Do You Need To Worm Them???

[ginbart]

Leah-yes I know I'm crazy :

Good question, Gin. I've never wormed in 8 years of having a small flock. DH thinks we must have some sort of immunity because of the soil ph. There are also hundreds of plants we can't grow.

Did you ever get your soil tested?​

 

[Leah-yes I know I'm crazy]

Quote:
Did you ever get your soil tested?

No, but for 100+ years since the big pines were cleared, it has been pine needles and oak trees in sand. Has not been cleared or raked except for the front acre or so. The only vegetable that grows well are tomatos, and we have a great herb garden because they like cruddy soil. We cannot grow anything like cabbage, squash, broccoli. And we rarely even see earthworms in the soil in the garden that we are trying to improve. We have another piece of farmland just outside of town where we put in our big garden and have fruit trees. I mow the grass on May 15th and Sep. 15th because I feel morally compelled to.

 

[stoneunhenged]

This is a good question. I live in a warm area of the country and worry about internal parasites in my chickens, but I have never wormed them and have been keeping birds more than a decade. I have had very few unexplained deaths in that time, and none that I think were probably parasite related. My birds have never exhibited any symptoms associated with mites, either.

The key is to give them high quality food, lots of exercise, and large clean pens with low population densities of coop mates. My penned chickens are kept on six inches of white clean sand with hay placed over it. I change out the hay every couple of months. The manure seems to percolate into the sand and there is never a bad smell or mud.


I also feed the birds diatomaceous earth mixed in with flax seed. I've read that on a microscopic level the diatoms slice into intestinal worms, killing them. Who knows? It doesn't seem to hurt the birds, and so I do it.

Anyway, I sometime feel guilty because so many people seem to worm their birds, but then I look at my birds and they seem very healthy. So, I err on the side of not medicating them.

 

[speckledhen]

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I think you are doing fine! I didn't worm anyone in my flock till they were over two years old and then, only because I did see one worm in a rooster's poop. Healthy birds can handle small worm loads without issues. I agree with what you said about the clean pens, high quality feed, etc.

 

[ChickenToes]

I have not wormed my chickens yet, and I won't worm them until I actually see worms. I don't see the point of giving them medications when they don't need them.

 

[NYREDS]

Some people worm prophylactically, some worm when they observe a problem [worms in stools, unthriftiness, etc], some never worm at all. It sort of comes down to what you're most comfortable with.
Chickens, other livestock, wild animals & in much of the world people live with a certain level of gut fauna w/o experiencing harm. It's only when the population gets too large that it becomes problematic.
When you worm you're giving your birds a poison. IMO this shouldn't be done lightly & when done attention should be paid to proper dosing.
Basically if your chickens appear healthy, are not underweight & are laying as expected ask yourself what's to be gained by worming?

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i took one of my silkies to the vet as i thought her toe was broken. Turned out it was just a broken nail. They did a fecal test and found roundworms. i thought my flock all looked healthy. Glad i found out otherwise. Going back today for Ivermectin and will be dosing all my flock. The vet said she spoke to a specialist who recommends worming four times a year. i think i would feel more comfortable taking in some fecal samples every four months or so and checking for worms before i worm them again, though.

By the way, i saw no evidence of worms in their poop, and their poop looked fine. So this wasn't something i could have determined on my own.