Ivermection 1% inject. solution for treating depluming mites in chickens

[casportpony]

Ivermectin to mix well with the water and not settle out. Will it stay mixed in the correct proportions? I have no idea, it's not designed to be mixed with water, so I wouldn't take a guess at that.

It floats, I've done this experiment.

 

[casportpony]

According to this, a chicken might drink 0.5 to 1 liter of water a day:
https://www.backyardchickencoops.co...ow-much-water-does-an-adult-hen-drink-per-day
Hmm, that seems like a lot of water. Are we really sure that they drink that much?

How much they drink depends on a lot of things.

https://avianmedicine.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/15.pdf

 

[dawg53]

The water method:
It seems a lot folks want the easy way (lazy way) of treating their birds with wormers, miticides and antibiotics mixed in water.
Most of those products dont mix in water, they also lose their effectiveness.
More importantly, birds may not drink enough of the treated water to be effective, and sick birds rarely eat nor drink at all. In cool or cold temps, birds drink less water.
Take the time and do it right, give meds orally. That way you know they got properly dosed.

 

[Lortiz]

Disclaimer: Many of my claims are speculative and not all of it is based on personal experience or research. Nothing I say is guaranteed to work or be correct. Do whatever you want.

This is what I've read elsewhere, 4mL per 1 gallon of the 1% injectable solution, but unsure of the reliability of the source. I did read a reliable source once but I can't find it now. So 4mL of the 1% injectable is equivalent to about 40mg of the pure powder. If using the pure powder, I'd first dissolve 40mg in 4mL glycerin to increase the solubility in water. Pure ivermectin is only soluble in water at less than 23 mg per GALLON without the extra junk (glycerol formal, and propylene glycol, glycerin) used to make the injectable liquid. The extra junk likely will probably improve the solubility so that 40mg will probably dissolve in 1 gallon (4546 mL) of water, and possibly provide some protection from oxidation, HOWEVER, I would definitely boil and then cool the water first in order to remove most of the dissolved atmospheric oxygen, which is SIGNIFICANT. I would change the solution daily as someone else suggested. And then use a microscope to check your work?

Reference for solubility of ivermectin:
https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0045655A2/en

Ivermectin is RELATIVELY non-toxic and safe to use. I cannot speak for the extra junk they put in the injectable. If you do go a little bit overboard on the dosing, the chickens are likely to be sedated or spaced out somewhat, as ivermectin does cross the blood-brain barrier a little bit, and then in the brain it does the same thing to vertebrates as it does to invertebrates. They may stare at the wall a lot and lose appetite from a moderate overdosage. As long as they are protected from predators, and they are still able to drink, this should pass without veterinary intervention, and they will return to normal after a few days. Do be careful and try not to let this happen in the first place, but feel free to cautiously experiment with higher dosages to clear a wider variety of worms, and permanently disable difficult mites. Mites have been documented that can recover from lower levels of ivermectin poisoning, and sometimes highly repetetive dosing has been required to clear severe infestations. But it is true that you don't usually need as much to control mites as to be effective for worms.

To me, this water method seems easier than catching your chickens individually and weighing them and injecting or force feeding each one individually, which they will probably hate you for. And you can treat small chickens and large chickens all at the same time.

I guess if you could concoct an individually dosed tasty treat that they wanted to eat, like a kind of oatmeal and mealworm nugget, and make sure each chicken consumed its own, that should work for the adult chickens. I might try that. 1mg (100 μL) per nugget per fully grown 6lb adult chicken would be an aggressive dose, but shouldn't hurt anything. See the dosage for strongyloidiasis below. You'll need a really good mg balance, or a microliter syringe. Or you could homogenize your nugget material, and treat many different sizes of chicken, but that might be more technically challenging.

