1 round worm found in poop, must I deworm? I try to be organic

[country freedom]

Quote:
I think using commercial preparations is the definition of throwing the baby out with the bath water....like a last resort, knee jerk reaction to the fact that some birds are not fit to survive independently without human intervention. I'm not talking about feeding and watering here....unless a bird has access to a wide range and running streams/ponds/springs, of course we are going to have to give some aid here....but adding commercially created chemicals to the mix is like giving the birds a crutch so they can limp around and reproduce more offspring who are also not fit to survive in this world.

Why not work to create a bird that is a survivor and a producer? Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both? Is it because we got away from small, scrappy farm flocks and moved into commercial operations whose prime focus is on production and early maturity? Get 'em in, get 'em big, get 'em gone! Why do backyard flock enthusiasts have to follow suit and buy into the idea that the weak birds we have genetically crippled should be supported and coddled along so we can have MORE weak birds?

Sorry.....just something I'm passionate about and statements above are more a general, rhetorical theory and not directed at any one person.....

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[VA from WV]

Quote:
There is, in fact, nothing to prevent a person from doing just that. You can select for hardiness and let the weak ones die or be culled. If you breed for a new trait, you aggressively cull anything that does not display both.

This, of course, is a very harsh approach for the backyard poultryman, simply because these birds are usually pets.

Doesn't anybody think in terms of years anymore?

When many people can't see beyond next week? People's lives are so busy now that you'll likely find that many backyard enthusiasts are doing it, ultimately, because the chickens give them some respite from the heavier demands of their lives. Where that is the case, no, they aren't thinking about years in any concrete way.

If I want to raise a flock more naturally, I am simply going to cull weaker birds who show signs of parasite infestation or ongoing illness or just plain undesirable traits for adequate survival. By encouraging the survival of the fittest, I could have a flock that has a better chance of doing well on an all natural regimen.

The problem is that in practice humans will not tend to allow a system to naturally select if there is a trait that catches their eye. We have different breeds of chickens because people like a certain color, feather style, meat or egg trait and want to keep it. Tufting in Arauncanas is a desirable trait that kills, yet we drive around it by carefully breeding for it and away from it at the same time--where in reality there would be many fewer tufted Araucana's in the 'wild', due to the lethal gene. We say that only Andalusians of the Blue coloring are acceptable for show. Cornish roos are often so massive in the breast that they cannot naturally breed. CornishX meat birds grow so fast that they are not terribly active, overly docile, and have a vastly diminished lifespan due to their astronomical growth rate. Note that parasite resistance could be a trait that any of the above have, but may not be terribly important in the face of selecting for other traits.

In other words, effective breeding for any trait is more complicated than that.

Meanwhile, treating these animals with natural dewormers like seeds(pumpkin), garlic, etc. won't allow their individual parasites to develop a resistance to a chemical and grow stronger, more resilient strains.

True. The thing that recommends natural parasite control products is that they maintain a symbiosis that we can live with. The goal is that symbiosis. Natural resistance is -always- better, but it can also be overcome by stressors that you might have no control over. For instance, having a couple too many birds in a space, coupled with a run of chicken sniffles, coupled with the aftermath of a predator attack/harassment could throw even a prized resistant bird over into critical condition where chemical dewormers are the fastest and best way to get those birds back to health.

Rather than throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, use the natural products for what they're useful, and then realize when it's time to use something stronger.

I think using commercial preparations is the definition of throwing the baby out with the bath water....like a last resort, knee jerk reaction to the fact that some birds are not fit to survive independently without human intervention. I'm not talking about feeding and watering here....unless a bird has access to a wide range and running streams/ponds/springs, of course we are going to have to give some aid here....but adding commercially created chemicals to the mix is like giving the birds a crutch so they can limp around and reproduce more offspring who are also not fit to survive in this world.​

To a point, you are correct. However, when I accepted the responsibility for the care of the birds, I got a bottle a wazine for the kit because I know that there are times and places where using it will be perfectly appropriate. I put apple cider vinegar in their water and use a herbal dewormer of my own formulation as an aid to 'natural' parasite resistance.

