A 1920's Irish Wormer Treatment,,,,

[skyfires]

My family is from County Antrim, Ladyhill, Ireland. I'm third generation Irish. My husband was born in Dublin, Ireland(Yeah he has a accent). So we have a strong tie to our homeland. In a old magazine from Ireland, I found this passage from a farm in South Antrim. I thought you all would like it..

In the 1920's on the family farm, my mother was always fretting about the chickens suffering from the gape. When they were some weeks old, the little victims used to collapse on their hunkers, gasping for air, or gaping. Mum's remedy was to go to the stable and fetch a few horse hairs from the bundle, which always resposed on a shelf behind the stalls. Taking one of these hairs, she used to deftly tie a noose on one end to it.
Then she picked up one of the gapers, held it's bill open with the forefinger of her left hand, and carefully inserted the loop end of the hair into the birds wind pipe. As she inserted it, she rotated it gently, then withdrew it slowly, bringing with it a catch of tiny, tiny, wriggling, red worms. Theses were discarded, and the operation was repeated, until the loop emerged as clean as it went in! The operating instrument was then discarded and a fresh made duplicate was used to repeat the treatment with every one of the infected birds. She was a long experienced poultry breeder, so I presume the treatment worked, otherwise, she would hot have bothered to practise it.
Yeah,,,the good ole days,,,,so glad we have meds to just dump in the waterers,,,,,,

 

[WoodlandWoman]

That's what I was thinking as I read that, too!

 

[speckledhen]

I read that a feather dipped in kerosene and put down the throat of the bird was used to kill gapeworms or make them let go so they could be expelled. Mind you, I dont endorse this and probably would never even consider trying it, but there are so many old remedies. Some of those, you just hope the bird lives through them, LOL!

 

[kinnip]

My word that's a patient woman!

 

[Wynette]

Kinnip, I was thinking the SAME THING!

 

[skyfires]

Folks,,,,there is no way,,,,you'd catch me pullin a hair out of a horses tail down the road,, the folks who own that horse would be starein out the window at me,,,,,lookin all funny like,,(after all,,they think I'm a little 'off' as it is,talking to my chickens the way I do!!!),, ,then comin home grabin my bird and trying to tie a noose in the hair,,,runnin it down the windpipe,,all the while he's flopping and thrashing while I'm loopin red worms,,, I can almost see this,,,,almost,,,,

 

[Farmer Kitty]

I was thinking it would be quite interesting trying to get the hair loop down their throats! Between keeping the bird quite and not bending the hair-help!

 

[cat]

There is a long and venerable tradition of worm lassooing in Ireland, where even if there was an easier method, we would just as likely go with the strange and obscure just for the craic of it

look at out for those worm lassooing contests on cable

 

[peapickinchicks]

, Oh my word! you guys crack me up on here. Okay I read somewhere,

, Ol' timers used to soak some chewing tobacco in water a few minutes, then sqeezed out the juice put it in the chooks mouth, held it's beak shut while flipping it upside down for a few seconds, turning it back up and setting it down. They said the chook would then expell the worms.

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[cat]

if someone did that to me I would be expelling something!

I just noticed you say you were from Antrim, that is where I live (yes its raining)

that explains a lot, you see several years ago Ulster bus started a bus route from Dublin to Antrim, and before you could say shamrock we were knee deep in migrant leprecorns. This could have posed a problem but it was discovered that their tiny hands were idealy suited to tying horsehair lassoos....and so began the worm lassooing traditions of Antrim. Don't ya just love history