Deworming experience from start to finish.

[tammyfarms]

Thank you for this thread. I have just started researching worming and though all of the scientific information is a bit above my non-scientific thinking brain, I really appreciate it! My babies are getting Valbazen tomorrow morning.

 

[tgooberbutt]

Neither Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) nor Dimetomaceous Earth (DE) have been proven as effective anthelmintics. However, they have both been proven to be useful as preventive measures, and to help reduce the loads. Although the slight acidic environment that ACV creates is more hostile to internal parasites, there's a study on tannins as an alternative that might shift the credit towards the apple the vinegar's made from.

The study can be seen here: Anthelmintic Effects of Condensed Tannins

So I read the Tannin article you linked - it's interesting, but very preliminary and general. I'm getting that its major conclusion is that the tannin-worm relationship is possibly a fruitful area for future research...and that's about it for now. The report even concedes that whether tannins are effective depends greatly on they type of tannin and the type of proteins they interact with...too complicated for me to even guess that an ACV tannin and chicken feed combination does anything.

That being said, I can't seen anything about chickens getting heartburn from too much acid consumption, so what the hey...I went ahead and put a barely taste-able ratio of apple cider vinegar into the chickens' water supply. If anything, it will keep the water a little cleaner. When you first mentioned this, I was imagining giving all the chickens daily drams of red wine LOL!

 

[tgooberbutt]

So, the rest of the chickens (four other chickens in my flock, a total of five) got Valbazen this evening. They are all slightly larger than Phineas, so they all got approximately 0.75ml each...I soaked dry bread cubes with the Valbazen and fed each chicken separately....
I couldn't force-feed them I felt too bad and they were squirming too much. Hopefully the dosage amount will still work without the starvation part.

I feel okay with the slightly higher dosage amount as everything I've read so far seems to indicate that it's difficult to OD on Albendazole.

 

[cowcreekgeek]

Yeah ... the ACV rate is four teaspoons to the gallon, and does do lots of really good things, most esp. the removal of toxins. I'd gone to cycling them on and off, 'til an overlooked dead bird killed a bunch of 'em. Since then, I phase it in and almost out, by cycling from one to four teaspoons per gallon. It definitely keeps things cleaner, and their systems more clear of mucus, and certainly improves uptake of vitamins/minerals, and boosts immune systems. Oh, and the red wine doesn't work nearly as well as the whiskey ... that's what I use, to help me deal w/ the chickens/guineas ~'-)

 

[Bangarang64]

so what the hey...I went ahead and put a barely taste-able ratio of apple cider vinegar into the chickens' water supply. If anything, it will keep the water a little cleaner. When you first mentioned this, I was imagining giving all the chickens daily drams of red wine LOL!

Just don't use ACV with a galvanized waterer. It causes the galvanization to decompose and can harm the birds. I read that someone on these forums tried it and had some bad results.

 

[tgooberbutt]

Just don't use ACV with a galvanized waterer. It causes the galvanization to decompose and can harm the birds. I read that someone on these forums tried it and had some bad results.

Thank you for the heads-up. I have their water re-purposed milk jugs with little watering nipples...and then a separate ceramic dish in the yard
I think the water-er nipples are stainless steel and plastic...

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Have you come across a visual reference of what the various parasites look like in chicken poop? I'd really like to know what to keep my eye out for, and then be able to identify what I find if I find anything.

Is there a single medication that treats "all" worms? Chicken approved?

Do home remedies really work? ACV? Garlic? Pumpkin?

 

[Bangarang64]

Have you come across a visual reference of what the various parasites look like in chicken poop? I'd really like to know what to keep my eye out for, and then be able to identify what I find if I find anything.

Is there a single medication that treats "all" worms? Chicken approved?

Do home remedies really work? ACV? Garlic? Pumpkin?

Pumpkin?

 

[desertmarcy]

Albendazole seems to get absorbed and metabolized in chickens faster in chickens than in other animals. At a 10mg/kg dose, on average, the drug and its byproducts could not be found in the blood anymore after about 24hrs...Max concentration of the drug and byproducts were in the blood after ~3-4 hours.....

I just finished worming quite a few of my birds today using the 20 mg/kg dose of albendazole. It took all day, I wormed 50 birds at least. Catching them, weighing, calculating dosage, writing down the weights and dosage used with the bird's band number so I don't have to weigh again to redose in 10 days, giving them the dose... It was quite a job. Looking at the information above, even though that is for a 10 mg/kg dose, it sounds like you can eat the eggs again after a very short period of time after dosing--maybe 4 days? What is the recommendation for this, anybody know?

 

[dawg53]

A single medication that treats all known worms that chickens can get is Valbazen cattle/sheep wormer. In addition to the usual worms that chickens can get, valbazen will also kill gizzard worms, gapeworm (in high doses,) flukes and eyeworm. The normal withdrawal period is 14 days after last dosing.