The road less traveled...back to good health! They have lice, mites, scale mites, worms, anemia, gl

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LOL, a hotdog! Hope he poops that out somewhere outside and not in his coop, lol
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You could formulate specific recipes of your home made suet cakes for certain purposes... weight gain, molt support, parasites, probiotics/immune support etc and sell them here on BYC.
Cha-Ching Mumsy!
 
PeepsCA said:
LOL, a hotdog! Hope he poops that out somewhere outside and not in his coop, lol
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You could formulate specific recipes of your home made suet cakes for certain purposes... weight gain, molt support, parasites, probiotics/immune support etc and sell them here on BYC.
Cha-Ching Mumsy!
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HAH! I personally don't eat the things but had a great coupon and froze a bunch of them thinking I would give them to my daughters little Corgi when they visit. Daughter said, nope! No people food for her doggie. She is getting too tubby. So the chicken loves them. Go figure? You bring up and interesting thought though. I have a feeling his sleeping box is going to be a full load tomorrow morning. *sheesh*
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My brain is already on the various recipes. This one has been named 'Dewormer Delight' by our leader to good flock health, Beekissed! (Thank you Bee) Perfect.
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Beekissed said:
I'm not leaving, folks....just don't have a lot more to show you on the subject is all.  I do, however, have one more thing to show you and you're not gonna like it....  :D  

I had wanted to open up the small intestine of this bird to see what I could see and had forgotten to do so....I just went and did it. This is what I found....not too many but a good few:




These are tapeworm:



As you can see by the above quote, this is an ongoing reality in chickens and especially free range chickens.  I'm not going to freak out and start deworming my chickens...I knew they had worms.  Every animal, bird, fish, or human have their parasites and can thrive and live well with normal parasite loads.  This bird obviously was thriving well, putting on fat, had a healthy sheen to the feathers, etc. 

Just as sure as I would try to deworm and got them all cleaned out, the consumption of the outside hosts of this worm will inevitably start the cycle anew.  Healthy soil has bugs, worms, ants, beetles, etc.  They will continue to eat these bugs and worms and thus will always cycle some type of intestinal parasite. 

The key is balance.  A healthy balance of all things in the environment, in the diet, within the host.  Developing a flock that exists, thrives and produces with an existing, but small, parasite load is the key to continual health in a flock.  Culling for the birds that can thrive on all natural husbandry is an integral part to using this type of methodology.  You can use every all natural dewormer you wish but the single most effective tool for developing flocks that thrive~ despite a parasite load of some kind~ is culling the birds that do not and breeding those birds that do. 
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Be careful Bee worms can end up in your eggs
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/546462/flat-worm-or-tape-worm-in-egg

Yuck!
 
Thanks alot Suzierd!

Now I am going to have egg nightmares......SO GROSS!

Have you ever seen that in any eggs Bee??

man....
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MB
 
In all the years we've had chickens, both my mother and I, we've never found a worm in an egg. I'd say a bird would really have to be infested to have the worms travel outside that bowel for nutrition.

Finding a worm in an egg is a rarity...it can happen, obviously it does happen, but I've never met anyone personally who ever found one in an egg...and us country folk have lived off the eggs from our flocks, so you can say we've eaten our fair share of eggs out of the backyard all these many years.

Balance....it's all in the balance, folks. A few tape worms does not mean this bird is infested, merely carrying a parasite load as all mammals do. Do I like to think of blood suckers inside my chickens? Nope. Do I accept the reality that we all have them living inside of us...yes, I do.

You do what you can, balance the environment and the intestinal health and then just trust that you've culled for parasite resistance. Parasite resistance does not mean they resist parasites altogether, it merely means they thrive with an existing parasite load or are not prone to carry heavy parasite loads. Just because this one bird had several worms doesn't mean all the birds in a flock have several worms....some are going to have more, some less.

It's estimated that out of a flock or herd of animals, that maybe 20% will carry over 75% of the worm load. Culling weak and unthrifty animals can help reduce the total parasite load in a flock.

This old flock has suffered some unusually bad conditions and I'd be very naive to expect that they didn't come away from it with some surprises....but they didn't get that way over night and I don't expect they will get corrected that quickly either. It's very tempting to bombard their systems with all sorts of concoctions to just get those parasites out of there but I've always used a gentle and more natural approach and I will continue to do so. Those that respond will be the keepers, those that do not will be the natural culls.

This chicken had genetic weaknesses in her bone structure and could also have genetic weakness in her parasite resistance as well. We'll see as time goes along what the rest of the flock does on a slow but steady and healthy regimen. Come spring when I cull again, I'll definitely be checking those small intestines to see what's in there.
 
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Melabella said:
Thanks alot Suzierd! Now I am going to have egg nightmares......SO GROSS! Have you ever seen that in any eggs Bee?? man....
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MB
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Lol, I know! I always crack my eggs in a bowl and take a close look before I cook them or put them in cake mix, just incase. Bee I'm glad this doesn't happen too often. Don't care for the extra protein .
 
I work with Racehorses for a living... believe me.. I have seen my fair share of worms from horses... and horses have BIG WORMS> I also love the word balance. It is the center of my universe in the equine element. Standing next to them, riding them, and understanding them.

This being said, and being new to the chicken world,, I am glad to find out the rarity in finding them in their eggs...

.

MB
 
thanks Bee for sharing the journey with yr flock ,the pics have been very educational .have read since day one was fascinated to see the transformation in such a short time.cheers Pete
 
Trust me on this...if my parents had ever found an egg with a worm inside of it, none of us kids would ever have eaten another egg as long as we lived at home.
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My folks are clean freaks and Paranoid Petes when it comes to stuff like that. You should have seen the Bat's face today when I showed her those worms...
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Life goes on and worms ain't evil...they're just trying to make a livin'.
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One thing I've learned while working in the medical field is this...medicines become a crutch and an easy way out of finding out the reason for a problem. When all you have is a hammer(medicine), everything looks like a nail. I like to work with a little more tools than a hammer and maybe put some finesse into my animal husbandry. Exploring ways to prevent instead of cure is always more long lasting than merely medicating. If you medicate everything, pretty soon you will HAVE to medicate whether you want to or not.
 
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