Actual Correct Dosage for Safeguard Dewormer for Chickens

[Wyorp Rock]

Does this need to be refrigerated after you open it

The Label for Safeguard Liquid Goat Dewormer states to store at or below 77F, protect from freezing.

https://merckusa.cvpservice.com/product/basic/view/1047396

 

[LZapoli]

I finally had to just do what YouTubers said which was to give 3-4ml of the goat SafeGuard per gallon of water daily to my hens. I did that for 4 days because it was probably only two who had worms (as proven by the two who pooped out worms after dosing them in the water).

But for a second round, I let only one hen at a time out of the pen in the morning and fed each one a pea-sized bit of the horse SafeGuard paste mixed into a bit of hard-boil egg yolk. Each hen got her own dose, ate it happily, no fuss, no catching and prying open beaks. Did that for 5 days. Done.

Both methods and dosages were run past by my vet who approved. I did not have Aqua-Sol available in my town, but Aqua-Sol has instructions that are very clear if you can get it.

That's what I did anyway and it seems to have worked a charm.

Was that the only water they had available for the day? I scoop poop twice a day, and this morning I saw one pile of poop with tiny little white worms all over it. I have SafeGuard goat dewormer, and am wondering if I should remove their waterers and leave one with the dewormer in the run for the day.

 

[PucksBlade]

Dang guys, could this be more confusing? Lots of conflicting info, not sure how to proceed. If it is effective to put in water, this would be preferable since I cannot wrangle a chicken, hold beak open, and administer med by myself. That means I have to schedule someone to come help me. This is not realistic! My girls all weigh different amounts, different breeds, I would have to figure out correct dose for each one. Just want to deworm while egg production is low so there is less waste, but some are saying no reason to discard eggs. Not sure what to do now. I have the Safeguard 10% suspension for goats. Please help! And please keep it simple, I just don't have time for all the math!

 

[ed33935]

Welcome to BYC.

The 0.23 ml per pound dose (50 mg/kg) is correct if you want to treat *all* worms including capillary worms. Note that egg withdrawal is recommended.


This low dose of 0.00454 ml (1 mg/kg) you are referring to is also correct, but it's for treating large roundworms & cecal worms. It will *not* treat capillary worms, gapeworms, etc.
View attachment 3877312

The correct dose depends on what worms you want to treat.


From a vet:

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View attachment 3877335

this is very informative, excellent post!!

 

[ed33935]

Welcome to BYC.

The 0.23 ml per pound dose (50 mg/kg) is correct if you want to treat *all* worms including capillary worms. Note that egg withdrawal is recommended.


This low dose of 0.00454 ml (1 mg/kg) you are referring to is also correct, but it's for treating large roundworms & cecal worms. It will *not* treat capillary worms, gapeworms, etc.
View attachment 3877312

The correct dose depends on what worms you want to treat.


From a vet:

---

View attachment 3877335

My Hens fecal shows Capillari sp.. what would I treat for that?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

My Hens fecal shows Capillari sp.. what would I treat for that?

Welcome To BYC

You can use the dosing for Safeguard as suggested on your thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/treatment-for-worms-and-coccidosis.1648075/#post-28243374

The SafeGuard should be given at a dosage of 0.25 ml (1/4 ml) per pound of weight orally for 5 straight days to get capillary worms.

 

[AGeese]

How is everyone's chickens now?

 

[aliris]

Oh my what a thread. This just keeps coming back and back - threads on dosing of worms as well as, you know, worms in chickens.

I had a set-to with my flock quite some while back and thought I'd knocked the worms down but never was sure in one or two of my now-six girls. We've had some personnel swapping around here too. (I had planned at that time to repeat the high doseage I used but then... things seemed to turn around and I decided to wait).

One of my seemingly sicklier girls is now gaping a bit. I've never been convinced she was fixed by the last, traumatic round of worm-treatment. But everyone survived and while there have been no eggs from this now-gaping hen since that time (the eggs had stopped prior to the worm treatment though), I just decided things were good-enough with their health and egg production that I didn't want to keep subjecting them to more rx at that time. I regularly monitor their poop and have seen no worms, so have just let it go and done nothing. All the while knowing at some point I should re-treat. Probably.

The trouble is this diagnosing. There's no easy way for me to determine what worms are in there. I gather if the worm inhabits their windpipe, that's when gaping results because the worms in that location inhibit the chicken's breathing. When the worm, presumably a different type, inhabits the gut lower down it causes different symptoms, say, watery poop, excreted worm segments, lower/lost egg production, etc.

So I just say that to try to register my understanding; doesn't make me know any better what, or where, the birds are infected.

And to be honest, all this specificity of dosing is interesting, but surely overspecified given the uncertainty of ingestation, weight of birds, suspension-mixing, etc etc etc etc. Basically, it seems to me the birds survive despite us? Or maybe I'm just projecting.

Anyway, there's a question in here I promise.... under the circumstances: (a) good-enough overall health of the flock, with a couple sickly-looking girls maybe (the sickly girls are pale, sometimes gape, lay no eggs - and this has been their status a long while now), but with no overt segments in stool, (b) sporadic gaping in one, (c) perhaps diarrhea in another, (d) molting in all, (e) no immediate red-flag danger ..... ¿how/what would you treat? Just a low-level background prophylactic dose of 1mg/kg? Or the higher 50 mg/kg for the nastier, capillary/gapeworms? - since that is the current symptom in the one that is getting a rise out of me at least?

