Fecal Float Questions

[Shadrach]

What about heartworm prevention for the dogs?

Not to my knowledge. Our last two dog deaths were at 12 and 13 years old. The eldest chicken was 11 years old, a bit below average, and she had an assisted death due to reproductive problems. Our eldest donkey is now 16 I believe and showing no signs of imminent collapse.
The eldest Muscovy duck is at least 9.
12 years old and over is common for the chickens on the local farms. Predation is the main killer.
I'm inclined to beleive that the provenance of the majority of the chickens for back yard keepers in the USA and the conditions they are kept in, including diet has a greater impact on their health than it does here.

 

[Folly's place]

Do most flock owners in Catalonia raise their own chicks, or do people buy hatchery chicks, as so many do here?
In the USA, very very few breeders at any level select for longevity in their chickens, rather breeding one year old birds, or at most a few two years of age, so this greatly impacts helath and longevity in our stock.
Here we also have lots of free range space, and sandy loam, with very good drainage, so nearly never any mud. All helpful! And the chickens aren't at a pond eating frogs and crayfish, another big help.
Mary

 

[KsKingBee]

I'd love to see what peacocks get. Was that you that posted the probable tapeworm egg photo?

I posted a photo of tapeworm eggs from my vet ref manual as I didn't think the pic from the OP was tapeworm egg.

 

[casportpony]

I was just looking through my pictures and found this interesting roundworm picture.

Spoiler: Necropsy - Roundworm

Necropsy was done on a friend's peahen that died from a severe respiratory infection

 

[Kusanar]

I was just looking through my pictures and found this interesting roundworm picture.

Spoiler: Necropsy - Roundworm

View attachment 2290121

Necropsy was done on a friend's peahen that died from a severe respiratory infection

That is so weird. Are those veins in there or smaller worms??

 

[casportpony]

That is so weird. Are those veins in there or smaller worms??

I have no idea!

 

[Shadrach]

Do most flock owners in Catalonia raise their own chicks, or do people buy hatchery chicks, as so many do here?
In the USA, very very few breeders at any level select for longevity in their chickens, rather breeding one year old birds, or at most a few two years of age, so this greatly impacts helath and longevity in our stock.
Here we also have lots of free range space, and sandy loam, with very good drainage, so nearly never any mud. All helpful! And the chickens aren't at a pond eating frogs and crayfish, another big help.
Mary

There are hatcheries here but they supply the large industrial barns.
There are a lot of differences in chicken keeping between the chicken enthusiasts here and it seems, those in the US.
No enthusiast here would dream of buying anything from a hatchery. The logistics of hatcheries if one cares to investigate will show you why.
Most on these mountains get their chickens from other keepers. There are breeders here but they tend to have been breeding a particular breed for generations.
Another major difference is the idea of mixed breed flocks. This is quite rare here. People keep the chickens that have been bred here for hundreds of years. Those who want to keep 'specialist' breeds travel to the country of origin, or get eggs shipped. There is a whole chicken underworld here established through cock fighting before it became illegal. If one considers that cock fighters came from all over Europe and beyond it gives some idea of the reach of the network.
I have plans to keep Fayoumies and these will come from a guy who imports his stock from Egypt. I did have plans to keep a pair of Aseel Game Fowl and these would have been from fighting bird stock bred in these mountains.
None of the above is to say there are not some chickens kept in truly terrible conditions. I've had a few of these rescues over the years.
I have recently given away a trio of mixed breed chickens to a young man further up the mountain and have given away breeding pairs on other occasions. There is no money to be made in chickens at the enthusiast level here really. Most smallholdings already have chickens.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

That is so weird. Are those veins in there or smaller worms??

Those are reproductive structures, probably testes.

 

[jolenesdad]

Thanks again to everyone participating in this discussion I’m LEARNING SO MUCH!!!!!!

Yep, but most people don't do float tests, I actually don't know anyone that does float tests on their horses. Yes, that is the preferred way of doing it per science, but not what actually happens in the real world.

I have been... and while many I know do not, I do think a healthy percentage of the horse folks I know, large and smaller scale, are coming on board with this. What I don’t do is follow the total guidelines of follow ups to determine the efficacy except on sometimes my highest shedders and That’s why I’m here. As near as I can figure, my high shedders could honestly have almost monthly fecals, and my lowest shedders at least 4 a year, before and after spring and fall deworming. I’m at this awful sort of space where I don’t have enough horses to do random sampling of a small percentage of the herd and get anything accurate, yet too many horses to really fecal test everyone of them all the time without breaking the bank.

the biggest thing I see is that some people have kind of conflated “rotational” working with “fighting resistance” and are still massively over using dewormers just on a rigid and set rotational basis. They’ve gotten half the message.

Oh I hear that. Mostly breeding farms and commercial operations have adopted this newish paradigm, because it's not practical.
But it's growing in popularity out of necessity-resistance is a serious problem in grazing animals. Once it gets to the point where dewormers don't do anything for the average horse owner, it will have to change.
I have a budding mail-in fecal test business set up so people can just send me poo-mail and I can give then a fecal egg count. I am not the only one that does this.

I’d love to get info, too. There’s an amazon kit I refer people to for use but it has iffy reviews in terms of accuracy.

I’m always thinking about are we headed to resistance in dogs. Should we be alternating or rotating flea/heart worm/other parasite controls that are regularly given to dogs?

I had a dog get IMHA recently and I rarely if ever do flea and tick meds anymore, because now I’m leery of everything that can build up over time. I just stay super vigilant about monitoring for fleas.

Not to my knowledge. Our last two dog deaths were at 12 and 13 years old. The eldest chicken was 11 years old, a bit below average, and she had an assisted death due to reproductive problems. Our eldest donkey is now 16 I believe and showing no signs of imminent collapse.
The eldest Muscovy duck is at least 9.
12 years old and over is common for the chickens on the local farms. Predation is the main killer.
I'm inclined to beleive that the provenance of the majority of the chickens for back yard keepers in the USA and the conditions they are kept in, including diet has a greater impact on their health than it does here.

I’m sure diet has so much to do with things. Like it always does. Ugh. Pass me the Hershey bar.

every Commercial chicken operation is an all in/all out situation to control and limit parasite and health issues from confined raising in a concentrated manner. In many way, some average backyard setups are keeping animals in a high concentration, yet not culling them at 18 months. Heavy parasite loads are to be expected I guess in these situations.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

I’d love to get info, too. There’s an amazon kit I refer people to for use but it has iffy reviews in terms of accuracy.

I’m always thinking about are we headed to resistance in dogs. Should we be alternating or rotating flea/heart worm/other parasite controls that are regularly given to dogs?

I had a dog get IMHA recently and I rarely if ever do flea and tick meds anymore, because now I’m leery of everything that can build up over time. I just stay super vigilant about monitoring for fleas.

There are good and diverse products for control of fleas, ticks and heartworm, and there are no current recommendations for rotation of these products. There is clear evidence of resistant heartworm in the field, but there aren't any other drugs out there to prevent it, there's only one class. It's still very very important to keep your dog on prevention as failures are rare, and mostly concentrated in the lower Mississippi River Valley. You do not want your dog to get heartworm, it's not like intestinal worms. Treating them is terrible, and heartworm can cause a lot of damage to the vessels of the lungs and heart.
Fleas and ticks are well-controlled with current products, so if you use one and it works, keep at it.