Cider vinegar

Cider vinegar is not the same as apple cider vinegar, which has alleged tonic properties when added to water in very small amounts. Apple Cider Vinegar, or ACV, is sold in food shops, but this human consumption type is expensive, over- refined and has no tonic properties, though it tastes quite nice. If you really want to give it to your birds you need the unrefined sort of ACV from an agricultural store. However, its benefits are unproven and many experienced keepers do not use it because the hens dislike the taste, even in very small quantities, and thus drink less water than they should, which isn't at all good for them, especially if they are in lay.
So, if you have come across some ordinary cider vinegar, you might just keep it for kitchen use.
 
That's very interesting and substantiates Marigold's (and my previous) comments Bickerton. Use water additives with care Ziggy. Any resulting drop in water intake has to be counter-productive.
 
I think it depends on what they are used to. I know a breeder who puts ACV in the water from, as it were, day one. He culls the cockerels and has never found any worms - but his birds have never known anything different and I think apart from buying hatching eggs he runs a closed flock.

I added Battles Poultry Drink to the water to help the new birds over the stress of moving as I'd read on here that it might help, but there is so much (clear) water draining through the enclosure they have a choice of what to drink.
 
If you do feel any kind of liquid tonic is needed its much more economical to add a drop or two to a warm damp mash, instead of filling a drinker and then pouring away half of it when you change the water - and then the questions of whether their water intake is affected, and whether or not they like the taste, don't arise. And ACV is not effective in controlling worms. .
 
I've always understood that Cider Vinegar and Apple Cider Vinegar are one and the same thing except that what's bought in health food shops is more refined for human consumption but has the same properties. It's certainly a lot more expensive to buy the refined than the animal type which is readily available from animal feed stores.

I have never noticed them drinking any less when I've used it, just found no difference health wise. There's no harm in giving it, just seems to me to be a waste of money if there are no visible benefits and I can't understand why it should be considered a good thing to change the natural ph. of the gut as it is sometimes claimed to do.

Good point about the wastage too as 3/4 of it will get thrown away every time you re-fill the drinker.
 
Chuck said:
I have never noticed them drinking any less when I've used it, just found no difference health wise. There's no harm in giving it, just seems to me to be a waste of money if there are no visible benefits and I can't understand why it should be considered a good thing to change the natural ph. of the gut as it is sometimes claimed to do.

Good point about the wastage too as 3/4 of it will get thrown away every time you re-fill the drinker.
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I did an experiment once, over the course of a week, and put in two identical drinkers, one plain water and one with ACV. Each day, the ACV one was totally untouched, so I concluded they didn't want anything in their water and it was better to go with this clear preference. i'm not saying it's harmful, just that the alleged benefits are unproven and it seems a bit unkind to the chickens to prevent them drinking the plain water they obviously like. I wouldn't like it in my tea! It would be d ifferent if they had to have prescribed medicine in their water, but on the whole mine seem to stay healthy and happy without any additives or tonics. I certainly wouldn't give expensive and unnecessary 'extras' just on the offchance that they might be beneficial - if the birds were OK in the first place, how could you tell if they had any benefit? And if they were ill I would look first to my husbandry, or take vets advice, before dosing them up with random potions.
 
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