Safeguard and Feather Damage While Molting

[casportpony]

Remember that just because you don't see worms in poop doesn't mean they aren't there and that many worms are too small to see. The best thing to do is to have routine fecals done and worm according to that.

It's true that some people never worm, or do worm with the 3cc per gallon and don't have problems, but I have seen posts from other people have that have been using the 3cc per gallon and have lost peafowl. Were they lost to worms? Hard to say for sure without a necropsy.

-Kathy

 

[zazouse]

A microscope comes in real handy for finding things unseen to the naked eye

 

[casportpony]

A microscope comes in real handy for finding things unseen to the naked eye

Yes it would, but still not a guarantee, 'cause often they have worms and the worms are not pooped out.

-Kathy

 

[DylansMom]

Yes it would, but still not a guarantee, 'cause often they have worms and the worms are not pooped out.

-Kathy

Just out of curiosity, even if a necropsy were performed and some worms were found, is there any way to tell if they are the cause of death? Obviously if it was a huge amount like the picture KKB posted we would assume they were the cause of death, but I'm not talking about a huge amount. Can a bird thrive with a modest number of worms in their system? Seems to me there may never be any way to prove or disprove the effectiveness of using the wormer in water.

 

[casportpony]

• 1cc or 1ml Safeguard is 100mg fenbendazole
• 3cc Safeguard per gallon is 300mg/gallon or 2.34mg per ounce.

Remember that non laying birds drink the less than laying birds and growing chicks. Sick birds usually drink even less.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Quote: Good question... A friend of mine recently had a necropsy done on her *mature* bird and I don't believe they found the intestines full of worms, but they did find evidence of both coccidiosis and capillary worms and listed the cause of death as parasitism. A necropsy should reveal damage to the intestines if there is any, but I don't know how many worms it takes to cause damage.


-Kathy

 

[KsKingBee]

Just out of curiosity, even if a necropsy were performed and some worms were found, is there any way to tell if they are the cause of death? Obviously if it was a huge amount like the picture KKB posted we would assume they were the cause of death, but I'm not talking about a huge amount. Can a bird thrive with a modest number of worms in their system? Seems to me there may never be any way to prove or disprove the effectiveness of using the wormer in water.

OK, just got back from having the post treatment fecal exam. NO worm eggs of ANY kind!

She did find five Coccidiosis but told me to wait forty-five days to do another fecal and we will decide then if there is anything to treat for.

Mindy, I asked your question and she said that yes they can thrive even with a worm load as long as they do not have any other issues. If the load gets too high they will fall to secondary problems like infections that they would normally have been able to fend off. According to her, birds will deal with some worms and even dispel them as their system fights back against them. She does have concerns about treating with too little medication making parasites more resistant to the meds and also treating without cause.

Well that is as close as a clean bill of health as I can have for the adults, the post treatment fecal for the chicks will be done on next Tuesday.

 

[MinxFox]

Okay everyone, thanks for your replies! I understand what you all are saying now. Even if 3cc's work for me, it doesn't mean that it is really working and the peafowl can still live with worms but could eventually die from it. Besides I don't bring many new birds into my stock but I do plan on getting new peafowl eventually, and it would be devastating if new peafowl brought some tougher worms to my birds that could kill my birds, so I will definitely feel good now about treating with a larger dose. I have some canned catfood and I might try adding that in the mash for some days to get the peas to keep eating it. Hopefully that will be appealing to them. Tomorrow I should go get some mash for them and I will try and start up day 1 of their treatment tomorrow as well.
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@bdfive - I think you need to show some photos of your setup! My ideal setup that I want someday is to have rows of pens, but behind them there would be a very huge aviary that each pen would have a door to so that for say the winter I could let all of the peafowl into the large aviary or during the breeding season I could let each pen have a turn at getting access to the large aviary...For example one week the pied peafowl pen would have access to the large aviary, then the next week the India Blues will have access to the large aviary and the pieds won't. Some of my inspiration for that comes from zoos. In particular I like what the Big Cat Rescue has done for their large cats giving them a "vacation rotation enclosure" - which is a giant fenced off area with oak trees, a pond, climbing structures, etc. Lots of space for the cats to run and play. I want something like that for peafowl!

 

[casportpony]

FWIW, I treated a sick rooster a few days ago with twice what we're suggesting and he's already better.

-Kathy

 

[MinxFox]

Okay, Kathy I hope this is okay...I made an article on my site using all the new Safeguard treatment info for reference. I gave you credit of course for all of the info. If you don't want it on my site that is okay I and put it in one of my personal peafowl info powerpoints. If there is anything else I should add let me know.

http://www.bamboopeacock.com/Safeguard_Worming_Reference.html