But remember that by using something 'natural', you are technically circumventing natural parasite resistance by maintaining an overall flock health that might mask that particular genetic weakness. IMO, it's the rub with husbandry, because people will -always- play to their biases and not to what Nature is calling for. One of those biases is financial, because you can burn up a lot of chicken food keeping a flock of spotty layers--and no matter how many people protest otherwise, most of them LIKE getting the fresh eggs.

There are also many different grades of not fit to survive in this world, and not everyone is picking the same battles.​

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Meanwhile, treating these animals with natural dewormers like seeds(pumpkin), garlic, etc. won't allow their individual parasites to develop a resistance to a chemical and grow stronger, more resilient strains.

Who is to say that they will not develop a resistance to natural chemicals just as they do to manufactured chemicals? As threehorses stated much earlier in this thread, these substances are not wormers. They will help prevent worms, but will not treat an infestation.

One thing that can be said of manufactured products that cannot be said of most natural ones is that their effectiveness is measured and always the same from one dose to the next to the next. With natural products it can vary all over the board depending on everthing from the soil they grow in to their own genetic makeup to the amount of time they have aged, and reliable testing is often very much missing. How many pumpkin seeds are needed? How often? What if they are old versus fresh? What if you grew the pumpkin in your garden? bought it at the grocery? bought the ground up seeds at a health food store? bought whole seeds at a pet store? What if they have been baked versus uncooked?

Presumably it is some chemical in the pumpkin seeds that helps prevent worms from developing? What chemical is it? Can it be reproduced synthetically? Would it be any better or worse than its natural form?​

 

[Beekissed]

They will help prevent worms, but will not treat an infestation.

They say garlic contains a substance that parasites have an aversion to.....if you feed it and the birds are infested, I imagine those worms will detach and be expelled, just as with any antihelminic.

Ultimately, I would prefer to develop a flock that has developed their own resistance to worm parasites. I've never wormed my flocks with any substance, but it's nice to know that there are natural substances that are available should I see the need to do so.

This, of course, is a very harsh approach for the backyard poultryman, simply because these birds are usually pets.

This seems to be the popular opinion and the general assumption on this forum...that chickens in a backyard are primarily pets. But there are still people who are very practical in their husbandry practices and are raising flocks as part of self-sustaining living. And for every pretty show bird, or production strain breed out there, someone has~ in the past~ culled vigorously to develop it. Or did you imagine all the substandard birds just died peacefully in the chicken retirement home?

So, in the main, all the pet chickens out there are pretty much a result of "harsh" approaches to husbandry. Is this any different than someone taking the responsibility to develop their own flock? Or does it make people more comfortable in their minds to imagine their pets were nurtured gently down through their ancestry?

I encounter this same attitude with people who buy their meats wrapped in cellophane and get highly offended when they hear about me butchering my own chickens for meat. How in the world do they think they got that meat THEY eat? Someone, somewhere killed it FOR them. Does this make them any less "harsh"? I think it makes them quite hypocritical....they will eat it, as long as someone else does the "harsh" part!

What some folks refer to as "harsh" is considered practical thinking by others and our country was built on practical thinkers who developed their livestock with an eye for survival. Why should this be different now? Because we don't need to try so hard to survive now?



What you consider harsh, I consider intelligent and practical planning for a flock that requires less money to maintain, yields healthier meats for my family~which lowers my health care costs and makes our life happier and healthier, and a flock that has stronger genetic material to pass to the next generation.

There are also many different grades of not fit to survive in this world, and not everyone is picking the same battles.

I agree with this! Whenever someone wants to raise chickens as naturally as possible, they are pretty much slammed for it on this forum and made to feel that it just isn't practical or smart to do so. I've even had folks say it was irresponsible to do so, as chemical dewormers are "just better" for the flock. Maybe they are better if someone doesn't have the time to devote to the overall strength of their flock, but they are still not the answer to all livestock parasite woes.

