De-worming.

[Dressed For Service]

So our small flock of 4 hens is coming up on their 1 yr. birthday (Easter Day). Do we do a general de-worming pre-emptively? They are not exhibiting any problems but they do free range year around.
I'm not going to the vet for anything. We do have a Tractor Supply near by (safeguard, etc...).

Thank you!

 

[Folly's place]

There's no reason to use a wormer unless there are intestinal parasites present. You can have fecals run at the veterinarian's, why not? Or get a microscope and a book on parasitology and do it yourself. There are independent labs that can run fecals for you too.
Mary

 

[Dressed For Service]

There's no reason to use a wormer unless there are intestinal parasites present. You can have fecals run at the veterinarian's, why not? Or get a microscope and a book on parasitology and do it yourself. There are independent labs that can run fecals for you too.
Mary

My understanding is that there are always intestinal parasites present and it is only when the count gets higher than what the Chickens immune system can handle that they become a problem. This of course is no surprise given there diet when they free range includes many things that contain the parasites. I do have a microscope and have no issue with what to look for. Many of the worms that chickens have can be viewed with the naked eye also. My question maybe was posted in the wrong forum.
Most other farm animals are treated on a scheduled basis for parasites (dogs and cats also). I wanted to know if that was the case for Poultry. I'll look into it and ask some other local Chicken owners.

 

[dawg53]

How often you worm your birds depends on your environment. Warm moist or wet soil will require frequent wormings. Cold or mountainous or hot desertlike soil requires less frequent wormings.

One female large roundworm lays over 100,000 eggs a day contaminating your soil which will be picked up by other chickens and consumed starting the worms lifecycle all over again.
Worms suck the life out of chickens, starving them, multiplying. They weaken the chickens immune system opening the door for all kinds of diseases which eventually spread through a flock. The root cause being worms.

By the time you see worms in feces, internal damage has occurred. There are only two reasons why you would see worms in feces: A worm died of old age and was excreted, or the there wasnt no more room in the guts and they were excreted.
Why would a parasite leave its host?
It's important to worm birds, as well as keeping everything as dry as possible and rotating areas where birds forage. Sand in the pens helps keep everything dry.
I use sand in the coops and some of the nest boxes as well.

 

[Dressed For Service]

Agreed. So Valbazen -Safe Guard or something available locally? I noticed Wazine is not available anymore.

 

[dawg53]

I prefer to use Valbazen, but have used Safeguard, both are excellent wormers. Wazine was taken off the market years ago. It only treated large roundworms.
Valbazen and Safeguard treat all types of poultry roundworms.
Here's where I buy Valbazen:
https://www.jefferspet.com/valbazen-oral-suspension-500ml-w-cap/p
Safeguard liquid goat wormer can be bought at just about any feed store or Tractor Supply store, or here:
https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30E0766B-7B6A-11D5-A192-00B0D0204AE5

 

[Dressed For Service]

Also the floor of our run is sand with dry straw over it (which is changed at least weekly (straw part)) coup is pine shavings and straw - all areas are bone dry. Coup is cleaned very frequently.

 

[Dressed For Service]

I prefer to use Valbazen, but have used Safeguard, both are excellent wormers. Wazine was taken off the market years ago. It only treated large roundworms.
Valbazen and Safeguard treat all types of poultry roundworms.

Excellent, thank you very much!

 

[Dressed For Service]

Thank You Admin for moving this to the correct Forum!