Help! How do I treat tapeworms.

[Eggcessive]

Tapeworms are not an emergency, and if they have them, you should see them again. The Valbazen is probably the best wormer to use routinely for the other common worms—roundworms, cecal, capillary or thread worms, and gapeworms, and I would use it. I shared mine with another chicken owner since it goes so far. It settles, so shake it well. You may need it later. A fecal float by a vet would tell you exactly what worm eggs are being seen.

 

[chickenlittle21]

there are some herbs that help

 

[Morrigan]

Keep in mind that tapeworms get into your chickens via an intermediary host -- typically beetles, ants, flies, or earthworms. Basically your chicken poops out the tapeworm segment, the intermediary host eats the segment, and the chicken then eats the intermediary host. Chickens cannot get a tapeworm from directly eating the segments.

This is important because as long as the chickens remain on the same ground, eating the same beetles, ants, etc., they will continue to be re-infected, no matter what drug you use to treat them. Thus, any attempt to get rid of the tapeworms requires a plan for getting rid of the intermediary hosts. Moving your chickens to entirely new ground away from the original ranging area is one way to do this. Enlisting the help of a vet or specialist to identify the type of tapeworm and associated host, and then trying to spray/trap the hosts is another.

Also keep in mind that none of the drugs that treat tapeworms have been approved in the U.S. for use in poultry so there is no "official" egg withdrawal period. Most people who have used these drugs on tapeworms have practiced a 14 egg withdrawal period and feel comfortable with that. But, I think it's the case from a legal standpoint, that you should never sell/give away your eggs again.

If you want to make sure that your chickens actually have tapeworms before embarking on the above, you need to look for fresh poop in the middle of the day. For whatever reason, tapeworms segments aren't shed at night and checking the poop boards won't tell you much.

Finally, although many like take an aggressive approach to treating tapeworms -- and it some cases it is absolutely necessary -- it is not always the case that tapeworms are a death sentence Not all tapeworms are equally harmful and not all chickens are equally susceptible to dangerous levels of worm infestations.

Below, I've linked a study on chickens and tapeworms done in a time way back before there were even drug options available to treat tapeworms. Two conclusions reached were:

"9.Light infestations R.cesticilus have comparatively little effect upon the gain of
weight or upon the amount of food consumed by growing chickens.

10.Increased resistance is developed in chickens, two and half or more months old, to the viability and growth of the tapeworm R.cesticilus. This age resistance limits the sizes of infestations and inhibits the growth of the tapeworms."​

From: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16477615.pdf.

I'm not saying that you should not treat your chickens, but take some time to know what you are dealing with, and how to go about it, if you decide treatment is warranted.

 

[slordaz]

Keep in mind that tapeworms get into your chickens via an intermediary host -- typically beetles, ants, flies, or earthworms. Basically your chicken poops out the tapeworm segment, the intermediary host eats the segment, and the chicken then eats the intermediary host. Chickens cannot get a tapeworm from directly eating the segments.

This is important because as long as the chickens remain on the same ground, eating the same beetles, ants, etc., they will continue to be re-infected, no matter what drug you use to treat them. Thus, any attempt to get rid of the tapeworms requires a plan for getting rid of the intermediary hosts. Moving your chickens to entirely new ground away from the original ranging area is one way to do this. Enlisting the help of a vet or specialist to identify the type of tapeworm and associated host, and then trying to spray/trap the hosts is another.

Also keep in mind that none of the drugs that treat tapeworms have been approved in the U.S. for use in poultry so there is no "official" egg withdrawal period. Most people who have used these drugs on tapeworms have practiced a 14 egg withdrawal period and feel comfortable with that. But, I think it's the case from a legal standpoint, that you should never sell/give away your eggs again.

If you want to make sure that your chickens actually have tapeworms before embarking on the above, you need to look for fresh poop in the middle of the day. For whatever reason, tapeworms segments aren't shed at night and checking the poop boards won't tell you much.

Finally, although many like take an aggressive approach to treating tapeworms -- and it some cases it is absolutely necessary -- it is not always the case that tapeworms are a death sentence Not all tapeworms are equally harmful and not all chickens are equally susceptible to dangerous levels of worm infestations.

Below, I've linked a study on chickens and tapeworms done in a time way back before there were even drug options available to treat tapeworms. Two conclusions reached were:

"9.Light infestations R.cesticilus have comparatively little effect upon the gain of
weight or upon the amount of food consumed by growing chickens.

10.Increased resistance is developed in chickens, two and half or more months old, to the viability and growth of the tapeworm R.cesticilus. This age resistance limits the sizes of infestations and inhibits the growth of the tapeworms."​

From: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16477615.pdf.

I'm not saying that you should not treat your chickens, but take some time to know what you are dealing with, and how to go about it, if you decide treatment is warranted.

then commercial producers would be out of work because those eggs are so ever medicated it causes people to react to them that are sensitive. Medication does not stay in their systems forever, so your argument is just a scare tactic basically from what i am seeing, Farmers been doing stuff and keeping their livestock healthy for longer than the legal system itself. and people didn't have as many food sensitivities as they do with all government regulation.

 

[Morrigan]

then commercial producers would be out of work because those eggs are so ever medicated it causes people to react to them that are sensitive. Medication does not stay in their systems forever, so your argument is just a scare tactic basically from what i am seeing, Farmers been doing stuff and keeping their livestock healthy for longer than the legal system itself. and people didn't have as many food sensitivities as they do with all government regulation.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's my understanding the tapeworm treatments for chickens do not have a recommended egg-withdrawal time, and that absent an "approved" time frame, it is not lawful to sell the eggs. That doesn't mean it's dangerous, it's just the the government hasn't done the testing to establish a legal set of guidelines for a withdrawal period. I personally would be fine eating the eggs, but would not be fine with selling or giving them to someone without fully disclosing they had been treated with an off-label drug. Even with the full disclosure, I'm not sure about the lawfulness of it, particularly if I wasna't working with a vet to set the dosage and withdrawal schedule.

Commercial producers avoid the problem by keeping their chickens under strict bio-security such that they never come in contact with beetles, earthworms, etc. that are carriers for tapeworms. Hence the commercial chickens never get tapeworms and don't need to treatment for them. As free-range eggs become more popular, that may change, and you might find some of the commercial producers pushing for better drugs, or official dosing and egg withdrawal times, for existing drugs.

As far as the old-time farmers, they probably weren't giving their chickens any of these drugs, as they hadn't been invented yet.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

then commercial producers would be out of work because those eggs are so ever medicated it causes people to react to them that are sensitive. Medication does not stay in their systems forever, so your argument is just a scare tactic basically from what i am seeing, Farmers been doing stuff and keeping their livestock healthy for longer than the legal system itself. and people didn't have as many food sensitivities as they do with all government regulation.

If these products were safe to use in food animals, they would be sold for this use. Praziquantel and others are specifically excluded from legal drugs to treat worms in food animals for a reason. The residues are not acceptable. This is not a scare tactic, it's science.

 

[Kiki]

there are some herbs that help

Unfortunately this is a myth.

 

[countrybeachgirl]

Tapeworms are not an emergency, and if they have them, you should see them again. The Valbazen is probably the best wormer to use routinely for the other common worms—roundworms, cecal, capillary or thread worms, and gapeworms, and I would use it. I shared mine with another chicken owner since it goes so far. It settles, so shake it well. You may need it later. A fecal float by a vet would tell you exactly what worm eggs are being seen.

Thank you!!! I haven’t seen any evidence of the worms today. As soon as it comes in. I’m gonna treat them all.