Are earthworms good for my chickens..have heard they can be bad??

[Egghead_Jr]

An old cure all to sickly chicks was to feed them small worms. William Cook, creator of Orpington, decided not only protein factor but the grit found in worms intestinal track was the healing factor. Of course this is all before the evolution of modern chick feed with grit built in.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Unless you want to raise chickens in a sterile cage, then earthworms, bugs, mice and goodness knows what else it part of chicken's search and devour campaign. Short of living in a cage, it cannot really be stopped and personally, I'd never want to. They are dinosaurs, plain and simple, and these raptors love meat and anything similar that they can grab in their beaks and slug down. They're chickens.

 

[speckledhen]

There is a nematode that earthworms can carry that causes gapeworm, but it's not a huge risk. I don't give my birds worms-if they find them and eat them, they do, I just don't hunt worms for them.

 

[Tracydr]

I thought botulism came more from maggots than earthworms? Although I could see compost worms being a problem with botulism. Earthworms aren't the same as the red wigglers used for eating compost and manure.

 

[Arielle]

My girls free range and while sow bugs and millipedes are quickly snapped up, earthworms are not far behind for the layers. Mine spend part of everyday going over the manure pile looking for goodies. Keeps them very busy; they then move into the woods and scratch away the leaf litter looking for more goodies. THey fill up with tastey stuff. My feed bill is pretty low, until winter.

The horse maure is particularly good for feeding and raising earthworms.

 

[newchickenroost]

how can the gapeworms infect an area of the ground?

 

[barred2rock]

Would gapeworms be an issue in a closed vermicompost system where the worms (red wigglers) only ate the kitchen scraps & carbon sources I provided?

 

[lazy gardener]

how can the gapeworms infect an area of the ground?

Would gapeworms be an issue in a closed vermicompost system where the worms (red wigglers) only ate the kitchen scraps & carbon sources I provided?

Earthworms and some slugs/snails are the intermediate host for gapeworms. The bird eats the infected worm, and then gets gape worm. That being said, I've never seen any issue with gapeworms, and my flock has eaten worms for 4 years, along with all of the flocks I had growing up and during my early adult years. IMO, it's not a common occurrence. I'm much more likely to have a chicken run over by a car or a moose than to get gapeworm. Never had a bird run over, either.