Is this a worm?

[amyduck]

This worm may have been dead a long time internally and lost some of its creepy characteristics. Fresh worms will curl up and move, this looks like it has been in her gut a while so it looks like a plant, but it is a worm.

Also from the other photo in your thread, the white casing is very worm like. It looks like it could be worm fragments. The bubbles are convincing too, but the white casings are worm related.

View attachment 3139279

the white wouldn't be urates?

 

[amyduck]

I was asked to tag some poop inspectors when this was posted, .....

Thanks so much Bugstalker! It's very interesting to see the variety of opinions!

 

[amyduck]

And if anyone needs the back story, here's the OP's ongoing 9 page thread
As I said in the other thread. It looks like intestinal shedding. White in the green poop is urates.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...d-has-barely-eaten-for-3-weeks.1531032/page-9

Thanks very much Wyorp Rock!
(I hadn't seen your reply when I posted this as was suggested to me! I also posted the link to Penny's thread up at the top.)

 

[amyduck]

That is not a worm in the picture.

Thanks - it didn't quite feel like it to me, but I thought I'd better ask the experts!

 

[amyduck]

looks like tapeworm.

I'm wondering why you think so, as far as I know, tapeworms are segmented and white.. no? (Also, it most likely would have been dead since I was worming the chicken.)

 

[chickengr]

That is not a worm in the picture.

difficult to see in the pic but when I found a similar thing in my chicken's poop the vet confirmed it was a tapeworm usually found in sheep (we have sheep in our area).

 

[chickengr]

I'm wondering why you think so, as far as I know, tapeworms are segmented and white.. no? (Also, it most likely would have been dead since I was worming the chicken.)

there are different types of tapeworms. the most common look like rice coming out of their poop and they are moving. in 8 years of keeping chickens I found only once a tapeworm that looked like in your pic. at the same time I found a huge one (about 20 in long) in my dog's poop. when you worm your chickens the small segmented tapeworm is not visible in the poop. if your chicken had them as well she was overloaded. make sure she gets vitamins after the worming has finished.

 

[amyduck]

there are different types of tapeworms. the most common look like rice coming out of their poop and they are moving. in 8 years of keeping chickens I found only once a tapeworm that looked like in your pic. at the same time I found a huge one (about 20 in long) in my dog's poop. when you worm your chickens the small segmented tapeworm is not visible in the poop. if your chicken had them as well she was overloaded. make sure she gets vitamins after the worming has finished.

Thanks so much for the explanation! And 20" yikes! Glad that wasn't in your chicken!
At this point, I'm hoping she makes it through the night. Thanks for the good wishes too.

 

[Banana01]

Yes the variety of opinions is nice. If it is plant material, it could mean your entire problem is not worm blockage but instead plant blockage like grass. Or mixture plants and worms.

You gave coconut oil with the dewormer, so it could have knocked loose plant material or whatever that is. Either way you are dealing with it pretty well in the other thread as you have given dewormer and also are treating for possible blockages.

But that photo it is so degraded that it is impossible to say for sure. But yes, it could be intestinal lining.

You'll know in the morning. She should go straight to the water bowl in the morning and hopefully the food dish too. Keep her hydrated.

Now that deworming is done, you may want to continue trying to treat as a plant blockage. Someone mentioned lack of grit as a possible cause. Unfortunately grass in the gizzard or blockages in the gizzard can be really entangled sometimes and also become sour. The water and coconut oil is going to be the best treatment forward along with considering other opinions on treating the sourness as I never have had to medicate sour crop or sour intestines, lots of water works for me.

I had a duck die from ingesting rubber bands, and he basically quit eating and on the final day he was passing pure water and not eating or drinking. I did a post necropsy and his gizzard was completely blocked, nothing could pass through. Grass can also tangle similarly, but hopefully your hen is not like that.

All the evidence points to worms. Your previous hen died a month ago, in a necropsy you would have seen if she had worms.

 

[amyduck]

Yes the variety of opinions is nice. If it is plant material, it could mean your entire problem is not worm blockage but instead plant blockage like grass. Or mixture plants and worms.

You gave coconut oil with the dewormer, so it could have knocked loose plant material or whatever that is. Either way you are dealing with it pretty well in the other thread as you have given dewormer and also are treating for possible blockages.

But that photo it is so degraded that it is impossible to say for sure. But yes, it could be intestinal lining.

You'll know in the morning. She should go straight to the water bowl in the morning and hopefully the food dish too. Keep her hydrated.

Now that deworming is done, you may want to continue trying to treat as a plant blockage. Someone mentioned lack of grit as a possible cause. Unfortunately grass in the gizzard or blockages in the gizzard can be really entangled sometimes and also become sour. The water and coconut oil is going to be the best treatment forward along with considering other opinions on treating the sourness as I never have had to medicate sour crop or sour intestines.

Thanks Banana01 for your help. I'm actually going to worm at least one more day. One person said 3 days another said 5, and today was the 2nd day, so just in case these are worms, I want to make sure we get them. It's tough though, because so much is going on with her... unfortunately while I was taking so much care of my previous chicken, I let things go, like mowing the grass.... so that could have contributed to the problem.