before you give wormer, please read

[Evadig]

that sounds more like coccidiosis than worms. Compare your birds' symptoms with description here
https://www.msdvetmanual.com/poultry/coccidiosis-in-poultry/coccidiosis-in-poultry

That sounds like coccidia - which would also be found by a fecal float test and would not be cured by worming.

Thank you!

 

[dawg53]

Not necessarily. Worms can cause blood in feces. A fecal float test will determine what you're dealing with.
Just for your information, ONE female roundworm can lay 200,000 eggs a day onto/into your soil. Chickens constantly peck the soil, pick up the eggs and swallow them, starting the roundworm lifecycle all over again. One worm is one worm too many.
Worms starve a chicken of the necessary nutrients they need to survive. Eventually the host (chicken) will die in time.
It takes years for a wormer to become ineffective against worms. I've been using Safeguard and Valbazen for many years and they are both very effective wormers, and I worm my birds monthly to break the worms lifecycle. I've used many wormers over the years, I stick with the benzimidazoles, Safeguard/Valbazen. You might see resistance in other animals regarding benzimidazoles, but not poultry, so far in my experience. Another reason why I use Benzimidazoles is when it is administered, most of the liquid is poorly absorbed and excreted. Only a small amount is absorbed into the bloodstream.
The only wormer I know of that is ineffective treating some types of roundworms in poultry is Ivermectin.
Ivermectin has been over used in poultry to treat mites when its primary purpose is a wormer. In some places, Ivermectin is showing resistance to mites.
How often you worm your birds depends on your soil conditions. Warm damp or wet soil most of the time will require frequent wormings. Cool/cold dry, sandy or rocky type soil may not require frequent wormings.
We live practically in a swamp, that's why I worm monthly. Sand in the pens helps keep everything dry and wont wash away like dirt/mud, nor cause nasty mudpuddles that chickens love to drink. Sand deters insects which can be vectors for worm infestations, particularly hosts for tapeworms. I've had it happen.
If someone says that their chickens dont get worms, then there soil is dead of all microbes, or they were asleep in biology class.

 

[Perris]

Not necessarily. Worms can cause blood in feces. A fecal float test will determine what you're dealing with.
Just for your information, ONE female roundworm can lay 200,000 eggs a day onto/into your soil. Chickens constantly peck the soil, pick up the eggs and swallow them, starting the roundworm lifecycle all over again. One worm is one worm too many.
Worms starve a chicken of the necessary nutrients they need to survive. Eventually the host (chicken) will die in time.
It takes years for a wormer to become ineffective against worms. I've been using Safeguard and Valbazen for many years and they are both very effective wormers, and I worm my birds monthly to break the worms lifecycle. I've used many wormers over the years, I stick with the benzimidazoles, Safeguard/Valbazen. You might see resistance in other animals regarding benzimidazoles, but not poultry, so far in my experience. Another reason why I use Benzimidazoles is when it is administered, most of the liquid is poorly absorbed and excreted. Only a small amount is absorbed into the bloodstream.
The only wormer I know of that is ineffective treating some types of roundworms in poultry is Ivermectin.
Ivermectin has been over used in poultry to treat mites when its primary purpose is a wormer. In some places, Ivermectin is showing resistance to mites.
How often you worm your birds depends on your soil conditions. Warm damp or wet soil most of the time will require frequent wormings. Cool/cold dry, sandy or rocky type soil may not require frequent wormings.
We live practically in a swamp, that's why I worm monthly. Sand in the pens helps keep everything dry and wont wash away like dirt/mud, nor cause nasty mudpuddles that chickens love to drink. Sand deters insects which can be vectors for worm infestations, particularly hosts for tapeworms. I've had it happen.
If someone says that their chickens dont get worms, then there soil is dead of all microbes, or they were asleep in biology class.

you apparently didn't read this: vet manual, professional version, about poultry worms and wormers, the quote is just a small part of the entry, you might want to read the whole page

edited to add a quote and ref specifically for poultry:
"The number of medications approved for treatment of helminthiasis in poultry is decreasing. There are also reports of resistance developing.

