. Thanks again. dh in nm

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), May 16, 2001.

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