Colloidal Silver for Healthier Chickens (and Other Birds, Too!)

Can colloidal silver be used to heal infections in chickens, parrots, parakeets, cockatiels, pigeons, ducks and other birds?

Indeed it can, if the real-life testimonials and recommendations from chicken raisers and bird lovers below are any indication.

Colloidal silver is even sold by many online bird-oriented pet shops and is highly recommended in books about raising birds.

Here’s what chicken raisers and bird fanciers are saying about the near-miraculous healing properties of colloidal silver for birds…

Hi, Steve Barwick here, for The Silver Edge…

Veterinarians who specialize in bird care, unfortunately, have a tendency to dismiss colloidal silver out-of-hand. Naturally, they’d prefer to treat your birds with prescription antibiotics, rather than have you self-treat your birds with safe, natural colloidal silver. And of course, the vets have veterinary medical training, whereas most bird owners don’t.

Nevertheless, there are many bird owners who treat their birds for infections using colloidal silver. And there are even colloidal silver products said to be specifically made for bird care, such as this one from All ParrotProducts.com. Here’s another one from The PrettyParrot.com website; they even sell colloidal silver dispenser bottles for pet birds!

I have never used either of the above-linked colloidal silver products and have no connection whatsoever with the companies behind them; I am just presenting these links, which I found in ten seconds using a Google search, to demonstrate that bird experts do indeed use colloidal silver to help cure their pet birds of infections.

However, it appears just about any good brand of colloidal silver will do. You can do what a lot of chicken raisers and bird lovers do, and make your own high-quality colloidal silver for less than 36 cents a quart, using a Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge. The money you save by making your own colloidal silver instead of buying commercial brands can be astonishing!

We have a number of readers who have written in and said things like, “I add a few drops of colloidal silver to our parrot’s drinking water each time I change it, and spray her and her cage with it frequently.”

Many farmers also use colloidal silver on their poultry to clear up infections that can spread rapidly. (The FDA, by the way, frowns on the use of colloidal silver by farmers; see their strange warning against using colloidal silver for farm animals or pets, here.)

For example, the Happy Chicks web site for chicken farmers states:

“Chicken sneezing, coughing, runny nose, diarrhea, rattling and gasping…If your hens have the above, they probably have mycoplasma.

This is very common in poultry and easily treated. Mycoplasma is an infection passed around in hens throughout the country. Hens with mycoplasma need to have antibiotics. These antibiotics can be put in the drinking water of given straight to hen orally.

We use high-stability colloidal silver which is a natural antibiotic – safe on humans and animals. You can either give direct into the hen’s mouth twice a day or put a teaspoon into their drinking water.”

On the BackyardChickens.com website I found the following interesting account:

“I have used colloidal silver with immediate success. I rescued 4 black sex-links [i.e., cross-bred chickens – ED] and one of them started sneezing with congestion right after releasing them from quarantine.

As a newbie chicken mom, I was scared she had infected the whole flock. I believe in using antibiotics as little as possible…so, I grabbed my colloidal silver, added 2 teaspoons to a gallon of their water plus 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar for 5 days and her sneezes and congestion was totally gone and has not returned!

None of the rest of my flock ever showed signs of what she might have had either…Since then I use 1/2 teaspoon daily in their water.”

I also found the following account on the BackyardChickens.com website:

“I came home yesterday to a sneezing and wheezing chicken. I quickly removed her and administered 1 cc of 20 ppm colloidal silver. I also soaked a small piece of bread with olive oil and 3 drops of the colloidal silver because I was not sure exactly how much of the 1 cc I had gotten down her as she was fighting me.

Within an hour she was no longer wheezing. Before bedtime I gave her another 1 cc of the silver with the help of hubby so I was sure I had gotten it down her. She was confined to a large wire dog crate away from the other chickens overnight.

In the morning she was fine and this afternoon I returned her to the coop with the other hens. I wanted to share this as I have had another hen that had on two different occasions over the past couple of years presented with the same symptoms and the silver had worked successfully and almost immediately.”

Finally, I saw the following comment on the BackYardChickens.com site, from a woman who had a hen afflicted with Marek’s disease, a potentially deadly virus that from the herpes virus family that can leave chicken’s paralyzed:

“I brought the hen into the house, in a plastic tub with bedding. I force fed her (figuring it couldn’t hurt) a mixture of colloidal silver and water at first, then as she perked up, colloidal silver mixed with “emergen-C” vitamin powder.