To decrease the potential spread of resistance, treatment should be limited to birds with severe infestation that show clinical signs of disease. Such targeted treatment also seems to more effectively decrease worm burden and cumulative environmental parasite egg numbers than untargeted routine treatment. Worm loads have been reported to rebound quickly after deworming, however."
https://www.msdvetmanual.com/poultr...sis-in-poultry#Treatment-and-Control_v3341937

 

[dawg53]

A chicken with a severe infestation of worms is at the point of death, they rarely recover and die. I know this from personal experience.

Edited to add:
I agree there is resistance to Ivermectin. I havnt seen resistance to neither Safeguard nor Valbazen in poultry.
As a matter of fact, I havnt seen resistance to Pyrantel Pamoate, Piperazine, Levamisole, Equimax "praziquantel" in poultry. I've used them all one time or another.

You are strictly limited as what you can use in Great Britain and Europe in general.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If someone says that their chickens dont get worms, then there soil is dead of all microbes, or they were asleep in biology class.

When I butcher my chickens, small batches throughout the year, I always check the intestines for roundworms or tapeworms. I have not found any yet. With the worm load that low I haven't seen a reason to worm them. If I ever find a roundworm or tapeworm I will worm them all.

if I find a reason to treat them then I treat. If I don't have a solid reason I don't.

 

[dawg53]

When I butcher my chickens, small batches throughout the year, I always check the intestines for roundworms or tapeworms. I have not found any yet. With the worm load that low I haven't seen a reason to worm them. If I ever find a roundworm or tapeworm I will worm them all.

if I find a reason to treat them then I treat. If I don't have a solid reason I don't.

Have you ever had a fecal sample looked at under a microscope?
SE Louisiana soil oughta be ripe with all kinds of organisms unless flooded with salt water.

 

[Perris]

Chickens and their parasites (and any intermediary hosts) have co-evolved. It is an assumption that any parasite is a bad thing for the bird, as it used to be assumed that any microbe was a 'germ' to be destroyed if possible. Now we know better. There are more microbes in our bodies than there are 'our' cells, and most of them are good for, or at least not harmful to, us.

Typically infection with parasites is only critical if the bird is already ill; improved productivity, not bird survival, is the aim of attempts to eradicate worms. It is widely acknowledged in the literature that such attempts have had, at best, very short-lived benefits. Living in a cage, walking on and eating their own waste, is the chief route to heavy infection with helminths (unless the birds are short lived and raised in an all-in all-out, housing-thoroughly-disinfected between batches, production system).

This is an interesting read for those of open mind.

Emerging interactions between diet, gastrointestinal helminth infection, and the gut microbiota in livestock​

https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02752-w

 

[Perris]

A chicken with a severe infestation of worms is at the point of death, they rarely recover and die. I know this from personal experience.

And how do you know that the worms were the killers, rather than just thriving in the bird's last days because the bird was already dying of something else?

As a matter of fact, I havnt seen resistance to Pyrantel Pamoate, Piperazine, Levamisole, Equimax "praziquantel" in poultry. I've used them all one time or another.

past performance is not a reliable indicator of current effectiveness. Every application of wormer favours the selection of individuals who survive it to reproduce and pass on their genes, while the ones that the wormer killed don't. Thus resistance grows with usage and time.

 

[McChooky]

S

When you are worried for the health of your chickens, it's natural to want to give them something that you hope will make them better. But the consequences may not be what you wanted and hoped for. This article casts parasites in a new and more interesting light.
https://grist.org/video/parasite-climate-change-ecosystem-health-science/

Funny how climate change only affects this one type right?

 

[dawg53]

And how do you know that the worms were the killers, rather than just thriving in the bird's last days because the bird was already dying of something else?

past performance is not a reliable indicator of current effectiveness. Every application of wormer favours the selection of individuals who survive it to reproduce and pass on their genes, while the ones that the wormer killed don't. Thus resistance grows with usage and time.

I would bet that if you had worms that you'd go running to your doctor to get meds to eradicate them in a heartbeat! Especially if it was a child.
Tell me, what would they be doing in your guts, having a party? No, they would be sucking the life out of you.
Same for chickens. Common sense has gone done the tubes.
I'm done here. It's your choice whether to worm YOUR birds or not.