By Dana Ullman MPH

 

 

  • Hens get colds, coughs, and digestive problems, just like humans. What’s an enlightened chicken to do? Would you believe go to a homeopath?
  • A prominent German newspaper recently reported on the impressively effective use of homeopathic medicines in treating chickens. Approximately 800,000 laying hens in 140 poultry farms are presently under homeopathic care.
  • In 1981 the Poultry Health Service of Heidelburg installed homeopathic veterinary care, and not a single antibiotic has been prescribed since 1983. Because German law prohibits the sales of eggs in chickens for three to thirty days after antibiotic use, the average chicken farmer who uses homeopathic medicines is saving significant amounts of money. The German newspaper noted that a farm with 10,000 laying hens could lose 25,000 marks ($15,000) per infection.
  • Besides saving money, Dr. Konrad Gessler, a leading homeopathic veterinarian, stated that homeopathic medicines are notably safer than conventional drugs. Gessler affirmed that they do not have any side effects and do not leave a residue in the eggs.
  • Gessler informed the German newspaper that he was skeptical at first but that the results spoke for themselves. He also asserted that he had to change his way of thinking about illness. No longer could he simply diagnose the chicken in a conventional way. He had to observe more closely the subtle but important symptoms that a chicken was experiencing. Such careful observation is the hallmark of homeopathic treatment of humans as well.
  • Although homeopathic veterinary care takes a little more effort, Gessler feels that the results he gets makes it worth the extra attention.
  • Besides treating chickens, homeopaths and farmers commonly treat a wide variety of animals. There are entire books written on how to treat cats, dogs, horses, cattle, and birds.

Source: “Huehner mit Homoeopathie behandelt,” Stuttgarter Zeitung, April 18, 1992

 

Translation of the article “Huehner mit Homoeopathie behandelt” from April 18, 1992

 

Chickens Treated With Homeopathy

Antibiotics are taboo in the region of the Heidelburg State Veterinary Examining Room

  • Breakfast or Easter eggs should be first-class quality, and come from the happiest, healthiest hens possible. This is what consumers want. To be sure, though, a hen will sometimes get sick, and when one gets sick, viruses and bacteria seize the whole flock. Many poultrymen turn to the customary antibiotics. Not so, in the region of the Heidelburg State veterinary examiner.
  • Here, hens with headcolds , bronchitis, breathing problems and diarrhea are treated with homeopathic remedies. More than 10 years of exemplary successes have resulted. In 1981 the Poultry Health Service of Heidelburg installed homeopathic veterinary medicine…..For certain medicines that were prescribed in the Poultry Service, for example, antibiotics, there was a prescribed waiting period prescribed, that could last from 3 to 30 days. That meant that eggs laid could not be sold because of possible problems. For a business with 10,000 laying hens this could mean a loss of 25,000 marks, and thereby cost the year’s earnings, reckons leading veterinary director Dr. Konrad Gessler, who brought homeopathy into the chicken barns. Naturally this is also a safety precaution for consumers, because homeopathic remedies guarantee no side effects or residues in the eggs, Gessler affirms. Skeptical at first, but then face to face with the astonishing success that keeps growing and growing, the 140 poultry establishments with a total of 800,000 laying hens in the vicinity of Karlsruhe have been transformed by homeopathic therapy. The result: since 1983 they have used no antibiotics whatsoever.
  • Naturally the start of homeopathy requires animal doctors to change their thinking. No more does the search for possible aggravating causes of the illness clinch the matter. Rather the total picture of the illness. The organism should be so mobilized, that it by itself, with the help of the remedies, will be readied. Poultry head colds, for example, are treated with the active ingredients in the juice of the kitchen onion.
  • Homeopathic remedies are made from plant, animal and mineral substances, through a so-called “potentization” of the basic substance, which then in highly diluted form is administered as a solution or tablets. Gessler allows the substances to be mixed in pharmacies according to his recipes. It has been shown that in this way the recuperation time after an infection in the chickens is substantially shorter and the joy of laying in the hens comes back more quickly. Why not make these “alternative” ways of managing the rule? As Gessler points out, it presupposes an intimate relationship between poultry handler and vet, and furthermore a larger engagement in the care of animals by the doctor. This takes mroe time but less money, because homeopathic medicines are as a rule cheaper than chemical allopathic medicines.