Homemade Verm-X (and natural chicken ways?)

[RubyLady]

Nope. Companies that sell Verm-X on their websites may use words like "wormer", "intestinal parasites", etc. in the "listing" or "listing title" as keywords. These keywords are how buyers find products.

Verm-X does not claim to be a de-wormer and for good reason. Verm-X is made in Great Britain. The makers cannot call their product a "wormer" or "anthelminitic" because it's not a licensed medicine. It's an herbal product. UK and EU law does not allow a non-licensed medical product to use those words. You won't find those words on their labeling, packaging or on their website.

Verm X is "a 100% natural, active formulation that helps restore and maintain gut vitality, a foundation for good animal health. "
They do encourage folks to have a fecal egg count before they introduce the supplement, then to have a follow up 21 days after supplement is ended. They also recommend having a fecal egg count twice a year.

Now. Will it hurt? I don't think so. Will it help support the gut as a supplement? Probably will, that's the claim.
Will it de-worm? Likely not - then it's time to use the Safeguard that you have

Excellent clarification! Thank you! I guess I should have said it's being advertised as a dewormer. Maybe that would have been more clear. It's true, I can't speak for what the company, itself, is saying. It's the same here in the US about making claims, although distributors and advertisers (e.g. Amazon listings) all do make claims - and then post a disclaimer! Products can have historical data, such as "used in antiquity as a" whatever.

 

[RubyLady]

I did do some family research. My grandmother (and further back) had chickens and being Depression-era and such, fed their chickens scraps and let them free-range, but the story is that they fed them garlic, nettles, squashes/pumpkins with the seeds mainly as worm preventatives. They also used clabbered milk (can only be made from fresh raw goat, sheep, or cow milk) and it's whey in oats and fermented a day or two to prevent worms due to the probiotics that kept the entire GI system healthy and less prone to parasites - according to them. These ladies are dead now, but we wrote down a lot of the stories of their lives because a most of us were Little House nuts or hippies or eccentrics or writers and every odd facet got written down somewhere. I had my sister look up the chicken/livestock stories and she said she'll see if she can find more info.

Again, not a dewormer story but a natural, nutritional, and plant medicine preventative route.

 

[RubyLady]

It depends on the worms. There are several recent studies that show cucurbitin is effective in eliminating tapeworms. Here is one study, I cite it because the dosing amount was 2 grams of pumpkin seeds per bird, per day.

https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/veterinary/issues/vet-19-43-2/vet-43-2-4-1807-39.pdf



I think that depends on your soil, the type of worms in your soil, your birds and your philosophy. I've never wormed my flock and they are on the same soil. My oldest range from 5 to 8 years old. All actively laying and in good health.

I'm not opposed to using medicines and de-wormers if necessary, but I personally haven't found the need for routine chemical de-worming to maintain a healthy flock.

Another consideration for me is that chicken de-wormers are off-label use and if you read the fine print, you are not supposed to use them in egg or meat producing chickens. Although I suspect that a lot of over-cautious, CYA language (I would still eat the eggs), I give away eggs to friends and family, and I would feel uncomfortable doing that without disclosing the deworming.

I was surprised that an old friend of mine who is a bird person and has had chickens for decades has never had to worm her chickens or uses a preventative either. They live on the same bare dirt and she hardly ever mucks out the large coop as it has a dirt floor and she says it all just goes back to dirt. They used to free-range but she doesn't really let them out anymore, are about 8 years old and still laying. She generally only feeds tham layer pellets and scratch. She used to do more greens and such but she's been sick for a couple of years.

 

[RubyLady]

I can tell you're new with chickens. Just about everyone wants to go organic with chickens when they first get them. I jumped on that bandwagon years ago, as have many others.
You'll eventually learn that organics dont work. Chickens are birds, just about everything about them is different. They cant be compared with mammals. Their metabolism, the way they digest food etc...is different.
Forget the FDA, they have no clue about chickens.
Perhaps you havnt considered that many of us have been there, done that.

Garlic contains sulfuric compounds that can possibly cause anemia in birds. DE is absolutely worthless, it wont prevent nor treat external parasites much less internal parasites.
A chicken would have to eat a truck load of crushed pumpkin seeds in order for the cucurbitin to be effective eliminating worms. Cayenne pepper doesnt get rid of worms neither.
Trying to make a hostile environment for worms internally is not going to happen.

