Ivermectin 0.1%- Can we eat their eggs?

[stilwellchick]

If you use Eprinex PourOn I have heard it is 5 drops on back of neck for standard breeds and 3 drops for bantams. I have read to re-dose in 3 weeks. Just wondered what everyone else is doing. Are you only treating after a positive fecal test or as a routine practice? If done as a preventative routine, how many times per year? The smallest quantity I have found is 250 ml, anyone know where to get a smaller quantity?

 

[Professional]

dlunicorn is right about the reason for redosing at 10-14 days . Rather than rely on some internet forum poster, why don't you just call your vet back for the answer if you didn't understand why the first time? That's part of what you paid for. NO ONE can give you accurate advice on egg withdrawl period, because those kinds of studies have not been performed, and the drug is not approved for use in chickens. Your vet can recommend it anyway, as extralable, but internet speculation about any withdrawl time, based on other species, is reckless, and only a lay person's opinion, not fact.

 

[DuckLady]

Professional, please tone down your "tone".

Seeing the time Carrie posted her vet was likely closed and if she wanted to start treatment right away, of course she would have asked people who have the experience. It has nothing to do with lay persons opinions and what you pay your vet for. A lot of us HAVE the answers from our vets and we are happy to pass on what we know outside of regular business hours.
Whether Carrie chooses to proceed with her treatment or wait for her vet to open is entirely up to her.
Thanks.

 

[Professional]

It's just that improper medication usage is a serious issue, with potential implications to human health. In the case of animals or their products which are used for human food people should be very careful, and often the layman may think incorrectly that he has the answers. Some people did have good answers here, but some did not. There are very good reasons why the FDA process to get a drug approved for use in a certain species is so involved. Antibiotic resistance in particular is very serious, and it will affect all of us in the not too distant future. Many people don't want to believe it, because they can't see the immediate effects, so they continue to use drugs improperly, sometimes on poor advice.

I didn't take into account the time of the post, because worming treatment is not an emergency procedure which needs to be done at a certain exact time, and so could easily wait until normal office hours for clarification of any question.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Quote:
Professional- You also didn't take into account that maybe scheduling doesn't allow for it to wait either. Some have very busy lives and maybe this was the time they could get at it. Or maybe they were looking for a second opinion.

BTW-what are you "Professional" at? Not meant to be nasty-just curious-there are a lot of professional jobs out there!

 

[CUDA]

You will also find that there are many people who have raised chickens for years, and know much more about medicating them than the local vet, and most vets will gladly tell you that. Most vets don't have a clue about fowl, and a lot of them won't even see them. I personally feel I know more than my local vets do, and if I have a question, I know people in my area that have raised fowl for generations to get my answers from. You will also find that a lot of the same medications we use in the U.S. are made specifically for fowl in Mexico... For some reason, our gov't doesn't seem to take the small poultry farms as serious as they do in other countries. JMO, I am not trying to get a big argument started!

 

[Professional]

Nor do I, but it's an important issue, and if we can agree to disagree, that might help.

For some reason, our gov't doesn't seem to take the small poultry farms as serious as they do in other countries.

I see it this way: our government cares way more about the health of it's people than many others. We're just a more medically, technically, economically sophisticated country. Mexico is not, unfortunately, a good choice to use as an argument against that. I thought that I explained it carefully that our FDA does not simply allow any drug to be approved, without requiring extensive and extremely expensive testing to see that there will be no residues or other harmful effects to humans by it's use on animals. It's much more complicated than just giving some chickens a drug, seeing that it appears to work, seeing that there are no apparent, immediate issues, and going ahead with it. One example is that some drugs have the ability to concentrate in the ovaries, and can be stored there and secreted into eggs that are laid for well into the future. Does this happen with Ivermectin? Probably not, but I don't know for sure. No one does, because it hasn't been studied extensively enough, and probably never will. Commercial chickens do not have the internal parasite problems that backyard flocks do, so there is not enough of a financial incentive for any company to attempt the studies that need to determine Ivermectin's safety, even if every backyard flock in America bought a bottle. The drug approval process costs literally millions and millions of dollars.

