Use of Epson Salts

By: Nino Bujega
Date: CNTU Newsletter 2005
Category: Health

I have been reading some new info of Epsom Salts, and its use in respect to
pigeons.

It's been long thought that (and by me also) that the use of this in a
manner to Purge the birds was the way to go before a feed up and a
competition.

After reading this new info I am no longer a believer, even though I haven't
used it in the last two years now myself, but did in the past years, it
reads as follows.

What it is really is an electrolyte (or salt) combination, magnesium
sulfate. It was thought to promote health in some way by fanciers for
years. When electrolytes or salts are given orally, fluid movers across the
bowel wall to make the concentration of these the same on either side. This
natural mechanism is a protective device that re-establishes normal salt
concentrations in body fluids if dehydration occurs. With dehydration, body
salts become concentrated and so, after drinking, fluid is quickly absorbed
from the bowel into the body, diluting the body salts so that the normal
healthy levels are re-established.

When we give a concentrated salt solution, such as Epsom salts, to a healthy
bird, the opposite happens. Fluid rushes from the body into the bowel,
attempting to dilute the salts there. As a result the bowel fills with
fluid, in the process dehydrating the bird. The resultant watery droppings
are made up of the healthy bodies normal fluids. Prolonged supplementation
with concentrated salts leads to profound dehydration, irreversible kidney
damage and death. This is why people and animals that drink seawater
eventually die.
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