Unknown Intestinal Parasites

jenndera said:

This looks like tape worm to me. When I foster kittens they usually have tape worm and it looks exactly as this.

The medicine to kill tape worm is different than roundworm, so that could be why the roundworm treatment didn't help. I know you can get tapeworm treatment for cats and dogs on amazon and it works well. Not sure for chickens, though.

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Thanks!

From what I've seen, if it's not piperazine, it's not "rated/tested/approved/etc." for use in chickens thanks to large-scale all in/all out commercial practices. But some of the threads/info linked in other people's responses cover dosing and adaption of wormers for just about every other animal to chickens, so there is hope.

Dawg53 is a good person to talk to re deworming in general but for tapes as well if you want to pm him.

I would definitely deworm them all, if there's that many in the poop imagine what they look like inside! You can use Valbazen (albendazole) or Zimectrin Gold for tapeworms. I believe you can also use Praziquantel (sp?) for dogs/cats at 10 mg per 2.2 lbs, but double check that info. Safeguard will not get rid of them.

Tapes can be very hard to get rid of, what works best is to withhold food for 24 hours, let them have water of course, then give the dewormer. Several hours after worming start allowing food again but only a little at a time so they don't gorge themselves and get an impacted crop. Repeat all this in 4 days and again 4 days later.

There are various insects that are hosts for tapeworms other then pond critters, so it's something you'll likely have to treat for occasionally.

As far as doing on-going fecals? I'm personally not sure it's worth the expense. It's very easy to get false negatives if you just happen to do a sample when parasites are not shedding eggs. Since it's a given that chickens who are on the ground are going to get worms due to their lifestyle it's probably more cost effective to just treat them 2 or 3 times a year with a good, broad spectrum dewormer and stay on top of things that way.

Wow great pic! Show that to your vet.
Very curious about what you will find out.

Gross? Yeah I guess, but fascinating.
If eyes are the window to the soul, then poop is the window to the body...lol!!

Interesting. Tapes usually appear a little lighter white or translucent white but yeah, must be tapes. Also looks like there may be something else there too. The ones that are a little longer.

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aart said:

Wow great pic! Show that to your vet.
Very curious about what you will find out.

Gross? Yeah I guess, but fascinating.
If eyes are the window to the soul, then poop is the window to the body...lol!!

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Ended up doing that this morning, as well as taking a sample in. They said they looked like orange tapes, though they'd never seen orange tapes before. Admittedly, we dropped them at our cat vet's office because it's easier to get to than the group that handles livestock, so maybe cats never get "fun" colored parasites. Test results later today to confirm.

chkn said:

Interesting. Tapes usually appear a little lighter white or translucent white but yeah, must be tapes. Also looks like there may be something else there too. The ones that are a little longer.

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Yes, that's what I kept finding. Growing up, whenever our dogs or cats got tapes, they were translucent/white and didn't seem to move much. These are actually orange and really active! They're all the same, actually, the longer ones are just the ones in the middle of inching forward.

Probably flukes. Valbazen will kill them.

Vet identified presence of "some" tapes and what they thought may be flukes as well, though not of the variety in their feline vet manual. From the photo alone, initial ID was tapes. Recommended treatment with albendazole or praziquantel containing broad-spec dewormer. Called our less conveniently located livestock vet to discuss and get dosing recommendations with both types of medication before hitting the local farm stores. Couldn't find any Valbazen or other albendazole dewormer, but did find praziquantel and hit the whole flock with a dose yesterday.

So far, they're all doing fine. Will continue poo stalking a bit later this afternoon and through the week to see how we're doing. Plan to re-dose in 7 days.

Did you figure our what these were? I have this in my flock. Help! I need to know how to treat.

tcorso said:

Did you figure our what these were? I have this in my flock. Help! I need to know how to treat.

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Tapeworms.

Are you in the US?