For two days she lay on her side, then moved to lying on her breast, then spent yesterday standing up. After the first two days she started eating again.

As she was crawling with lice I also treated her with topical Ivermectin and diatomaceous earth. Today I moved her back to the flock. She is wobbly on her legs, but can run around and fly. However, she is closing one eye now, and pecks at her food several times before finding it (I read about Marek’s impairing vision).

Tomorrow I will probably bring her back in the house and continue the nursing treatment. Her recovery was remarkable…but everything I read about Marek’s says to cull the bird (I have not done this yet, and for various reasons would find it very difficult to do).”

In another post, the same lady wrote, in answer to a question posed to her about using colloidal silver on her chickens:

“I first heard about using colloidal silver for chickens in Patricia Forman’s book City Chicks…I just know it seems to really work well on chickens…

My Marek’s hen seems to be doing well. I brought her back in the house. She is alert and eating and gaining weight. In fact, she broke out of her box last night, which I had loosely covered with chicken wire, and spent the night on my son’s bed (he is away at college.) Luckily her diarrhea had cleared up.

I’m going to treat her irritated eye with colloidal silver… Hopefully another week of TLC will have her back with the other hens.”

And here’s yet another Marek’s Disease survival story from the BackYardChickens.com website:

“A while back, I posted about curing two of my hens of Marek’s with Colloidal Silver (CS). I’ve had several chickens lovers contact me and let me know that because of my post, they gave colloidal silver to their paralyzed chickens and they have all completely recovered and are walking again.

I also want to share about a recent experience with a rooster that healed because of colloidal silver. Copper is a beautiful copper-colored rooster who, when 4-5 months old, began having trouble walking. The joints in his legs lost their strength and he ended up walking on those joints (equivalent to where our knees are). It was horribly sad as he was not only sweet, but beautiful.

I began to give him colloidal silver. He must have had a really advanced case of it because it took weeks before he started showing signs of being able to walk normally again. I used to visualize his legs as super strong as I’d see him hobbling around the yard and with the applications of colloidal silver, his legs got stronger and he started to walk.

Every so often, his joints would give out again. He would walk with his tail way high and his head low at first because it kept his legs straight. Then one day, he began walking normally. It was such a triumph. Beautiful Copper could walk.”

And finally, I received the following message from Becky B., who raises chickens. She wrote:

“Yesterday one of my hens got a nasty looking infection on the side of her face around her eye. When I first saw it, I was horrified. Her face was swollen, and the skin around her eye was green. There weren’t any open wounds or oozing pus, but this was definitely an infection of some sort.

She wouldn’t leave the coop, eat or drink, make her usual chicken noises, or even move, and she also had chills and shivered several times. I thought for sure we’d lose her.

Then I remembered the colloidal silver that my grandmother makes and gives us. Even though there wasn’t an open wound, I put some on her face, and a drop in her eye so the infection didn’t get into her eye. And I made her drink some.

I kept her in the house to monitor her, and she seemed to get worse, the green was now the whole way around her eye. I gave her colloidal silver 2 more times. By the end of the day, she was definitely acting like she felt better, the appearance of the infection had changed, but I couldn’t say it looked better.

Now just 24 hours later, and a little more colloidal silver down her beak, I can hardly even tell the infection had been there! She’s completely acting normal, eating and drinking, running around with the rest of the flock!

I really believe that without the silver, and answered prayer, that we would have lost her. Thank you for educating us about colloidal silver!”

So it appears that both topical and internal use of small amounts of colloidal silver saved the day for Becky’s hen!

Yet Another Success Story!

Jennifer M. had a similar experience, and she documented it with video showing her infected Banty hen before-and-after the colloidal silver treatment.

Jennifer M's Chicken Before Colloidal Silver I’ve provided two snippets from Jennifer’s videos here. The first one shows the hen’s swollen, infected eye. And the second one shows it completely healed after the colloidal silver treatment. Here are Jennifer’s comments:

“Steve, colloidal silver is amazing for animals. I just ordered the Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator after buying many rounds of the colloidal silver and have used it on my cats, dogs, chickens, rescued mice, voles and rabbits and even my own abscessed tooth.

Most recently I used the colloidal silver on a mycoplasma infection in my Banty hen. If you have any chicken knowledge, there are two infections – Coryza and mycoplasma – that are both highly contagious and often strike poultry.