For some of us, the battle is more complex than having a pet for de-stressing from respite from the heavier demands of their lives. For some, the battle is making our animal husbandry an integral part of our lives that runs much deeper than using an animal for therapy. We raise these animals to survive better in an uncertain world, to feel more connected with the land and with the creatures in our care, and to encourage future generations to think more in terms of "years" than in "weeks".

For some, we don't have money to waste on more pets. We grow these birds to help our family have healthy low-cost food. Yes, low cost! I've often read on here where someone posts how far in the hole they are in regards to raising chickens and they laugh when someone mentions raising chickens to save money. My flock not only provides me with food but also a profit on their keep.

You say harsh, I say practical and farsighted.

 

[RedHead]

I agree with most of these posts and I hate to try and state again BUT I've had good experience in an area (at least as far as my dogs are concerned) with the HomeoPet brand WrmClear. Now I know on different sites that you go to look it up on, it states that it's only for cats and dogs...BUT even in the pamphlet that comes with the bottle, it has the doses for aviary 'patients' as well. It may not be proven BUT I can speak personally, that with all the issues with tape worms and round worms especially in this area(southern coastal NC during Deer season) that I've had with my dogs and cats, that since I've started using WrmClear on my dogs, cats and chickens, I have yet to have a problem....AND it IS Homeopathic. I give 3 drops a day per 5 gal. water with my flock as a preventative...it hasn't affected the eggs or even hatch-ability of the eggs since I've started it(hatched 8 out of 8 and all are still alive and cheeping lol). I haven't seen a single worm in a LONG time in ANY of the animals and never in my birds I have which the numbers now stand as such : 23 full grown RIR, 8 almost grown RIR, 8 Cornish X, 1 black Labrador, 1 Black Pug (whom as a puppy had a serious case of dermatitis attributed to his allergy to his own skin mites, thus giving him a MAJOR reaction to fleas or any biting parasite...fleas being DIRECTLY connected to Tape Worms btw.) and now 3 cats because people know we've got a farm and think we can take care of the critters they can't) and a tarantula...though...the spider seems to not be affected by anything lol. BUT still... I'm at the point where I am about swear by the stuff on top of typical (at least I think) Bio-security.
If you want something that won't mess with your eggs or your birds but you have time to get it down to nothing, then I'd definatly suggest the WrmClear..Though If you're seeing the worms in the stool, you might want to follow everyone else's advice and go with at least some Wazine... it's probably not as harsh on their systems as the other treatments. Just my Opinion..

 

[cocosandy]

RedHead- are you having regualr vet poop checks? I had my own vet miss worms in poop from 5 birds, but I think Im gonna use the natural stuff as a preventative and still worm once or twice per year with wazine and wormazole or ivermectin just to be sure. Unless you do necropsys on your dead birds or you have them checked yearly at least by a vet, I dont think you can tell whats going on inside. Chickens can live with a worm load, and its only if it gets out of hand that we even know.
My experience was that it got out of hand.
So Im struggling now with the very real possibility that the natural remedies that I use all the time might keep the population low, nbut not erradicate them. I know chickens can livbe that way, but I found that the laying sorta tapered, and my birds were sorta pale and slow by the end of the past 4 years or so (I think thats the age of the oldest hens I have now, never having wormed) and after going through a good month of different worming and waiting, now they are perky and look great...they are laying alot and the eggs look great; are huge!
So, as much as its an issue if you are selling your eggs as 100% organic or whatever, I would still consider something stronger.
I have been using DE, vermex, and green pumpkin seeds for a couple of years.
I have lost some hens along the way to mysterious wasting or what I thought was maybe a virus, but now I think that if the chicken becomes run down for some reason it can easily give the worms an opening to overcome the immune system. also if there is a die off of too many worms at once a chicken can die from the toxins in the worms.....
Its up to each of us, but I have now seen the results of long term low load parasites, and I think it weakens the birds and takes away from their production and their quality of life.
I havent had any issues with hatchability even in eggs that were laid when the birds were on medication and I coudlnt eat the eggs...I hatch alot just for fun, and it has seemed to be the same all along.
That is just my experience and opinion, but Im in CT, which is the NE, and we do have (hopefully) some hard freezing in the winter etc...I would really worry if I were in the south.
Good luck!