Use human dosages for chickens, why not? Chickens are people too.
https://reference.medscape.com/drug/stromectol-ivermectin-342657

Strongyloidiasis of the Intestinal Tract​

15-24 kg: 3 mg PO once
25-35 kg: 6 mg PO once
36-50 kg: 9 mg PO once
51-65 kg: 12 mg PO once
66-79 kg: 15 mg PO once
>80 kg: 200 mcg/kg PO once

Topical administration seems interesting, but how do you ensure the solution contacts the skin and isn't just absorbed into the feathers? And how do you know how much absorbed, in the end? Dosage seems sketchy there, but we do it for cows. Cows don't have long feathers to draw the solution away from the skin, but this should be an easy method that will at least work for mites, if not worms. You could use the cattle pour-on and a microliter syringe. Just back calculate from cattle dosages to find the right dose for your birds.

Cattle pour-on:
https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailym...53ab-2c44-4652-88fc-11bde79dce8d&type=display

I need help to clarify dosage for treating chickens with depluming mites. In my research I have read to treat water with Ivermection1% injectable solution, 4ml per gallon for 2 days then repeat in 10 to 14 days. Can someone please advise on the dosage if it's correct. I am aware of egg withdrawal period. Any advice and guidance would be appreciated.

I have no idea if this works as well as other treatments, or at all. Just passing on the reference I had seen for this dose.

The dose of 4 ml 1% Ivermectin (injectable) per gallon of water is given by PoultryDVM.com as one of the ways to dose chickens for treatment of roundworm. It does not give this as an option for treating mites, so I do not know if it would work for mites.

ROUNDWORM INFECTION
See more at: http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/roundworms
Ivermectin 1% Injectable for Cattle and Swine.
Given to each chicken orally or added to the flock’s water source.
If given by mouth - 0.25 mL per large size, 0.1 mL per bantam size.
If added to flock water source- 4 mL per gallon of water.
Made fresh daily for two consecutive days.
The reference source for this method of dosing is Gail Damerow, a well known poultry keeper who has written many books and is editor of Backyard Poultry Magazine.

I would say that, based on other's info on dosing, that regardless of method, you probably need to repeat dosage as others described.

Also, here is interesting info from The Merck Manual on different types of feather mites. Apparently depluming mites and feather mites are not the same and there are many kinds. It says they are rare in commercial poultry houses, but that is maybe due to isolation, better husbandry, and biosecurity. It doesn't seem uncommon in backyard poultry from what I am reading.

Mites of Poultry​

https://www.merckvetmanual.com/poultry/ectoparasites/mites-of-poultry

 

[dawg53]

I have no idea if this works as well as other treatments, or at all. Just passing on the reference I had seen for this dose.

The dose of 4 ml 1% Ivermectin (injectable) per gallon of water is given by PoultryDVM.com as one of the ways to dose chickens for treatment of roundworm. It does not give this as an option for treating mites, so I do not know if it would work for mites.

ROUNDWORM INFECTION
See more at: http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/roundworms
Ivermectin 1% Injectable for Cattle and Swine.
Given to each chicken orally or added to the flock’s water source.
If given by mouth - 0.25 mL per large size, 0.1 mL per bantam size.
If added to flock water source- 4 mL per gallon of water.
Made fresh daily for two consecutive days.
The reference source for this method of dosing is Gail Damerow, a well known poultry keeper who has written many books and is editor of Backyard Poultry Magazine.

I would say that, based on other's info on dosing, that regardless of method, you probably need to repeat dosage as others described.

Also, here is interesting info from The Merck Manual on different types of feather mites. Apparently depluming mites and feather mites are not the same and there are many kinds. It says they are rare in commercial poultry houses, but that is maybe due to isolation, better husbandry, and biosecurity. It doesn't seem uncommon in backyard poultry from what I am reading.

Mites of Poultry​

https://www.merckvetmanual.com/poultry/ectoparasites/mites-of-poultry

Here's a study of the effectiveness of Ivermectin injectable on Poultry worms:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1439-0450.1989.tb00635.x