- Sep 21, 2010
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Hi All -- I'm sure some of you have seen these too and someone must know what they are --- we feed our flock twice a day in addition to mucking (yep, just like with horses) and scrub out their water bowls with vinegar once a day. Even though it's less than a 24 hour period lately I've been finding these gross worms in their water bowl - they kind of look like earthworms, but smaller and lighter. They even survive in the really cold temps and frigid water. Sometimes I see the same worms in bird baths we have on our property -- though we refresh the water daily and even with the wild bird baths I also scrub them out with vinegar for a good cleaning but not daily -- usually every week or two. I also regularly brush the ground with DE for a natural de-worming for our chickens and any of the wild birds that hang out here. What the heck are these things and where are they coming from? I've read about worms from beetles (?) -- this is definitely not from flies cause I know what those look like and it's also too cold right now - we have almost no mosquitoes. We do have some kangaroo rats that live nearby - they are tiny like a small brown mouse. They usually feed on the local mesquite pods but they are drawn to the water bowls in our chicken coop -- that is actually another problem -- even though we replenish and clean the water daily sometimes I find these mice having drowned in a water tub. But the worms, every year when it gets cold I see them -- not near as much when it's hotter and drier. Anyone have any clues, thoughts to share on this? Should we be concerned over the health of our chickens?
merry xmas everyone.
