- Jun 9, 2020
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I’m looking for advice on how to cyclically deworm my small flock for cecal worms. I recently had a hen with a dirty backside that seemed to persist, so I had our vet do a fecal float/test and it came back positive for cecal worms (side note: we don’t have turkeys or other fowl, just chickens). They sent me home with oral panacur and measurements for my chickens, and I painstakingly administered it to each one for 5 days as directed.
However, follow-up discussion with my vet and research online leads me to believe I’ll need to deworm them all on a schedule for a bit to clear all traces of cecal worms, as they may re-infect my chickens via eggs in the substrate as they scrounge in their run.
My issue is that orally administering Panacur to each chicken is hard work and takes a lot of time (I’ve tried the towel burrito, the arm tuck, everything I can think of), and I no longer have a helper to wrangle them/help me get it done. I also have far less time to commit to orally deworming a whole small flock cyclically due to work demands. I’m looking for methods to deworm via water, etc.. But that brings me to my other problem: I have a very small flock - literally lol, they’re mostly seramas. All the information I find about adding liquid dewormers like safeguard (aquasol or otherwise) or liquid panacur basically boil down to “the amount needed would be so minute, it’s going to be hard to measure it correctly”.
Because they’re seramas, they do need to stay in their runs or they’re immediately hawk food. I’ve spent time and money to set up large runs and secure coops, so unfortunately now moving their run to (hopefully) un-infected ground isn’t an option.
Does anyone have any worming advice? Or will I need to buck up and continue orally deworming them until the worms are eradicated?
I have two runs, one houses 7 seramas and the other houses 5 seramas and 4 standard hens.
However, follow-up discussion with my vet and research online leads me to believe I’ll need to deworm them all on a schedule for a bit to clear all traces of cecal worms, as they may re-infect my chickens via eggs in the substrate as they scrounge in their run.
My issue is that orally administering Panacur to each chicken is hard work and takes a lot of time (I’ve tried the towel burrito, the arm tuck, everything I can think of), and I no longer have a helper to wrangle them/help me get it done. I also have far less time to commit to orally deworming a whole small flock cyclically due to work demands. I’m looking for methods to deworm via water, etc.. But that brings me to my other problem: I have a very small flock - literally lol, they’re mostly seramas. All the information I find about adding liquid dewormers like safeguard (aquasol or otherwise) or liquid panacur basically boil down to “the amount needed would be so minute, it’s going to be hard to measure it correctly”.
Because they’re seramas, they do need to stay in their runs or they’re immediately hawk food. I’ve spent time and money to set up large runs and secure coops, so unfortunately now moving their run to (hopefully) un-infected ground isn’t an option.
Does anyone have any worming advice? Or will I need to buck up and continue orally deworming them until the worms are eradicated?
I have two runs, one houses 7 seramas and the other houses 5 seramas and 4 standard hens.
I’m trying to figure out how I could disguise the wormer they’d need in something small enough to eat
