Another chicken worming thread. Which med should I chose?

Beaglegal

Songster
Sep 8, 2019
1,092
2,678
231
Western Washington
Yesterday I found what, after looking at pictures that creeped me out, looks to be a round worm on my poop board. I know that the ideal is to have a fecal test done, but I live in a Covid hot area so things like this have become more difficult. I have 2 worm medications on hand, I have safeguard for goats (never used) and ivermectin cattle pour on, that I used to treat a chicken that I thought had depluming mites. Both can apparently be used for worms.

Which one should I use? This is my pullet coop, so they are currently producing most of my eggs, I’ve read invermectin has a egg withdrawal of 7 days where safeguard has a withdrawal of 2 weeks. So if I redose after 2 weeks like I have seen, it’s a whole month with no eggs from the coop? With the invermectin, would I also redose in 2 weeks?

My last consideration is my cockrel, he is not used to being handled and I am a little nervous to try and medicate him, the invermectin seems like it might be easier?
 
I would use the Safeguard.
For roundworms only - dosage is 0.23ml per pound of weight given orally once, then repeat in 10 days.

If you want to treat for other types of worms (plus roundworms) then use the same dose, but give for 5 days in a row.

Ideally you want to dose your flock first thing in the morning when their crops are empty.
So...go out early while everyone is still roosting, grab each one of the roost and dose them.
This will make it easier to grab and treat that cockerel as well.
 
Ivermectin is not approved for use in chickens, and so there's no actual egg withdrawal time, except forever.
I wouldn't use it for roundworms, the fenbendazole is safe and effective, and has no egg withdrawal time.
If you ever do use Ivermectin out there, at least a couple of week's egg withdrawal time makes some sense.
Mary
 
I would use the Safeguard.
For roundworms only - dosage is 0.23ml per pound of weight given orally once, then repeat in 10 days.

If you want to treat for other types of worms (plus roundworms) then use the same dose, but give for 5 days in a row.

Ideally you want to dose your flock first thing in the morning when their crops are empty.
So...go out early while everyone is still roosting, grab each one of the roost and dose them.
This will make it easier to grab and treat that cockerel as well.
If I did the 5 days in a row, would I repeat that in 10 days as well? Or just those 5 days?
 
Ivermectin is not approved for use in chickens, and so there's no actual egg withdrawal time, except forever.
I wouldn't use it for roundworms, the fenbendazole is safe and effective, and has no egg withdrawal time.
If you ever do use Ivermectin out there, at least a couple of week's egg withdrawal time makes some sense.
Mary
I know Invermectin isn’t approved in chickens, the safeguard in the form I have isn’t approved either. Just the Aquasol formulation. But I also know that people use lots of stuff off label out of necessity. I was hoping someone had some experience using it...
 
If I did the 5 days in a row, would I repeat that in 10 days as well? Or just those 5 days?
No you would not repeat in 10 days if you did the 5 days in a row.
That length of time treats roundworms, cecal worms, gape worms, capillary worms - right off the top of my head that's what I remember anyway.

Personally, I would use the Safeguard. Ivermectin from my understanding is losing it's effectiveness when treating worms and yes, it would be a much longer withdrawal period than Safeguard.
 
No you would not repeat in 10 days if you did the 5 days in a row.
That length of time treats roundworms, cecal worms, gape worms, capillary worms - right off the top of my head that's what I remember anyway.

Personally, I would use the Safeguard. Ivermectin from my understanding is losing it's effectiveness when treating worms and yes, it would be a much longer withdrawal period than Safeguard.
Well doing it 5 days in a row would be a shorter withdrawal period, since i wouldn’t have to re-dose in 10 days. It would be more chicken wrangling but probably worthwhile.
 
Ivermectin is gloriously easy to use, and if it was less 'touchy' because of it's lack of approval, it would be my first choice. It's not any more though.
Getting fenbendazole approved at all was wonderful, because the approval process is so expensive! The Aquasol has the advantage of being a drinking water treatment, so useful for commercial flocks. Other fenbendazole products aren't as easy to give to chickens, so not useful commercially, and so not run through approvals.
Mary
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom