I need the straight and simple facts on dewormers/mite control

[NHchicks]

Okay. I'm in year 2 and one hen has died now and the rooster is looking on the verge of death. I need to start treating these birds (there were 10 of them, now there are 9) as if they had mites/worms. I've agonized over what could have made the hen sick, was it sour crop, etc., but I'm done with analyzing. I am no vet and I can't afford a vet to come to my place or to haul my chickens off to.

SO.

I need the low-down on the basics in simple and understandable terms. I would like the EASIEST method because I'm squeamish and always have been. And I'm done trying to check visually for mites or figure out if they have worms. As far as I'm concerned, they all have mites and worms, and I'm taking it from there. They're free-rangers, so for them not to have picked up parasites is probably slim.

SO.

Let's start with dewormers. I think I read this is something you just need to add to water. That's easy. I can do that. I need a brand name (1-2 yr. old chickens) and where to get. And please tell me this is as easy as adding to their water.

Then.

How in the world do you dust a chicken. Not all my chickens enjoy my company. Some run from me when I get too close. Particularly the ones that mother hen raised last year. I don't know if I could catch them all, much less put them in a bag and shake them around. Please tell me there is an easier way to do this, like just sprinkling them. Adding it to their bedding is easy. What's the difference between Sevin and DE? Where do I get it?

I need to get this started before any more of my chickens get sick. Once I get the hang of it, I will be able to do it on a regular (yearly?) basis and hopefully never lose a chicken again.

THANK YOU.

 

[cobrien]

I will let others answer the worming question - I have never needed to worm mine, I take poop samples to the vet every year and we have never found worms. This is not practical for most people and in your case worming seems like a good idea.

I do worry that this could be more serious than worms, though - If you lose another I highly recommend sending the body to your state vet for a necropsy. here in CA it cost $100, but they test EVERYTHING, every tissue, etc. Best $100 I ever spent as I learned my flock had a virus (that's another story).

On the dusting - since your chickens are flighty I recommend doing it at night. Bring a friend and some flashlights, headlamps are best if you have one. Get the chicken and sprinkle the poultry dust on them, all over - back, wings, bellies, necks, tails, legs, try to keep them from inahling a lot (you too), wear rubber gloves and work it in. At night they will be much mellower.

Another technique I use some times is to get a tub with a few inches of sand and add plenty of poultry dust with poultry dust. I put the chicken in the tub, sprinkle a little srtraight poultry dust on them and then use the sand/dust mix to work it in.

good luck!

 

[schellie69]

Okay for mites/lice you need to get sevin dust then dust each chicken be careful not to let them breath it in or get it in their eyes, clean out the coop put down new bedding and spring sevin in the bedding and on the roost also you can put some in the favorite dust bath area.

Now about worming since you have never wormed
Step one get some wazine put it in their only water source for 24 hours you will need to keep them in a pen wait 10 days throw away all eggs

Step two buy safeguard paste i used this last year very easy. use a pea size on a piece of bread for each hen. throw eggs away for 2 weeks. I would then worm your chickens at least once a year. Hope this helps. I have done this type of worming last year its easy and not as bad as I though it would be. I asked Dawg53 he was a great help if you need I am sure he would help you.

 

[NHchicks]

Thank you!!! That really does help. I've googled about worming chickens, and it seems everyone has a different answer, a different product.

It would REALLY help if there were one standard method of treatment recommended, and one product recommended, and one safe place to get the product, with a few youtube videos thrown in. If anyone were ever interested in creating a service project, that would be a good one.

I will put wazine in their water (as soon as I figure out where to get wazine) and then I will get Safeguard paste and follow up (as soon as I figure out where to get Safeguard paste).

For the dusting, yikes. I don't know how I'm going to get each chicken dusted. They sleep in roosts that are pretty high up. I definitely need a youtube video on this one - maybe there is one. Next best thing to finding someone to come over here and show me what to do. Which would actually be preferable. Is it ever practical to just put sevin dust in the coop for them to dust bathe in? It would have been great to do that over the winter when they wouldn't leave the coop because of snow. They were dustbathing in their shavings, and now I'm thinking that's where this whole problem may have started - dustbathing in their own poop. I don't know.

My chickens are very important to me and I want to keep them healthy. I don't do a whole lot with their eggs, we eat some, I mostly take them to the feed store for $1.50/dz. but that just helps defray their food costs. Mostly my chickens are just pets that I like having around, and they de-bug the area for me, and eat ticks, and hatch cute little chicks sometimes.

I won't take any more eggs to the feed store tho until I get everything around here figured out and have everyone treated even if they don't need it, just to be safe.

 

[schellie69]

I PM you please PM me with any questions if you where close I would come over and help just went through this last summer I was so worried and scared luckily dawg53 talked me through this and it went great and now I have to worm them for the once a year wormer. It does get easier. When using the safe guard just put a pea size amount on a piece of bread if they are like mine they love it and eat it no problem. You will need a way to tell which ones have had the wormer. Good luck.

 

[Chick named Lola]

Where do you get sevin dust? I sprinkle DE in the shavings to dry out the poo, would that keep it safe from mites/lice as well?

 

[wowmanacat]

I am also very new to chickens and will be worming soon. I did find a produce that is natural called Verm - X where you don't have to toss the eggs. You can look it up and buy from the website. I will say that is a bit high but being that is ALL natural to me it will be worth it.

As for the lice/mites I plan on using a short sided tote with sand and the dust and just let my girls take there dirt baths. None of my ladys like to be close to me since they were all older when I got them.

 

[elmo]

Quote:
That's good, because many worming medications require you to throw out the eggs for a period of time (don't eat them).

There's not ever going to be a simple worming regimen because there are different kinds of worms that require different treatments, and different treatments come with different directions. It's the same thing with mites, because there are different kinds of mites. Some live on the chicken, some live in the coop, not on the chicken. If you have the kind that live in the coop and are only on the chicken at night, treating the chickens themselves is probably not going to do a whole lot of good. For most kinds of mites you also need to retreat in about a week to catch the mites that have hatched out of eggs (the eggs themselves won't be killed by mite treatments).

I really think it would be better if you tried to figure out what your actual problem is first, rather than treating generally for worms and mites. I suspect the real problem in your flock isn't either one. Worming treatments can be stressful to the bird, and if it's really dealing with some other problem (not worms), the stress could be harmful.

 

[NHchicks]

Quote:
Really? What makes you think that?

Tomorrow I'm going to inspect them and the coop more carefully for mite issues.

 

[NHchicks]

schellie69 - Got your PM - thank you!