Giving earth worms to chicks

[DaveJ]

My chicks are approx. 6 weeks old and I have been giving them a fork full of wormy compost every day for a week now. They go nuts over the worms and have a great time scratching in the compost. Is there any reason to limit their worm intake at this stage?

 

[Ridgerunner]

In my opinion, not really. Like any treat, limit it so the majority of what they eat is their feed so they get a balanced diet, but if they can clean it up in fifteen to twenty minutes you are good to go. Or even better, don’t do the same treat every day but spread it out more.

You are likely to get a warning that they can get gapeworms or roundworms from eating earthworms. That’s true, they can. They can get parasites by eating many different creepy crawlies. A piece of space junk can fall out of the sky and hit your house today. It’s possible, there is a lot of space junk up there and some falls to the earth. You can have a fender bender the next time you go to the grocery store, whether it is your fault or not. It can really happen though I sure hope it doesn’t. If the creepy crawly has the parasite it really can happen, but mine eat a lot of earthworms, especially when it rains and they come to the surface. They really enjoy chasing down grasshoppers. I often feed them grubs when I find them in the garden or they find their own. Mine have never had gapeworms or roundworms. You should know the symptoms of various parasites and be on the lookout for them, but it does not happen as often as many people would have you believe.

If they were foraging with a broody hen, they would have been eating earthworms long before six weeks of age.

 

[DaveJ]

Thank you! I have heard that introducing char can help with parasites.....but I have heard a lot of things.