a flock of chickens, cholera and an incredible little pill

I wanted to share this little story with you because it amazed me and was a big reason why I wanted to dig deeper into studying homeopathy and its healing potential. I hope you are as amazed as I was!

[Excerpted from Joette Calabrese's Cure Yourself and Your Family With Homeopathy: Empowering Mothers & Others to Bring Healing Back Home]

"Years ago when our family moved to the country it seemed a natural decision to raise chickens. Up to that point I’d never treated an animal so when one of our chickens became ill one afternoon I knew it was time to open that door. One morning our sons noticed that one of the chickens was walking “funny”. Her gait had rigidity to it. Next, we observed violent diarrhea and vomiting and she was taking frequent sips of water from the trough. These symptoms began at about 1:00 in the afternoon. By 3:00 she was laying on the ground trembling and salivating; by 4:00 she was dead. The first thought I had was poisoning such as mouse poisoning since our flock is free ranging and has been known to go off our property to a neighbor’s barn. It appeared to be an isolated incident so we buried her and kept the flock closer to home. However two days later another chicken began acting the same way. This one appeared cold from the onset and still assuming it may have been poisoned by perhaps arsenic, I gave her Arsenicum album 30c but with no response. She died so quickly (less than 3 hours) that I didn’t have time to repertorize. I phoned a veterinary friend to see if she had any ideas. She thought it sounded like foul cholera. Now I realized I needed totake quick action. I looked up foul cholera in my Chicken Health Handbook, a veterinary farming book, and sure enough the symptoms matched.   It said that one should expect a 45-55% mortality rate from foul cholera in a flock, even with the use of the recommended antibiotics. Additionally, those birds that survived would often be left with debilitating chronic cholera that would result in the inability to lay eggs. I’ve prided myself on the health of our chickens, giving them organic homemade mash including flaxseeds and plenty of worms. I certainly didn’t want half a flock of dead chickens and the remaining half chronically ill, not to mention that our hens were not only our egg sources but much loved pets. By the time I was off the phone with my friend, our 11-year and 6-year-old sons came in the house with two more sick hens… their two favorites, Gloria and Gladys! Gloria was lying on her side salivating with slight tremors.   I knew that meant she could have less than 1 hour left. Gladys was still at the thirsty, diarrhea, vomiting stage. Quickly I looked under rectum: cholera in my repertory hoping to find that foul cholera was enough like human cholera to indicate the same remedies. Cuprum, Veratrum album, and Camphor were the leading remedies. I didn’t bother with reading the differentials at that moment, as I knew Cuprum metallicum covered stiffness of the extremities, which would explain the odd little gait they displayed.  I ran to my remedy stock and found Cuprum first and promptly opened Gloria’s little beak and inserted 2 pellets. It was good enough for the moment.  I thought I’d differentiate after I’d gotten something in her mouth. Gladys got the same. With a little sense of relief I began to look for other clues when I noticed that Gloria was sitting up (in approximately 3 minutes).  Gladys no longer had diarrhea and vomiting, so the boys and I just watched. Gloria began to tremor again and go down on her side.   I gave her another dose and within 5 minutes she was walking. Gladys needed another dose shortly after and it revived her to pecking the floor (a good sign for chickens). Gloria received her third dose approximately 2 hours later when she appeared to be weakening again.   This revived her to full chicken activity by the end of the day! Later I gave Cuprum metallicum 30c to the entire flock as a prophylactic measure. One of my sons brought chickens to me one by one to give them each a dose of Cuprum metallicum 30c.  In hindsight I realize I could have put a dose into their water, but it felt good to take part in dispensing. We watched carefully for the next two days. There were no relapses and no new victims. Since this was an epidemic I viewed each chicken as part of the whole community and assumed that they had all contracted cholera since we have only one watering trough. We scrubbed down the coup and in doing so found the source of the infection: a dead wild bird was under the hay pile. Foul cholera usually strikes chickens that have contact with an infected wild bird.    

It’s been many years since this incident and I see only healthy contented chickens. There have been no additional deaths and no chronic illness following this incident. Gloria and Gladys each happily lay 1 egg daily nearly all year, as does the entire flock.  What a powerful reminder of homeopathy’s sterling reputation in an epidemic! "

This is a good example for doubting Thomases who think homeopathy is just a placebo effect. It works on animals and babies who have no idea what it is or what it's supposed to do... it just works!

I also wanted to share the great news:  I start my classes in May! I'm all registered and along with my homeopathy units, I also take Anatomy and Physiology. It's been 27 years since I took that course... I hope I do remember something! :P  Craig found some 3-D apps to help with that. Caroline will be taking Biology this fall so maybe we can compare notes. My spring cleaning is underway too! I'm trying to do a room a day when I can. That list I posted below is a good one to go over anything I might not think of doing. The weather is cooler so it's hard to do the windows. Hope you're having a good week!