The infected poultry have to be culled so they don’t infect the rest of the chickens. These infections can cause respiratory disease in chickens resulting in nasal discharge, sneezing, and intense swelling of the face under the eyes. My Banty had it pretty bad.

I used a plastic syringe to give my Banty 1 ml of colloidal silver at a time, orally. And I put the same amount of colloidal silver in her electrolyte/ probiotic water.

She was isolated almost 4 weeks as her sinuses were so swollen. You can see how miserable she was.

I also supplemented apple cider vinegar, tumeric and garlic in the water. But I know it was the silver that worked its magic, because just the apple cider vinegar, garlic and turmeric had been given her for days before and weren’t working.

The swelling is completely down. There are no more swollen eyeballs. And I’ve been able to release them back into the coop with the other hens.”

And Even Another Success Story!

Janet L. wrote to say she’d had a similar experience. She stated:

“I have a flock of 45 organic hens. Last winter for the first time, I got upper respiratory throughout the flock. Birds (avian) are extremely sensitive to disease and the success rate of a cure is very small. In general, by the time you know they’re sick, in most cases death is imminent.

They had full blown coughing and sneezing with discharge. I immediately replaced their water source with colloidal silver water. It took a month for all symptoms to go away but in the process of treatment, not one hen went off her food, stopped laying or eating, or died. It is nothing short of a miracle. Now it is 6 months later and everyone is doing wonderfully.”

Works on Bird Parasites, Too!

Steve J. posted to the Colloidal Silver Secrets Community on Facebook that he’s found colloidal silver helpful for chickens infected with a stomach parasite. He wrote:

“We have at present over 85 chickens. They get something called Coccidiosis, which is a parasitic infection of the intestinal tract. It usually kills them in 5-6 days!!! But we haven’t lost a one to that disease since we started dosing them with colloidal silver immediately upon discovering one has this disease.

We separate the bird & depending upon the stage of the disease, dose them 1-3 times daily, for approximately a week. We’ve been learning about it over the last three years, and have been in the experimental stage, so at first, we were using approximately 10 ppm, once a day, but while that worked they would eventually relapse. So we increased the concentration to 23 ppm and haven’t lost any since.”

Catherine L. wrote:

“We saved our chicken flock from an infection that had come in with a few newbies. One died and the rest starting gurgling like they were drowning. There was no veterinarian to test locally, so we had nothing to lose by trying colloidal silver. It worked. We only lost the one. The rest are back to good health. I believe wholly now.”

And Sarah H. wrote, simply:

“I have used colloidal silver with success on chickens. Internally and on wounds.”

Another member of the Colloidal Silver Secrets Community on Facebook wrote in to say that allowing her infected chicks to breathe colloidal silver mist through a nebulizer in a make-shift “croup tent” healed their upper respiratory infections after only a few treatments. She stated:

“A splash of colloidal silver in the chicken’s water clears up any coughs too….and I had some sick chicks and made a ‘croup tent’ out of a plastic grocery bag…I put the sick chicks into the open ‘tent’ and used a nebulizer to mist it into the ‘tent’, and one of the chicks is already up and eating again after only 2 treatments!! Love this stuff, and love my colloidal silver generator from The Silver Edge even more!”

Parrots, Cockatiels, Ducks and More!

Colloidal silver apparently works well on other types of sick birds, as well. Here are some examples from people who have written in:

Kimberly G. wrote:

“My parakeet was very sick for a few days and couldn’t even sit on his perch so I added colloidal silver to his water and a few hours later he was perfectly fine.”

Marshalee H. wrote to say:

“I cured a baby cockatiel bird of Giardia with my home made colloidal silver. I just put a few drops right into her beak throughout the day. The vet was amazed!!!”

Amber S. wrote to say:

“Yes! I have a bird that got attacked by the cat a few days ago. The wound was very large and gruesome and I didn’t think he’d make it. I applied Colloidal Silver (from my home generator) every hour that day and then at the end of the day saturated it with coconut oil to re-moisturize it… His wound was COMPLETELY closed back up by the next morning and he’s just as happy and healthy now as ever!!”

Patricia J. wrote to tell me:

“My bird, Captain Jack, has been sick for months. I got him from someone who did not take good care of him. He had a hole in his neck. I spent $150 for antibiotics. Guess what? They did not work. Meantime I got this silver maker and I’ve been putting the colloidal silver into his bath and his drinking water. The hole in his neck is gone. No more vet bills for Capt Jack. He was even chattering, which he has not done in weeks. Thank you. Silver is magic.”