 

[VA from WV]

Quote:
Less likely because of the way in which herbal/natural cures tend to work. We think of this stuff in terms of specific agents that act directly on the organism in some way to cause the expulsion of the parasites. The model of pharma has been to find the single compound that appears to do the job, and synthesize/concentrate it in a way that you can use it as a Silver Bullet. Natural cures only rarely work that directly, and tend to promote an overall situation that is less favorable for the parasites/infection/disease.

One thing that can be said of manufactured products that cannot be said of most natural ones is that their effectiveness is measured and always the same from one dose to the next to the next. With natural products it can vary all over the board depending on everthing from the soil they grow in to their own genetic makeup to the amount of time they have aged, and reliable testing is often very much missing. How many pumpkin seeds are needed? How often? What if they are old versus fresh? What if you grew the pumpkin in your garden? bought it at the grocery? bought the ground up seeds at a health food store? bought whole seeds at a pet store? What if they have been baked versus uncooked?

People like the certainty of the chemical/pharma solution over the lessened certainty of the natural cure. We have been taught to believe that distilling the single active ingredient from a plant or other thing found in nature, that we have The Answer, and then move on. This has positives and negatives. In our example, you get rid of the worms. Yay. It's what we came to do. However, apart from killing a large number of parasites, what have we done to promote the recovery and health of the host? Chemical/pharma solutions rarely address this.

In human health, we talk about wellness programs to promote lifestyle and health practices that benefit the whole organism. When speaking of natural and herbal cures for problems, we are indeed speaking of wellness. You can look at tossing a pumpkin and 5 heads of garlic to your chickens in the same way you think of consuming a certain food to lose weight or treat a health problem--as a functional food. It will not 'cure' the disease, but it will allow the body to work as it was designed. If you need medical intervention, the natural/herbal route is very unlikely to fix the problem unless you devote a LOT of time to the process of healing involved.

Presumably it is some chemical in the pumpkin seeds that helps prevent worms from developing? What chemical is it? Can it be reproduced synthetically? Would it be any better or worse than its natural form?

Curcubitan, which is a paralytic, is a similar chemical to Wazine. However it is also present in lesser amounts in the flesh of the pumpkin too, and pumpkin flesh has a number of other nutrients that work well in combination with the curcubitan to help expel parasites. (There is a tragically incomplete discussion of this in Backyard Poultry this month.) In combination with other things like black walnut hulls, garlic, and other foods that cool, add moisture, fiber, and make slight alterations to the chemistry of the gut, it is very possible to get by without the need for chemical wormers, save for the most serious cases.

That said, I see no problem with natural practices and dietary supplements that promote the overall health of the animal. I also see no problem with the use of chemicals and pharma in very limited circumstances, to correct problems in the flock caused by things that may well not be caused by poor genes. My experience with animals has been that you have to assume that the problems with an animal begin with the husbandry practices used in keeping it--then examine the records to see if this animal has a recurring problem with a condition before saying that it is genetic. You can guarantee that parasite loads will rise at certain times of the year, and that vigilance to alleviate other stress in the environment is necessary to prevent problems.

It's just not as simple as feeding your animals this-or-that and calling it good. That said, I bought a load of year-end pumpkins for the chickens, and I am going to go toss a couple in so i can watch the fun.

