General question about worms

[Soujrnr]

Hi all,

I don't have any reason to believe our girls have worms but I do have just a general question about that. Should I be giving my girls something as a preventative measure or are worms something handled once it's verified that they have them?

 

[21hens-incharge]

I would only treat known cases. Doing a preventative treatment can lead to drug resistant parasites that you can never get rid of.

 

[DLA]

Any chickens that spend time outside eating whatever they find will usually carry some kind of worm load. When that load gets high enough you might see symptoms. Some people worm on a set schedule and some don't, some try to use natural things to keep the worm load low. It's a matter of personal preference on how you want to handle it, I'm not going to say one way is better than others, each person has their own opinions. Most vets, even ones that aren't chicken vets will do a fecal float test for you so you know what kind of worms and how many so you know what to treat with.