Marvin D. wrote to say:

“My parrot chewed on his right wing eight years ago. The feathers didn’t grow back until 2 weeks ago when I started holding him down and spraying the wing with colloidal silver. The feathers are not completely grown out, but are visible and growing”

Sandra F. wrote to say:

“Dear Steve, have to tell you how I have just saved my cockatiel, my third pet success. She was already a cripple when given to me with two broken wings & a broken leg which was already useless due to a solid abscess.

A week ago she developed a lump on her back. A few hours later it had doubled in size and I thought she would burst. I rang my sister for advice, as she breeds cockatiels. She advised me to lance the abscess and swab the area with colloidal silver, and use a plastic syringe to put colloidal silver down the bird’s throat.

I was unable to lance the lump. So just did the swabbing & syringing. After 5 days the abscess is almost gone, from a half-walnut size to flat!”

And finally, Anne T. wrote to say,

“I have used colloidal silver in the drinking water of my ducks and chickens. They are never sick.”

Works on Pigeons Infected with a Parasite, Too!

Brian M. wrote to say that he’s been using colloidal silver successfully on his sick pigeons, as well. He stated:

“We are a small charity in London (London Wildlife Protection) and we run on a very small budget. We mostly pay our own costs and occasionally people submitting birds will make a donation.

I say this because I want to make the point that we cannot submit a bird to a vet every time we are not sure what the problem is. We mostly treat pigeons which have very hard lives in the cities. Their average life span drops from 14 years to 4 years because they live in a city.

This is where colloidal silver is the most useful to us. We can either try a different antibiotic every three days or so and hope we hit the right antibiotic before the infection overwhelms the pigeons body, or we can give colloidal silver, which has a very broad-spectrum action on diseases and even treats things that antibiotics cannot, such as viruses.

I have found in general that it is better to give colloidal silver than try to guess the right antibiotic drug. I have far more pigeons with undiagnosed disease that have survived after colloidal silver than I have that went through the trial-and-error procedure with the antibiotic drugs.

We also have problems with some of the antibiotic drugs no longer working as well as they once did, forcing us to use such drugs in combination to get rid of an infection.

One of the worst diseases in this regard is Canker, which is a protozoa that build up a cheese-like deposit in the pigeons throat and sometimes deeper in the body. The pigeon can suffocate slowly from this build up. I have found colloidal silver works against this protozoa even when it is resistant against a number of the drugs we use.

I feel with the greater antibiotic drug resistance that we are meeting in various pathogens, colloidal silver is going to be a big part of future treatment of animals that are in places where they are exposed to a lot of diseases.

I grow more positive on colloidal silver as the days go by. I’m finding it easier to control the spread of disease by adding colloidal silver to their water and giving it directly to those that are sick. I have a lot of sympathy for street pigeons, as they live such awful and short lives because of the way they are hated by people. People should know better and be more compassionate to such a poor animal.”

Dosages for Sick Birds?

From what I’ve read, it appears most bird lovers either add a teaspoonful or two of colloidal silver to their bird’s drinking water, for preventive purposes. Or, if the bird is already sick, they might give it 1 cc of colloidal silver, up to three times a day, orally, using an eyedropper or a plastic syringe.

This generally works for both stomach infections as well as upper respiratory infections. But for stubborn upper respiratory infections, some bird lovers sequester their sick birds into makeshift croup tents (aka “mist tent”), and run aerosolized colloidal silver mist into the ‘tent’ using a nebulizer. (Learn more about using nebulized colloidal silver to treat pets with upper respiratory infections, here.)

Interestingly, there’s actual clinical documentation for this. In a study titled “Silver and Its Compounds,” published in the journal Disinfection, Sterilization and Preservation, it’s noted by the study authors that, “In veterinary medicine, claims have been made that an ionic silver aerosol, upon inhalation, has protected chickens against coli-bacteriosis and pullorosis-typhus infections.”

This means ionic colloidal silver given to poultry as an aerosol (i.e., probably using a cool mist vaporizer or a nebulizer with colloidal silver in it), appears to have protected the chickens from infection.

Have You Used Colloidal Silver to Help Heal Your Chickens or Other Birds?

