Does tapeworm affect the egg production of chickens?

[Chickens :)]

Hi. I have owned chickens for almost my entire life but I have always wondered about this question. Some of my chickens have recently gotten tapeworm and I am curing it with a wormer but my chickens aren't laying. I am only getting about one or two eggs a day from 6 chickens who should be laying. I recently have hatched some speckled Sussex chicks which will be 29 weeks old on Wednesday and haven't started laying yet. Do you think this has something to do with the tapeworm? One speckled Sussex is squatting and has a fully red comb and wattle and did lay one egg about 5 weeks ago but I haven't got one since then.
I would love to hear your response. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you

 

[Kiki]

Hi there and welcome to BYC.
Yes, having worms affects their laying.
What medicine are you using to treat the tapes and what dosage if you don't mind me asking.

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome! There are so many possible things going on here! Do you have a light on in the morning to produce 14 to 16 hours of light for them? What are you feeding?
Have you had fecals run at the veterinarian's to see what other parasites they may have? Any mites or lice?
A heavy worm or parasite load will affect egg production and health, but a very small parasite load may not matter. Your choice of wormer matters too.
Mary

 

[happyhens1972]

The tapeworms will be absorbing important nutrients that the chicken should be getting so yes, egg production can definitely be affected.

 

[Chickens :)]

Hi. Thanks for your response. I had been using apple cider vinegar and garlic and gave it to them about 2-3 times a week until I found the tapeworm eggs in their poos. I started yesterday with this wormer called aristopet Wormer for poultry. The dosage is 8ml per 100ml of water. Their diet consists of layer mash, kitchen scraps and some shell grit. They live outside and are free ranging. They did recently have mites but for that we use an organic miting treatment that we dust them with and put in the nesting boxes and they can also eat it. Some of the chicks I hatched had mereks disease and died but we had taken them to a vetnerian who checked on their health and didn't detect any other issues with those birds but I haven't recently seen a vetnerian since then. The chicks weren't breed on my farm so I don't know if their is something hereditary that they have.

 

[Chickens :)]

If the tapeworm is affecting the egg production, the eggs they do lay, are they edible?

 

[Chickens :)]

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

Hi. I have owned chickens for almost my entire life but I have always wondered about this question. Some of my chickens have recently gotten tapeworm and I am curing it with a wormer but my chickens aren't laying. I am only getting about one or two eggs a day from 6 chickens who should be laying. I recently have hatched some speckled Sussex chicks which will be 29 weeks old on Wednesday and haven't started laying yet. Do you think this has something to do with the tapeworm? One speckled Sussex is squatting and has a fully red comb and wattle and did lay one egg about 5 weeks ago but I haven't got one since then.
I would love to hear your response. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you

Yes, tape worms can affect laying. The best thing to do is what you have done by worming them. Another thing, during the winter chickens tend to lay less. So if you have an issue like worms combined with the short days of winter that makes a recipe for a sharp drop in eggs for sure. Once your chickens recover from worming you might not see eggs for a while still. When the days start to get longer you will start to see an increase in egg laying. Some people put light in the coop at night to encourage their hens to lay through the winter. But even then you will still see a decline in eggs due to the fact that they use much of the energy needed to lay eggs to help keep them warm during cold winters.

I have a flock of 9 BO's that are total free loaders right now. I don't mind because I know in a few months I will have more eggs than I know that to do with. It just goes with the territory.

 

[Folly's place]

Levamisole isn't approved for use in egglayers in the USA, so there isn't a safe egg withdrawal period listed, except forever. There's some research data out there that talks about maybe a two week egg withdrawal after treatment (dependent on dosage), so that's what I found in a short search tonight.
Recently fenbendazole has been approved for laying hens with no withdrawal period; that would have been a better choice.
It's frustrating finding medications that are okay to use in poultry, and the list for laying hens is really short. Everything ends up in those egg yolks! Look things up on the FARAD.org website.
Mary

 

[Chickens :)]

Thankyou all for your input. I will continue with this worming treatment and hopefully get some eggs again!