I am clueless about what to do about my Silkies who I think may have Gapeworm :(

[Freejjo]

I have never needed to deal with a worm in my Silkies as I am fairly new to owning a chicken. Recently, welost one of our Silkies who appeared to be sticking out her head, opening her mouth wide and lifting her tail up whenever she tried to breathe. We later found her dead on the ground. I am really worried about what happened and decided to ask here about what I can do to prevent it spreading. We have a fenced off area behind out house with what I think are Turkeys. At first i thought it couldn'e be Gapeworm but just today I woke up to find we had lost another one. I have no idea what type of worming agent we should use and want to stop the worms before they reach our other chickens. I've done some research but all these different types of medications are confusing so I thought this community might be able to help us out




Thanks

Tam

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello there and welcome to BYC!

I am so sorry about your losses.

You need to post this question in our emergency section for more help...https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/10/emergencies-diseases-injuries-and-cures

I sure hope someone can help you here.

 

[Wyandottes7]

Welcome to BYC!

We're glad to have you.

I'm sorry for your losses! My first guess would be that they have some sort of respiratory disease. Gapeworm is generally rare, but respiratory diseases are common, especially in the colder months.

 

[Freejjo]

Thanks! Just moved it to the emergency section!


Thanks

Tam

 

[Freejjo]

I thought that but we bought these hens at laying age and have had them for a few months now. They seemed to have no problems with breathing until last week where i first noticed the gulping. Whenever I picked them up they started breathing really heavily.

I also noticed that the night before we lost them, they were too weak to go up our ramps (Our coop has 3 levels) and all the others decided to stay with them. The first one I saw once lying down with her beak on the ground.

I don't know

But since we live in front of a big open area with trees behind us (When i say big i mean big) it would be a possibility that wild birds live there.


Anyway, do you know some good worming agents as we only just heard of worming and plan to do it really soon (hopefully today ).



Thanks for the REALLY quick reply


Tam

 

[TwoCrows]

Safeguard Liquid Goat wormer or Valbazen will take care of all worms. You can get these on line and some feed stores do carry them.

For Silkies: 1/4 cc of the Safeguard via syringe (no needle) in the mouth once a day for 3 days. Or 1/4 cc of Valbazen on day 1 and repeat in 10 days. Valbazen is a better wormer if you think they have tape worms. You can see tape segments in the poop that look like grains of rice.

Be careful when shooting liquids down the throat as you can aspirate them. So squeeze the plunger very slowly. You can also mix these meds with 1cc of Gerber Baby food to make it thicker. Less likely to go down the windpipe.

 

[Freejjo]

Thanks so much will check them out and consider using that


Thanks

Tam

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! Sorry about your losses, hope the rest of your birds are OK.

 

[drumstick diva]

If you gently swab your chicken's back of throat with a q-tip and it comes out either tinted a bit red, or with a worm - that would confirm gapeworms. Your birds may have more than one type of worm and internal parasites can debilitate them to death if not treated. You could put "Gapeworms" in the search box to learn more about them.

 

[drumstick diva]

A friend with house chickens got a hen from some big breeder and it arrived coughing and gaping - she thought it was a respiratory disease. This went on for weeks - then she found the hen dead one morning with worms in her mouth.

I had told her - she should worm new birds (and check head to toe for mites) and she just blew me off. AFTER the hen died she told me - "she had gapeworms." Poor hen.