ok well I was told something about ph levels in the gut and worm prevention but you obviously know your stuff I'll knock it on the head but one more question my apple cider vinegar has garlic added. any wise thoughts about giving chickens garlic ?? I was told it helps against mites. is this all tree hugging hippy stuff???
Hmmm gut ph effects of ACV I doubt that it has significant effect. ACV is very acidic. Oddly some some alternative medicine sources claim ACV to be alkaline and to neutralise (or normalise whatever that means) acidic levels in the body which sounds like pure nonsence to me. The digestive tract contains very acidic elements so I doubt ACV has any effect in the concentration usually consumed. ACV has a huge list of potential "cure all" benefits according to some alternative medicine sources and largely because of the lack of credibility of many of these claims ACV is regarded as just a lot of quackery by mainstream medicine.
Garlic when crushed does at least produce a compound which has antibiotic properties and raw garlic has been used as a folk medicine for rubbing on wounds as an antisceptic. However I'm not sure if these properties are also retained when eaten. Garlic is claimed to be beneficial for sore throats but again that's due to contact. It may also be beneficial for fungal infections such as thrush and if so could be beneficial for chickens. I don't see why you would want to mix it with ACV and if you did I would have thought that some of the claimed benefits of both would be destroyed.
Not every antibacterial compound works when in the body. For example Fairy Liquid will kill cancer cells in a test tube but it isn't a cure for cancer and I wouldn't recommend you drink it. Again alterative medicine has claimed alsorts of health benefits for garlic such as lowering cholesterol but a major clinical trial in 2007 found that garlic in whatever form taken did not reduce blood cholesterol levels in patients with moderately high baseline cholesterol levels.
Although animals and birds do not eat garlic in the wild as it's thought the strong taste repells them it has been eaten by people as a condiment for thousands of years so I would have thought any major problems would have been found by now. So at worst it is probably harmless and at best it will have some antiseptic effects and it has the added benefits of warding off vampires
If you want to read about some of the nonsense propagated by the alternative medicine brigade you should read Ben Goldacres very amusing and readable book "Bad Science" in which he debunks many of the claims and practises of psuedo science. It's aimed at human medicine but has parallels in animal medicine too and you will come to recognise the hallmarks of unscrupulous companies who line their pockets at our expense by exploiting our vulnerability with subtle deception.
HF