If you have an infestation already, you would probably need a 'real' wormer, like Wazine or Ivermectin. But these are not labelled for laying hens, so you'd have to toss eggs for ???? Ivermectin is also toxic to chickens in even small misdoses, authors have observed, so must be real careful. Yet Ivermectin is the most broad spectrum wormer that I know of, others are more specific.
Never heard of ACV as a wormer, maybe could help prevent, but..... DE (diotomaceous earth) is supposedly a good natural worm preventer, but again--'preventer'. I should add about DE that G. Damerow, a respected chicken author, makes this good arg. against DE as a worm preventer at all: she says that DE once it becomes wet, loses its natural 'cutting edge'. Now, DE becomes wet in the bird's digestive system. Therefore, since wettened DE loses its cutting edge in the chicken, it is therefore useless as a worm preventer.
That's what she says....
If I had read that a month ago, I probably wouldn't have purchased WormGuard Plus from Murray McMurray, which is mostly DE....!
Some do worm annually. I'm still trying to develop my system on this. I don't relish the idea of tossing the eggs, and possibly harming the bird. Again, Gail Damerow in her "chicken health handbook" states that wormers should be used with much caution, and only when the bird shows clear signs of more-than-acceptable worm infestation; cuz chickens will tend to have a tolerable level of internal parasites anyway, once they get out n about........
Good luck and try not to get too stressed out
. This is the same hen that was gagging a little the other day. Am I just obsessing or might there be something wrong with my birds?