A couple more reminders/anchoring explanations. This flock is in SoCal and these days it's turning into Florida here - very humid all the time; there's a good chance of them accessing worms in the soil regularly. For grounding, last time around I tried both kinds of horse paste and the goat suspension, settling in the end on oral administration of the liquid as easiest - that horse paste I found hard to control dose on. So: --I would prefer to administer the oral suspension one by one. (Also, last time I ended up using a really high dose to zap a heavy infestation of those segments. We're not at that stage in terms of high infection and perhaps also not in terms of the same type of worm -- again, I have no diagnosis though).

BUT ... this wrinkle about molting is annoying. They're all molting. And if the suspension is "so safe" why would it be stunting feather growth? Isn't that of some concern?

Ok -- so what would the meisters here suggest?
(a) 1 mg/kg via goat suspension followed by 1 mg/kg goat suspension in 10d for all? No egg withdrawal. >>what about their molting status?<<
(b) 50 mg/kg via goat suspension for sickest birds, followed by same at d10. And the rest on the lower dose? Egg withdrawal for the higher dosage? (but those are the sicker who aren't laying anyway). And again >>what about molting status?<<
(c) resort to the annoying horse paste b/c of molting status?

And to nail some more of what is clouding my decision process here, and just to be precise -- in my previous rather-traumatic treatment of that heavy infestation, I ended up using an even higher dose than that listed above, but it did knock away the worm segments. I could do that again too but I'm thinking that's sort of emergency-administration dosage. And no one's got infected poop or is gasping their seemingly last-breath.... so.... I want low-enough dose to do the trick and not induce resistance, but high-enough to do the trick. And... I don't know what the damn trick is since I don't have a worm-diagnosis.

Any suggestions Oh Wise Ones please?????

So many thanks to @casportpony and @Wyorp Rock and @Eggcessive and @dawg53 for their endless patience and stored wisdom - and all the rest here too.

 

[casportpony]

Happy New Year! How many hens do you have? How many are sickly?

 

[aliris]

Happy New Year! How many hens do you have? How many are sickly?

HNY!

6 hens. 2 youngsters, <1yr - and laying despite I would have thought the sunlight thing... very seemingly healthy, born I think here: 6/10/24. One of them seems to have a custard-colored runny poop but they're both laying up a storm and very hale.

The oldsters: 2 are rescues and I don't know much about them but they have been sickly from the beginning when I got them maybe a year or more ago? One laid briefly then not. The other sporadically and maybe ocassionally up until the daylight fall loss this year. These are the two that have never been healthy-looking. Pale, sickly, retire to bed early, get picked on -- I swear one is blind. Sometimes I protect special treats for each and when I present this one with her bounty she looks sidewise and doesn't seem to be able to get it. She's very uncareful with her beak. They've both gotten slowly better meaning, better coloring. No obv respiratory issues. But it was bc they were sickly still after the heavy deworming that I thought I should keep at it a while ago, then stayed my hand. Because the other who had the heavy segment-infestation got better and these others just seem to have multiple issues so I judged not letting the treatment be their problem and didn't do another high-dose deworming round.

Other two oldsters. These I raised from a week on in September of 2020 I guess. One is Buff Orpington who is heavily molting rn; she's a mess. I thought it was - and maybe it is at that - an issue with a rooster who is now elsewhere; his attentions may have started the back-sticky-outy-feathers. She's since gotten very defeathered everywhere so I was thinking just molt. She's very itchy poor dear. She hasn't laid since fall-daylight-loss and was not super-regular prior; she's the broody who hatched a buncha the others. Her hatch-mate is -- I literally don't remember where she's from. She's the lightest and the most work-horse layer, every single day almost, massive-sized eggs. Of late they've had some stress issues, wrinkly skin sometimes. She was looking pale too for a while but is fully back. She's the one who had the wormy poops and I was worried about for a while, who I would have treated again, but then she just seemed beat down by the medicine and slowly improving so I held off and she seems to have recovered, egg-laying wise and appearance-wise. But I do wonder whether she's still infected. She eats constantly and remains the lightest-weight. She's just strong as a horse, lays those massive eggs, but... it's for her sake that I would mostly do another round, though I see no visible signs of ailment, other than that someone who eats that much should really weigh more. She's a character.

I think they pickup worms in our front yard. My husband has been letting them out to free range there lately. We're in a city and I bet dogs poop nearby and the worms go in the soil and the birds pick it up there especially -- is that a thing? A reasonable hypothesis? Just seems I get more worried for small reasons here and there after they've free ranged more out front. When that previous disaster was going on we'd been letting them have very free access, but locked em in the back after that and while more bored, they seem actually a little healthier. But I'm not sure about this connection. Anyway, just musing.

So in sum: 6 hens, different ages, and breeds. Two are vaguely "sickly" and I think they came to us sick (don't know their age, could be old, don't know their parentage - they have very absurd floppy crests). One of these gapes in episodes. Not all the time but when she does she'll gape for 45min or so. One of the youngsters - massive in size and seemingly very healthy, nevertheless appears now to have some diarrhea but lays beautiful eggs near-daily. All are molting, especially the Orpington (older) who seems especially affected by the molt. She's not laying but daylight is sparse. One older egg-laying workhorse it's hard to tell if she's healthy. I think she has health to spare so lays massive eggs daily (and is the alpha-girl) but is thinner than is reasonable and I suspect may be "sickly" too but it's hard to say (she was bought from a hardware store in 2022 at 6months; she's a mutt). Also, the one who's gaping developed some white feathers in the last 6 months which someone here said is not unusual but sure surprised me; part of the "unhealthy" seeming - these two are just very reticent beings and I feel like form follows function and they're so retiring because they're just not all that healthy).

So since I had at one time intended to re-treat the whole flock, I thought I might do that now, again. There's never a freeze here and I think the soil must be laden with wormies. And then this one gaping got me to think now was the time. But I'm wondering dose, rx (given molt), etc....

thanks for pondering all this!!!!!!! Sorry to be so verbose.