How to support my hen with tapeworm until medication arrives

[Lillith37]

Hello,

I have discovered tapeworm segments in the droppings of my hen Whitetail. For the past week or so she has been laying irregularly/infrequently, with intestinal sloughing in her droppings, and she has had a mildly slow crop. Today she laid a soft shelled egg and has been acting hiding herself away and puffing up.

I have found and ordered flubendazole on the internet so I can treat Whitetail and the rest of my flock, but I’m not sure how long it will take to arrive. Whitetail is currently crated with access to food and water, grit and oyster shells.

Can anyone please give me some advice on the best ways I can support my hen until the medication arrives? She is still eating and drinking but she’s far from her usual self.

Thank you so much in advance

 

[Eggcessive]

Could you post any pictures of the droppings with tapeworm segments? The best medication for tapeworms is praziquantel, found in droncit tablets for dogs, and in a few horse pastes, such as Equimax and Zimectrin Gold. If you can get one of those, we cannhelp you with dosage. It needs to be used only on those whose droppings have tapeworm segments, and repeated in 14 days. While flubendazole can treat most worms, tapes are harder to treat. Tapeworms lay eggs in droppings, and those eggs can be eaten by intermediate hosts—worms, snails and slugs, beetles, flies, grasshoppers, and those can then be eaten by chickens who then get infected. Also if chickens eat anything on the ground contaminated with those eggs, they will reinfect themselves. Each tapeworm segment contains a large number of eggs.

 

[dawg53]

Here's a wormer in Australia that will take care of different types of roundworms and tapeworms in poultry:
https://www.planetpoultry.com.au/medications/64-avitrol-plus-wormer-tablets-100tabs.html
Much like fenbendazole, and albendazole; I doubt flubendazole will treat tapeworms. The praziquantel in the Avitrol Plus will kill them for sure.

 

[Razzlefrazzle]

You got good worming advice above so I'll just add that if she is laying soft-shelled eggs I would give her a calcium supplement once a day. It can be hard for hens to lay soft eggs and can make them feel poorly, not to mention there is a greater risk of it breaking inside her oviduct which can lead to infection. If she has a bad worm load she is probably not getting a lot of the nutrition that's in her food and hopefully the extra doses of calcium will help her absorb enough to keep her laying well.

 

[Lillith37]

You got good worming advice above so I'll just add that if she is laying soft-shelled eggs I would give her a calcium supplement once a day. It can be hard for hens to lay soft eggs and can make them feel poorly, not to mention there is a greater risk of it breaking inside her oviduct which can lead to infection. If she has a bad worm load she is probably not getting a lot of the nutrition that's in her food and hopefully the extra doses of calcium will help her absorb enough to keep her laying well.

Hi yes thank you for the advice. I got her a Calcium + vitamin D + vitamin k supplement that I plan to give her once a day.

 

[Lillith37]

@dawg53 and @Eggcessive thank you for your replies and advice. I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed and anxious about this.

I read about prozanquital as a treatment for tapeworm. The flubendazole is the only registered treatment for tapeworm in chickens in Australia, I’m wondering why @dawg53 you don’t think it would work? Also that way I could treat the entire flock easily.

Everyone free ranges together so I’m sure there’s a fair risk of them infecting one another. I clean out the coop every day, their food and water stations are raised, and I rake up the droppings in the dirt outside and hose down the grass every couple of days.

I could order the avitrol tablets online and wait or get a dog or cat wormer immediately from the pet shop. I’ve attached pictures of those tablets @Eggcessive — which would be better and what would be the dose? Would I wait until any other birds showed symptoms before treating them individually? What would be your recommendation for egg withholding?

I’ve attached photos of Whitetail’s droppings from overnight. I had to get up before sunrise for work so I used a torch and my phone. I hope you can see properly.

 

[Lillith37]

Sorry @Eggcessive I just re-read your reply and saw that you specified to treat only the birds with segments in their droppings and repeat in 14 days. Thank you. If I go down this route, do you have any advice for the month old chicks? They all seem fine but their droppings are so tiny I’m not sure if I would be able to see the segments if any were there.

 

[Eggcessive]

The cat Drontal has 20 mg of praziquantel, and the dosage is 10 mg per Kg or every 2.2 pounds of weight. The Avitrol above has 4 mg per tablet of praziquantel. Yes, the dosage should be repeated in 14 days, and there is at least a 14 day egg withdrawal time.

@dawg 53, do you think those look like tapeworm segments in the post 6 pictures? They don’t look typical to me. I would take @dawg53 ’s advice on worming 1 month old chicks.I would probably wait until I saw evidence of tapes.
Here is a good video of moving tapeworm segments:

 

[dawg53]

@Lillith37 Flubendazole is a benzimidazole like fenbendazole and albendazole (Safeguard and Valbazen) that treat certain types of tapeworms. From my experience, they will not treat poultry tapeworms due to different species or tapeworm resistance as is the case for Valbazen.

@Eggcessive I havnt seen tapeworm segments like that before, non typical like you mentioned. However, it wouldnt hurt to use praziquantel.

 

[Lillith37]

I’m fairly certain they are tapeworm segments. In her droppings last night they were looking and moving the same as in that video @Eggcessive — the segments are just a bit smaller. I’ll get the cat wormer on my way home today so I can treat her asap. I’ll save the flubenzadole for my flock’s seasonal worming and alternate it with the levamisole. I might get some of the avitrol as well to keep on hand because it’s much cheaper than the cat tablets. Thanks so much for clarifying the dosage and withholding periods too.

I’m unsure/frustrated as to why the flubenzadole would be marketed to treat tapeworm if it doesn’t work… it’s only recently been registered for use in Australia @dawg53 and is marketed to treat all poultry worms. The dose is doubled to treat tapeworm. It’s not cheap, either.

Thank you so much for your help both of you, I really appreciate it