As one who follows alternative medicine, I'm not a huge fan of vaccines.
12 years ago, I was very sick with Lyme Disease and Esptein Barr Virus. After 3 years of misery and not being able to find a conventional doctor who was willing to even try to help me, I found an Integrative Physician (treats mostly with alternative remedies, but occasionally uses conventional treatments, when necessary).
"Dr. G." said I was one of his sickest patients. It took eight months for me to
start to feel better. Dr. G. used herbs, supplements (including probiotics) and neutriceuticals to build up my immune system, so my body could fight the multiple infections raveging my body. And gradually my body did start to fight the infections and today the Lyme is in remission (it is not possible to totally eradicate Lyme, because it is so strong), and the Epstein Barr Virus is a thin of the past.
I'm telling you this, because I believe that our immune system resides in our's (and our animal's) guts. I am now convinced that by consuming probiotic foods (like Kombucha, Plain Kefir and cultured vegetables), we will create a healthy environment in our gut, with "good bacteria", and our bodies can become strong enough to begin to heal themselves.
Over the past 4 or 5 years I have been adding the above cultured/fermented foods to our diets and DH and I are much healthier because of it.
Along those lines, I recently learned about Bokashi, which is fermented wheat bran (using an Efficient Microbes [EM-1]), a type of probiotic, that is fed to farm animals and put into garden soil, for healthier animals and gardens. It has even been shown to help humans.
Rather than try to explain how it works, here are some links, that will do a better job of explaining it than I could.
http://home-n-stead.com/homestead/tipsandrecipes/ems.html
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http://www.hawaiihealingtree.org/how-to-make-your-own-em-1-inoculant-and-bokashi/
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I have made my first batch of inoculant serum, and bought a 50 pound bag, of wheat bran, at my local co-op, (for the low price of $7.60 - including tax).
Tomorrow, we move on to the next step of mixing inoculant serum, molasses & water with wheat bran, to make our first batch of Bokashi, that we can start feeding to our animals.
I firmly believe that by giving our animals probiotic rich feeds, their guts will be healthy, making their immune systems strong, which will help keep them healthy.
