Deworming?

[cchin]

We had a case of mange in our cattle herd and we started going through our deworming supply. We sometimes have pigs so we were reading the back of the swine dewormer and it listed chickens as one of the types of animals that this product was good for. Now this may be a very stupid question but are you supposed to deworm chickens? If so how often and what do you recommend? We are new to chickens. They are about 1.5 years old now. All laying hens...and I have never dewormed them...

Thanks

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC!

Would be best to gather up a bunch of fresh poop and have a vet do a fecal float.

-Kathy

 

[cchin]

Thanks. Do you deworm your chickens though? I am not worried that they have worms, I am wondering if this is general maintenance for these animals.

 

[newwestchick]

Some people deworm religiously, others never do. You'll hear great arguments for both sides! It's really at your discretion if you're not seeing any worm sign, like weight loss, bloody stool, excessive watery stool, etc.
Best wishes!

 

[casportpony]

Might be a good idea to read up on the different types of worms that poultry get and what wormers will treat them. You mentioned that your pig wormer can also be used in poultry, so I'm gonna guess that is Wazine or PigSwig? If so, that's piperazine, and it only treats large roundworms in poultry.

-Kathy

 

[cchin]

Thanks. We are going to go the vets this weekend to ask if what we have is ok or if they think we should use something else.

Scary about the symptoms though. I lose one hen a few months back that was so skinny and another one had bloody stool and passed a few days later. When we bought the 12 chicks they told us that sometimes "chickens just die", so I just assumed that they were the unhealthy ones in the bunch. Now I'm starting to question if worms had something to do with it....