Antibiotic-Free Chickens

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Of course, when we get our chickens, they won't live in crowded conditions that foster disease in conventionally raised chickens (nor will we eat them).  But there's some interesting news from Bell & Evans, a Pennsylvania-based chicken farm (near Harrisburg) that long has spurned antibiotic treatment as a cure for chicken ailments. (The problem with antibiotics, as most of us know, is that overuse leads to resistance to the curative effects of antibiotics, both in the animals that are given them routinely and in the humans who eat those animals.  In fact, it was antibiotic overuse that fostered the growth of "superbugs" and led to a number of tainted-meat recalls--over 100 million pounds worth--during the last several years.)

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Scott Sechler, president of Bell & Evans, told the New York Times that herbs and spices are just as effective as antibiotics in maintaining the health of his chickens.  In particular, he adds a commercially produced oregano oil (as well as cinnamon) to a feed he has specially milled for his birds. Mr. Sechler also drinks oregano tea himself!  If you'd like to make oregano oil, at home, here are instructions.  Oregano oil also has been found effective in treating diarrhea caused in piglets by E. coli.  Regarding cinnamon, I'll make one point:  I (Melinda) tend to have high-normal blood sugar, but since I started consuming at least a teaspoon of ground cinnamon a day (in my morning tea), my levels have dropped to well within the mid-normal range.  Herbs and spices really rock, for both non-human and human animals!