Hi to all those replying to my "worms on the butt" post.
As for worming, all those of you who said to worm the hens.....please what kind of wormer do you use? I wonder if I have the right stuff?
These worms were about 1/4 inch long and more threadlike than rice grain shape. I did see one bug disappear into her feathers, but it was not the same kind of bug. I'll dust her for other kinds of critters, too.
Here's what I've done after advice from a fellow in Minneapolis who teaches chicken raising...and from my local feed store.
Garlic in the water as a continual kind of ongoing treatment.
Feed her high protein and fat to get her energy up.
Worm her. I got some Nazine (what Murray McMurray sells, too) from the feed store...they say it is for round worms. I don't know if this is the kind of worm she has, but it's where I'm starting. I put some in the waterer.
Maybe I will take a stool sample to the vet here, although vets in Duluth MN are pretty much not familiar with chickens.
I added polyvisol children's liquid vitamins mixed into cottage cheese.
I dusted the offending butt last night with garden variety diatomaceous earth. The poop dried up and there are no worms squirming around on her butt any more. This afternoon I put on vinyl gloves and cleaned off her butt...everything was dry and crumbly by evening. No sight of worms any more on the outside anyway.
Tomorrow I will get food grade diatomaceous earth and will use that in their food and bedding.
I got some sand and will use a cat litter pan to make a dust bath for them, and put DE in that tray, too.
Jenny, the sick one is an Australorpe and has lost a bit of weight.
She loves the scooped insides from a cantalope melon. So she has an appetite.
She is 3-1/2 years old and has never been ill before.
A year ago I had to move my hens to a place outside the city limits while we worked to get an ordinance passed to legalize chickens in the City of Duluth, Minnesota. Jenny and Henny just moved home this week.
So the lady who had been taking care of my hens, her neighbor and I are all concerned about how to manage worms in our hen houses since my hens were living out at one of their places, and they have done some chicken swapping and sharing recently.
Any suggestions are welcome.