To worm or not to worm that is the question.

[william1945]

if your chickens have worms i put a little garlic salt in their food

 

[Mrs. K]

Garlic salt will not kill worms. If you truly have a worm load, you need real wormer.

 

[william1945]

well i have chickens for over 50 years and i give them garlic salt once in a while and i have never had worms

 

[Alspal]

Never wormed a chicken in thirty five years, I feed them pumkins in season. The seeds are natural worm deterants.

 

[Beekissed]

Haven't dewormed a chicken in 40 yrs..hundreds upon hundreds of birds over that time, never had "signs and symptoms" of worms in a flock. No illness either. It's just not necessary if you are managing the flock well.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
There's always an option. That's like those folks who give their kids alcohol because they don't want them drinking and driving away from another source of alcohol. The third option would be to not let them drink at all.

I'd say if one doesn't have enough space at their home to keep chickens healthy without giving them drugs on a regular basis, then they probably shouldn't be keeping chickens at all. If they have limited space, it's likely they only have a handful of chickens in the first place and those aren't going to make or break their grocery costs...more likely to cost them more to pen them and try to keep them healthy than if they just bought eggs. If they are going to feed and dope like the commercial growers, how are those eggs any different than what they can buy in the store?

The option to abstain is always there and common sense would indicate that it could be chosen if one cannot keep chickens healthy where they live. I don't have room or proper pasture for horses, even though I love them and would love to have one or two, it would be cruel to try and make them live where they couldn't live a good, natural life with good grass to eat and the ability to escape their own fecal loads, so I don't get horses. To keep them in a small area, pump them full of drugs so they could stay alive to live there, just because I can and I want to just doesn't make any sense, not for the animal nor for the impact on the land on which we live.

Just because a lot of people do it doesn't make it a viable or sensible option for the animal.

 

[Bridebeliever]

I'm SO glad this thread was started! I've been reading page after page of experienced chicken keepers say NO to worming! Hooray! I really wasn't wanting to worm my girls and I was really feeling like they don't need it!

I hate to get gross here but it's really a point worth mentioning.

If YOU died tomorrow, and you were put in a glass SEALED coffin above ground and left there for say....a week. Guess what would happen? Worms would start to decompose your body. Why? Well cause they are in you already silly! Living in YOU, in a relatively symbiotic relationship unless you eat really wrong and unhealthy and YOU get an overload of worms. Or you travel somewhere with unsanitary conditions, or you drink contaminated water. I've know people that have traveled to 3rd world countries and gotten amoeba or worms and they've had to get something from the doctor to eradicate them.

But, living in sanitary conditions, eating healthy food and everything clicks along just how it should! Now, some people cleanse themselves every 6 months or once a year because they just can't stand the thought that BUGS are in them and those are probably the same people that worm their chickens on a schedule, just because.

Man, I was going to do it...but now I'm not! Thanks gang!

 

[shortgrass]

Do you discard the eggs for 10 days after each dose administered? So that would be 20 days total? And did you put the medicine in each bird's beak or in their water? Thanks. I've adopted some new birds that are infested with ringworms.

I'm hoping that is a typo?

Ringworm is a fungus; a wormer will do nothing for ringworm

Maybe it was supposed to say "roundworm"?


Lol it SOUNDS like an individual that can't say "I've had worms and beat them with such and such" would not be any kind if definitive proof that natural products work....but... Lol I'm not trying to DEworm, I PREVENT outbreaks naturally.

Probably why I can't say that anybif my natural practices have eradicated an worms, because I'm not even TRYING to eradicate them

I'm PREVENTing the infestation in the first place, so I guess that makes worming a moot subject for me lol, I'm no help at all


But here's an informative link that I explains all the different anthelmintics and why they are still (semi)approved for certain animals, ruminant and non (poultry), and also why I stay as far away from these as possible, yikes

Anyway, good info, need to know these things before we run out to worm everything on site

http://parasitipedia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2447&Itemid=2714


Lol I like the casket analogy though; its actually true, those worms will be in there, sealed sarcophagus and all

 

[GooseBuddha]

Oops, yes, I meant roundworm, not ringworm!

 

[Jesusfreak101]

I agree with shortgrass, oldhens, beekiss and all the others who dont worm. In a earlier post i mentioned that it kills good bacteria it was in reference not to the wormer but to the antibiotics used on chickens as well. I have the room that i can rotate my hens area and keep them from getting over infested and the abilitly to give them natural worm deterants such as pumpkins, apple cider vingar, and garlic. I however dont have the money to worm the regularly much less take them to a vet. What i can do it try and prevent problems. For me the chickens provide a easy in our grocery budget where we would spend 40 dollars alone on eggs amonth. They also provide natural pest/bug control for my garden, fertilizer, and i am also able to sale eggs to cover the feed cost. I done some research which shows that the majority of worms that chickens get are part of the family of nemotodes which happen to be naturally found in the soil and with out them the soil wouldnt be in a good balance of bacteria or fungus and and with out predator nemotodes the others would be in over poplutation and some nemotodes actually keep ants and other bug population in check. By killing them we are actually doing more harm. And according to several websites actually culling hens that are prone to getting over infested with worms you save the rest of your flock and the fact is some animals are more prone which means they have a weaker immune system which can lead to other illness as well. And having worms actually has been proven that it helps a flock to become more healthy since it boost the immune system to have a few worms. Everything has a reason for being. Worms, bacteria, fungus things that humans find gross (my husband finds them gross included lol) actually is the way God design it to work. Yes worms are gross (really cool in the way they work) but they are needed to break down waste and other things to enrich our soil and keep it healthy so the more we kill the less healthy the soil is. The more medication we use the more problems we have the more things just adjust to become immune to the medications. Thats seen with illness we get as humans if we let some illness run their course and build up our own immune system then the less medication we have to combact those illnesses that are effective.