Is This A Worm????

[Headers Hen House]

What is this in one of my girls' poop?

She's been acting normal and fine

 

[alfalahi]

looks like it

 

[micstrachan]

Yes, I think so.

 

[dawg53]

Yes, it's a large roundworm. If one bird has them, most likely all your birds need to be wormed. Valbazen will get rid of them and other other types of worms as well.

 

[Headers Hen House]

Should I not be eating their eggs while they have these?

 

[coach723]

Usually the worms don't get in the eggs, it can happen, but it's not real common, if there were one you would see it (just like in the dropping) and could toss the egg, so not really an issue. Worms are generally in the digestive tract, separate from the reproductive tract. However there is a two week withdrawl recommendation with most wormers. Some people ignore the withdrawl and continue to use the eggs, some feed the eggs back to the chickens, some just toss them. There are no studies in chickens to determine if there is actually any drug residue passed to the eggs (most wormers are used off-label for chickens), so you will need to decide what you are comfortable with.

 

[Headers Hen House]

Good to know.

Now the hard part, what do I do about deworming them? Got 2 last summer and this is the first time i've seen one.

 

[coach723]

As dawg53 recommended, Valbazen is a very good wormer. You can also use Safeguard liquid goat wormer, dose will be higher. Those are the ones I use, you direct dose each bird. You can also use Wazine (I've never used it as I prefer to direct dose), Wazine will only get roundworms, while the other two are more broad spectrum and will take care of most others also. You can search here for dosing info of each one once you decide which one you want to use, there are lots of threads on worming and doses. I can get Safeguard locally, I have to mail order Valbazen. I would suggest that once you worm with whatever product that you use, try to have a fecal float test done in about 6 months to see if you have any recurrence. For some flocks once or twice a year worming is sufficient, for some it may be more, just depends on the worm load in your particular environment. They can pick them up easily in the soil and can be carrying a heavy load before you may see one in droppings, and they will often act fine. Sometimes runny droppings is a symptom.