Arizona Chickens

[Mikey D]

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That's always painful - my condolences

 

[Beckyhsinglsc]

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Thanks
I guess the girls can keep their treats.

 

[pimachickens]

I'm so sorry, turkeybreeder.

 

[tball chicky]

So sorry turkeybreeder - that is a difficult thing to go through.

 

[Arizonachicken]

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So sorry.

 

[Arizonachicken]

With all the talk about worms, now I'm totally paranoid. I don't think I could ever eat an egg again if I found worm pieces in it!

Soooo...should I routinely treat my 6 girls or is there a down side to that? Can you eat the eggs after deworming? I haven't had a worm problem yet and I don't want one! If I should treat preventatively, what is the best kind?

 

[gallopingfrog]

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I've read that giving your chickens (or any animal) pumpkin acts as a natural preventative wormer thingy. But I'm not sure on whether that's absolute fact or not. If you deworm with a commericial dewormer, I don't think you can eat the eggs until a week after you stop using it....again, not positive, but if I recall correctly...

 

[Beckyhsinglsc]

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I've read that giving your chickens (or any animal) pumpkin acts as a natural preventative wormer thingy. But I'm not sure on whether that's absolute fact or not. If you deworm with a commericial dewormer, I don't think you can eat the eggs until a week after you stop using it....again, not positive, but if I recall correctly...

I have never treated for worms before and haven't had a problem until now. I don't think I'm going to routinely de-worm...just when I have a problem.
The segments in the egg were just little pieces of white that looked like rice. I only knew what they were because I had seen them in the poop and looked it up. I was trying to decide whether to treat it or not when they showed up in the egg and made my decision for me.

I'm going to give my girls pumpkin and squash seeds regularly after I de-worm and hope that will help as a preventative.

I think it's actually 2 weeks. I'll let you know when I get the Valbazen. Directions are on the bottle.

 

[gallopingfrog]

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I've read that giving your chickens (or any animal) pumpkin acts as a natural preventative wormer thingy. But I'm not sure on whether that's absolute fact or not. If you deworm with a commericial dewormer, I don't think you can eat the eggs until a week after you stop using it....again, not positive, but if I recall correctly...

I have never treated for worms before and haven't had a problem until now. I don't think I'm going to routinely de-worm...just when I have a problem.
The segments in the egg were just little pieces of white that looked like rice. I only knew what they were because I had seen them in the poop and looked it up. I was trying to decide whether to treat it or not when they showed up in the egg and made my decision for me.

I'm going to give my girls pumpkin and squash seeds regularly after I de-worm and hope that will help as a preventative.

I think it's actually 2 weeks. I'll let you know when I get the Valbazen. Directions are on the bottle.

As an interesting side note...pumpkin is also a stool softener. We give it to puppies and dogs that are constipated - for that matter, errrrrm, people could eat it and it would help with that issue as well. Thanksgiving dinner totally makes sense now, huh? LOL

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

All this talk of worms has me thinking again about doing my own fecal egg counts. Southerndesert and Beckyhsinglsc, did you see evidence in the droppings, or did you find out through tests at the vet? BTW, I found two papers that showed that feeding your birds cucurbitacin (compound found in members of the family Cuburbitaceae) does reduce fecal egg counts in poultry. Unfortunately, I lost those papers when I had a catastrophic hard drive failure. I've also found a similar study using capsaicin (ingredient that makes peppers hot) to reduce worm counts. From what I remember, neither compound was as effective as the best proprietary treatments, but I think they might be very helpful as preventative measures or to help healthy birds fight off infection. The problem with these sorts of studies is that different species of curcurbits and peppers have varying levels of anthelmintic properties. E.g., the roots of curcurbits usually have more cucurbitacin than the seeds. The findings are further muddled by the doses administered. Who knows how many pumpkin seeds one must feed to kill 99% of the worms? I found a lot of very interesting ethnobotanical studies that showed a long history of usage of these natural remedies in developing countries. Seems that humans have been using them by rotating different treatments for about as long as we've been keeping chickens. That suggests to me there must be some benefit. I also read a number of studies that looked at infection distribution in small groups and it seems that it is typical that only one or two individuals in a small group will be shedding most of the parasitic eggs. The implication is that most individuals in the group have some ability to fight off parasitic infection. Indeed, some poultry breeds have been shown to be more resistant to worm infection than others which suggests a genetic component to infection resistance. Indiscriminate and regular worming can lead to worms that do not respond to anthelmintic treatments. The problem is, who can afford to have all their birds checked? Southerndesert and Beckyhsinglsc, do you know which individuals in your flock have worms? Are they showing any other symptoms?

So, does anyone in the Tucson area have their birds' fecal counts checked at a vet? My plan has been to learn how to do my own counts, then have the reliability of my counts checked by taking a sample to a vet. I would love to have additional data points.