I hear the argument a lot from animal keepers and breeders, who think that they know more than their veterinarians. There's probably not a dog breeder alive who doesn't think so, and that's not a slam, I was once one. Yes, you may be able to tell a Mille Fleur d'Uccle from a Buff Brahma, and your vet can't, but believe me, they have a lot of training in certain medical issues that the averge person does not. The extra lable use of ivermectin that we discussed is a good example. People here come on with well intentioned but false advice about a second dose 14 days later being overkill, but the fact is that few wormers will kill the parasites in the egg. Not even Ivermectin, as good as it is. In many parasites, the cycle from egg until it hatches and grows into a form that will be killed by a worming medication is about 10 to 14 days. The "stupid" veterinarian who doesn't know the difference between a Runner duck and a China goose, knows that, and that's why he prescribed the way he did. The stupid non-chicken vet also knows that some of those newly hatching parasites will be exposed to small amounts of the drug, just as they are hatching, when it is in the end stages of being cleared (diluted) from the body. The exposure to a small amount in some cases is not enough to kill the parasite, but may be enough to trigger some resistance. Allowing it to grow and breed other resistant generations, by not giving a full dose in 10 to 14 days to kill it off, is what helps to develop other resistant parasites. Yes, it's hard to find a vet who will see poultry, and harder still to find one who is honest enough to tell you that he'll do what he can, but's it's not his area of expertise. Still, he has the basics behind him to not make the common mistakes that the averge lay person does. Part of the fault lies with the poultry keepers too. Many will cry over their little chicken, like they would for a dog or cat, but when it comes time to pay the veterinarian, they think it's only so he can make the next payment on his boat or his summer house. The knowledge, the supplies, the drugs, the costs to run the clinic, are the same, whether he's treating a $5 chicken, or a Westminster show winner. Medical costs are out of this world, for both humans and animals.

Professional- You also didn't take into account that maybe scheduling doesn't allow for it to wait either. Some have very busy lives and maybe this was the time they could get at it. Or maybe they were looking for a second opinion.

I hope that you don't misunderstand my tone here, but I disagree. IMO, if one doesn't have time to schedule needed treatments, then he probably shouldn't be keeping the animals. Also IMO, a second opinion should be from at least a similarly qualified individual as the first. I could ask my garbage collector about my dog's surgery, because he has had dogs forever, but that doesn't mean that I'll get a reliable answer.​

 

[stilwellchick]

When everyone is done arguing about poultry keeping practices, could someone please answer the question I posted?

 

[speckledhen]

If you use Eprinex PourOn I have heard it is 5 drops on back of neck for standard breeds and 3 drops for bantams. I have read to re-dose in 3 weeks. Just wondered what everyone else is doing. Are you only treating after a positive fecal test or as a routine practice? If done as a preventative routine, how many times per year? The smallest quantity I have found is 250 ml, anyone know where to get a smaller quantity?

I'll answer it for you with what I do recommended by a reputable breeder. I use a needleless syringe and on a standard size chicken of say 5-7 lb, I'll put 1/4 cc on the skin of the back of the neck. For my much larger birds, say the huge roosters, one of which is over 11 lb, I use 1/2 cc. dosage. Then I reapply at 2 weeks to get the eggs that may hatch later. I wormed my flock the first time when the oldest ones were almost two years old and I saw a worm in the poop of one of the one-yr olds. I am in the middle of doing it again six months later, as a preventative, just to be sure. I may not do it again for a year unless I see evidence of actual worms. Someone gave me some of their Eprinex that was nearing expiration, so I have not bought any, but I will have to do that next time. That huge bottle is about $48, but will reworm a flock over and over. I have 30+ birds.​

 

[CarriBrown]

Quote:
Professional-
First of all, I asked a simple question. There are people on here who have successfully helped me in the past, and I know who they are. I'm an adult and I'm able to take or leave any information that's given to me.
Secondly, to insinuate that I shouldn't keep animals because of a simple question is ludicrous.
Third, you don't know squat about my vet. Are you a vet? Didn't think so. My vet has never steered me in the wrong direction. No matter what anyone on here says, I will give the medication he gave me AND give it the times he told me to. End of story.

Again, THANK YOU to everyone who did exactly what I was expecting, ie. Answered my question.