Nematodes are everywhere in the soil. Your environment dictates how often you should worm your birds.
Warm, wet or moist soil will require frequent wormings. Cool/cold or rocky mountainous soil may require less frequent wormings, the same with hot desertlike soil/sand.

Keeping birds on the same soil will require frequent wormings. Sunlight will kill worm eggs on the soil, but not in the soil. Insects are vectors for worm infections, but not all insects are infective. Deep litter is a cause of many worm infections, particularly capillary worms which can be deadly to chickens.

Some people say chickens can handle a small wormload. What are the worms doing internally besides mating and laying eggs? They are sucking the life out of the chicken.
Can your dog or cat handle a small wormload? Can you or your children handle a small wormload?

There is the topic of wormer resistance. There are two benzimidazoles I've been using for years in poultry; Safeguard and Valbazen. I use both and they are very effective wormers. I've also used Levamisole and Pyrantel Pamoate, also very effective wormers. Also Equimax or Zimecterin Gold strictly for tapeworms.
I dont use Ivermectin for worming due to ineffectiveness treating large roundworms from my experience. Mites are also showing resistance to the product. Besides, Ivermectin products have a long egg withdrawal period, not so with the benzimidazoles.

Thank you so much for the advice. I did pick up the Safeguard paste and have that on-hand. I really think they don't have worms at this point. Mites either. I looked down throats, checked poo, and ruffled feathers and checked vents. Certainly a learning curve. I am new to chickens, but luckily I have had birds before. I was wondering about Ivermectin also, so good to hear your view on that. Thanks so much!

 

[dawg53]

Thank you so much for the advice. I did pick up the Safeguard paste and have that on-hand. I really think they don't have worms at this point. Mites either. I looked down throats, checked poo, and ruffled feathers and checked vents. Certainly a learning curve. I am new to chickens, but luckily I have had birds before. I was wondering about Ivermectin also, so good to hear your view on that. Thanks so much!

You wont see worms down a chickens throat. Capillary worms can infect the crop/ lower esophagus. Gapeworms in chickens are rare, but are located in the trachea.
Worms wont be seen in feces unless one dies of old age and is excreted. The only other time you'll see them is if there is an overload in the guts. Worms cannot survive outside its host.
Sometimes you'll see them after using a wormer, otherwise they are absorbed as protein.

 

[RubyLady]

You wont see worms down a chickens throat. Capillary worms can infect the crop/ lower esophagus. Gapeworms in chickens are rare, but are located in the trachea.
Worms wont be seen in feces unless one dies of old age and is excreted. The only other time you'll see them is if there is an overload in the guts. Worms cannot survive outside its host.
Sometimes you'll see them after using a wormer, otherwise they are absorbed as protein.

I read about how to swab the throat for worms and that if you get a real good look down, you could see them. I did suspect that was a tough sell as I'm not sure I got a look THAT far down. Good to know, thanks. Anyway, they all seem to be doing fine right now and the one I was worried about has rallied and isn't doing anything weird at all. Yay!

 

[dawg53]

I read about how to swab the throat for worms and that if you get a real good look down, you could see them. I did suspect that was a tough sell as I'm not sure I got a look THAT far down. Good to know, thanks. Anyway, they all seem to be doing fine right now and the one I was worried about has rallied and isn't doing anything weird at all. Yay!

They are too far down the trachea like you stated. I used to think that as well. Only a fecal sample taken to a vet can detect gapeworm eggs.

 

[RubyLady]

They are too far down the trachea like you stated. I used to think that as well. Only a fecal sample taken to a vet can detect gapeworm eggs.

Thank you for clearing that up. I appreciate it.

 

[Chicalina]

Very interesting and I'd love to have your recipe.

I'm a fan of natural remedies and preventatives, but like you, I'll dose them up on drugs when it's needed!

 

[RubyLady]

Very interesting and I'd love to have your recipe.

I'm a fan of natural remedies and preventatives, but like you, I'll dose them up on drugs when it's needed!

It's probably hard to see on the jar I posted a pic of but it's just a mix of garlic powder, mint, thyme, ground pumpkin seeds in the shell, slippery elm bark powder, dried powdered stinging nettle, and a touch of food grade diatomaceous earth.

I got those ingredients from what's in Verm-X and I had them already because I use and gather wild plants and medicinal plants and herbs.

In the end, there was nothing wrong with my chicken. She started laying again two weeks later. It was really hot and she was just taking a break I guess, which my chicken friend said they do.