deworming chickens????????????????

[Chictaw]

Yes some area's are prone to more worms. We live in the high desert. Alot of wild life. We found out our area is infested with tapeworns. We have been battling it for two months. We just can't seem to get a hold on it. We have tried Valbazin, but they still have them. Don't like to give our girls chemicals but don't have much choice. Can anyone tell me how many times can you give them Valbazin?

 

[dorklingmomma]

I use a horse wormer for my dogs and chickens i use it every 6mths . but what is the thought about if you can use the eggs

 

[Chictaw]

I use a horse wormer for my dogs and chickens i use it every 6mths . but what is the thought about if you can use the eggs

The waiting time for not eating the eggs, is 14 days after last dose. Really sucks!!.....miss my girls eggs.

 

[dorklingmomma]

Bummer thanks for the info

 

[edanddebra]

Does anyone compost the eggs they discard after giving their hens worming medicine? Or do you throw them in the trash? My husband thinks putting them in the compost is a bad idea. Something about worms building up immunity to the medicine. What do you think, is he crazy or what?

 

[PandoraChick]

Gail Damerow in her book "The Chicken Health Handbook" suggests not to give a wormer unless the chicken is looking rough and poorly. Basically she states that the worms and the chickens have to create an equilibrium between them and that stress or sickness is usually what tips the scales in favor of the worms. It appears to me that she leans to the "don't worm unless needed" mentality.

Something else she states is that worms will eventually get resistant to certain drugs which makes sense to me. So I wonder if routine worming is actually helping the worms get resistant to the drug. She does caution against switching wormers to quickly because in doing so you might actually be letting the worms get resistant to yet another wormer.

Damerow states a one week withdrawal period for *approved* wormers. She states that non-approved wormers (wormers intended for other animals, etc.,) should NOT be used on chickens and that if they are used for chickens that those chickens should not be used for meat or eggs.

Here is a list of wormers she has listed in a sidebar in her book. The book also gives descriptions and specifics:

Coumaphos (Meldane)
Piperazine
Phenothiazine
Levamisole
Thiabendazole
Mebendazole
Iveremctive

Since I've shared some of her information here I guess I need to put a plug in for her book, The Chicken Health Handbook, published by Storey. Excellent book and highly recommended.

As for ACV...hmm, maybe it doesn't really kill the worms but gives the chickens a bit of a "kick" like "joggin in the jug" and helps give them the edge over the worms.

Ed

have taken
Thank you for this helpful post!! Quoting it so I can reference as needed(and I don't see an 'add to favorites" button). I have never once wormed my chickens. I have 15 that are between 1-2 years old that I raised as chicks. My husband has put garlic in there water, and the eggs tasted fine. I also use the raw acv but not regularly My chickens free range most of the day and eat everything from frogs & mice(a cpl times I saw this :/ ) to all sorts of worms and bugs. They all look very healthy and plump, we have never had a problem. Before winter I got nervous after reading the differing opinions and took 3 different fecal sample to the vet...60.00 later I was told they were worm free. I will probabaly take another few samples in soon to be sure..I have new chicks brooding.

 

[eggoland]

I have had chickens a little over a year now. We had a surplus of pumpkins last fall, I put them in the cellar & have been cutting them in half & giving to my six girls as treats. I have not had any problems with worms. I have learned a lot about worming. I didn't even know that pumpkin seeds could be used as natural wormer. Think I will plant an extra hill of pumpkins this year & see how they work.

 

[shotzy007]

what do you use for preventative mite control?

 

[valkenar]

I've just started my first flock (5 mixed one-week old) and was interested in how prevalent worm problems are. I live in a suburban northeast US city. I'd like to hear how commonly people have problem with worms, even though it varies regionally (and probably on even smaller scales). Do you think it's guaranteed to eventually have a problem with worms for a small flock like mine, given a lack of proactive treatment? Put another way, if a chicken lives 10 years on a reasonably sized run/coop, how likely is it to suffer from (as opposed to just have) worms? 5%? 95%? Feel free to pull numbers out of thin air, since there's a lack of true research.

From reading the thread it seems like my best option is to let them loose and hope that reactive deworming is sufficient. I like the idea of the natural stuff, but I'm on the side of those who want definite proof of at least marginal efficacy. Just because you give them pumpkin seeds and they don't have worms doesn't mean the pumpkin seeds helped. On the other hand, I don't think there's likely to be any research done on this topic in the context of small backyard chickens in the near future, so I'm more open to anecdotes than I might otherwise be. But that means something like you had a lot of worm problems and then started using pumpkin seeds and they went away, and then you stopped using pumpkin seeds and they came back. Anecdotal, but at least somewhat convincing in the absence of stronger evidence.

 

[kerdner]

We live in the suburbs of a decent size northeastern city and have had our chickens for 3 years. Never had any issue with worms. We had well water and then switched to city water about 6 months ago. When we switched to city, we still fed the chickens well water due to the chlorine and other chemicals in the city water. Didn't think it was a good idea to switch cold turkey on them.

We kept the coop reasonably clean and the egg boxes fairly spotless. The run would depend on the weather how "clean" you would consider it and we moved the run and coop at least once a year to let the grass regrow and the smell dissipate. We also would let them out to roam a few times a week at least.

Never had a problem with worms. Also insect population in the yard went down tremendously.

The chickens recently moved to Ohio to my cousin's farm. Within a month of the move, they have worms. They are mostly free range on the farm and it sounds like they have only cleaned out the coop possibly once since the move. So not sure if it is the heat and coop, the move, or the area that caused the issue. (Insect population already doubled and missing the eggs.)

The whole vinegar idea is not a bad idea in general. I think it is more than a couple of tablespoons per gallon however. I don't know if it has as much to do with worms, as it acts as a natural decontaminate. If you have ever had house birds - like parrots or parakeets, bottled water with Apple Cider Vinegar is what is recommended. It does not harm the birds.

Also most birds are not affected by bleach, but I would not want to eat an egg from a bird who ingested bleach. But that is a personal matter. We cleaned with either bleach or vinegar and it keeps the mites down.

Never had a problem with that either. Lots of pine trees and the chickens seemed to like to roll around in the pine needles for a dust bath when they were out, so that may have helped as pine is a natural astringent.

Hope that helps. The Gail Damerow book that others quoted is a good one to get. Actually she has a couple that worth the expenditure.