Have you successfully used colloidal silver to help heal your own chickens or other bird friends? Please feel free to post your experiences to the Colloidal Silver Secrets Group on Facebook. I love reading your success stories!

Make Your Own High-Quality Colloidal Silver for Pennies!

As I mentioned, typical health food store prices for colloidal silver can range from $20 to $30 for a tiny, four-ounce bottle.

But with a brand new Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge, you can make your own safe, pure, high-quality micro-particle colloidal silver for about 36 cents a quart! In other words, you can make it at actual cost, just like the big colloidal silver bottlers do.

Compared to typical health food store prices, your first two one-quart batches literally pay for the entire cost of your new generator! Do you know of any other health product that literally pays for itself the very first few times you use it? The savings are absolutely astonishing!

In fact, by making your own high-quality colloidal silver with a brand new Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge, you’ll be as close to having FREE colloidal silver as you can get, and for the rest of your life!

You’ll never have to pay those exorbitant health food store prices again!

The new Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator is now the world’s #1 best-selling colloidal silver generator. Here are just a few reasons why you should own one…

It pays for itself after your very first batch or two – your total cost to make your first one-quart batch is about 36 cents, compared to the $240 you’d pay at a health food store if you bought an equivalent amount (i.e., eight of those little 4-ounce bottles they normally sell for $30 apiece)!

Safe, simple to operate…No special skills needed…You just set the handy timer, plug it in, walk away, and three hours later you have a perfect batch of therapeutic quality micro-particle colloidal silver…every time! Here’s a short pictorial demonstrating how astonishingly easy it is to use a new Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge:

Produces uncommonly small silver micro-particles as low as .8 nm. That’s a fraction of a single nanometer. Compare that to health food store colloidal silver which can contain silver particles as large as 200 nm to 1,000 nm (or even larger), and you’ll see why micro-particle colloidal silver is the very best there is! Smaller particles mean your body can absorb and utilize up to 99% of the colloidal silver you take, compared to maybe 30% or 40% with many health food store brands!

Runs on standard household electricity, but uses less power than a tiny Christmas tree bulb – you won’t even see a blip on your electric bill!

Produces uniform, crystal clear batches every single time that store for months, or even years, without losing potency!

Cannot produce silver chloride or unsafe substances – you get pure, therapeutic-quality micro-particle colloidal silver every time!

The Bottom Line…

With a high-quality Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge, you’ll never again have to pay exorbitant health food store or internet vendor prices for high-quality colloidal silver!

Indeed, your first batch or two will indeed completely pay for the entire cost of your generator, compared to health food store prices!

What’s more, you’ll be able to give colloidal silver away FREE to family members, friends and neighbors, because you’ll be making it – literally – for only a few pennies per batch!

Simply click on this link to learn more about this phenomenal new breakthrough in colloidal silver-making technology, including our current, time-limited, money-saving offers that can save you up to $100 if you act quickly and decisively!

Meanwhile, I’ll be back next week with another insightful article on colloidal silver….

Yours for the safe, sane and responsible use of colloidal silver,
Steve Barwick Signature
Steve Barwick, author
The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual

Helpful Links:

FREE Colloidal Silver Safe Dosage Report

Colloidal Silver Secrets Group on Facebook

Make Your Own Colloidal Silver for Pennies

.9999 Pure Silver Wire for Making Colloidal Silver

Important Note and Disclaimer: The contents of this Ezine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information conveyed herein is from sources deemed to be accurate and reliable, but no guarantee can be made in regards to the accuracy and reliability thereof. The author, Steve Barwick, is a natural health journalist with over 30 years of experience writing professionally about natural health topics. He is not a doctor. Therefore, nothing stated in this Ezine should be construed as prescriptive in nature, nor is any part of this Ezine meant to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice. Nothing reported herein is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The author is simply reporting in journalistic fashion what he has learned during the past 17 years of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage. Therefore, the information and data presented should be considered for informational purposes only and approached with caution. Readers should verify for themselves, and to their own satisfaction, from other knowledgeable sources such as their doctor, the accuracy and reliability of all reports, ideas, conclusions, comments, and opinions stated herein. All important health care decisions should be made under the guidance and direction of a legitimate, knowledgeable and experienced health care professional. Readers are solely responsible for their choices. The author and publisher disclaim responsibility and/or liability for any loss or hardship that may be incurred as a result of the use or application of any information included in this Ezine.