 

[VA from WV]

Quote:
I would encourage you, or anyone with an interest to do the research and come to know the many things out there that provide these benefits. I've been practicing herbalism for over 2 decades and find that the benefits are legion, but I also have spent a lot of time making sure that I know the limits as well as the benefits of a given plant or food. To do anything else risks wasting time, wasting money, or possibly endangering the health of the animals.

What you consider harsh, I consider intelligent and practical planning for a flock that requires less money to maintain, yields healthier meats for my family~which lowers my health care costs and makes our life happier and healthier, and a flock that has stronger genetic material to pass to the next generation.

I am not arguing against your approach. What I am saying is that your approach is not everyone's. I also won't offer an opinion on the legitimacy of one outlook over another, despite my preference for a practical approach myself, because I see people raising food of any sort in their backyards as a healthy thing for society, regardless of the reasons why they do it. Anything that gets people closer to the source of their food--or simply exposes them to the concepts of what it takes to feed themselves--is a win at this point. My journey with the meaties gave me 10 weeks of education about the industry that I possibly never would have gotten otherwise--and I can inform other people who aren't going to raise chickens for themselves about the issues. Everyone wins.

There are also many different grades of not fit to survive in this world, and not everyone is picking the same battles.

I agree with this! Whenever someone wants to raise chickens as naturally as possible, they are pretty much slammed for it on this forum and made to feel that it just isn't practical or smart to do so. I've even had folks say it was irresponsible to do so, as chemical dewormers are "just better" for the flock. Maybe they are better if someone doesn't have the time to devote to the overall strength of their flock, but they are still not the answer to all livestock parasite woes.​

As a practicing herbalist, I am frequently frustrated with public perceptions about the effectiveness a given herb or functional food all the time. Much of public perception is based on is soundbites filled with half-truths and fantastical claims about a given modality doing everything from curing cancer to washing windows. The soundbite/faith promoting rumor approach to things natural does introduce problems, especially when someone manages to poison themselves because they took too much of something for too long(vitamin D3 and Valerian spring to mind), or had a known condition that they aggravated by taking something they heard about on the radio or the internet.

If you are on the path to being informed and engaging in the process of educating yourself about the pros and cons of using something natural, then I am all for you or anyone else doing it. However, it is really important that nothing is treated like a panacea, because there really are no panaceas. The point being is that anything natural used in ignorance can be potentially harmful.

You say harsh, I say practical and farsighted.

To be honest, I think you seized unfairly upon my use of the word 'harsh'. While I feel no particular need to defend my position on this, I do wish to point out that I fully support your goals to be successful with your husbandry endeavors. If they feed your family and get you what you need from the experience, then go for it. However, I am also going to choose to support the people who have and can afford chickens for enjoyment and other purposes as well. If their husbandry is acceptable and the animals live well in their care, then there is no foul in my book.

 

[chickenannie]

I have a question -- how do you get the wormer IN the bird? Mine have a large feeder and they pick and choose what they eat (same with waterer). Do you use a syringe to put it in the beak? If I put it in water or food, I can't imagine it getting in their systems in any significant way.


This has also been a really great thread to read. Thanks all of you. I have just discovered worms in one of my young chickens, and I am insistant on raising my birds organically so I'm trying to decide what to do. He's a rooster, so I don't have to worry about eggs. I will likely get the typical wormer at the pet store and use that because I want to save this bird and he is very thin.

But I found this interesting web site about worm treatments in Asia. It also has methods for all aspects of poultry raising. Click on a subject at the top, and then scroll wayyy down to see the results:

http://nzdl.sadl.uleth.ca/cgi-bin/l...&a=d&cl=CL3.33&d=HASHf3015d33d5d879b712e3ec.7

 

[magentamomma]

i am weighing in because I have a perspective to this issue not mentioned. We do not have the money to buy the wormers, or to throw away the eggs for a month. Also, my flock is large enough I am not sure how I would grab and worm each bird. I need to find alternatives because they are more practical to me financially. The cocci remedy I bought was 20.00. That is a lot to me. The wormer I have priced has been in the 35.00 and up range. Just my 2 cents.