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

[JEM3965]

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.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

1%injectable can be given orally, topically or by injection. I would dose each chicken directly. Dosing info in the link below.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mites-lice-now-hen-growling.1242981/post-19965544

 

[Wyorp Rock]

1%injectable can be given orally, topically or by injection. I would dose each chicken directly. Dosing info in the link below.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mites-lice-now-hen-growling.1242981/post-19965544

 

[JEM3965]

Thank you for your response. No nasty tone, but you didn't answer my question. Dosing each chicken is not an option which is why I went directly to asking about dosing via water.
Hopefully someone can verify if 4ml per gallon for 2 days is correct for Ivermection 1% inject solution. Then repeat in 14 days. Thank you in advance.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thank you for your response. No nasty tone, but you didn't answer my question. Dosing each chicken is not an option which is why I went directly to asking about dosing via water.
Hopefully someone can verify if 4ml per gallon for 2 days is correct for Ivermection 1% inject solution. Then repeat in 14 days. Thank you in advance.

In my research I have read to treat water

Any advice and guidance would be appreciated.

Can someone please advise on the dosage if it's correct.

No worries

I saw your question, you asked for any advice or guidance too
I actually did answer the question...
I try my very best to give as accurate information as I can. The information I gave is what I know to be correct for both Dosing AND Administration of 1%Ivermectin Injectable. Dosing is by weight and administered orally, topically or by injection.

You have done research and found information to add 1%Injectable Ivermectin to water. If you feel your research source(s) are correct, then go with that. Personally, I would not use the Ivermectin in water.
You will be relying on the birds to drink the correct amount of medicated water (how much should that be?) throughout the day, you are also relying on the 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.

I do understand that you want easy. I like easy too.
I don't know all the challenges you face that's for sure. If you have a large number of birds, then split them up into groups. Go out early or late when they are roosting and treat a group. The next day or two, treat another group.
Hope all this helps.

 

[TheChikening]

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.

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

 

[Wyorp Rock]

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.

Pour On Dose is provided in the links in previous posts.

You still need to catch the birds and have a good idea of weight.
Hold the bird, part the feathers at the base of the neck so skin is exposed an apply the liquid. This helps give you a good idea that contact is made.
Repeat in 10 days. For depluming mites, I would likely repeat 2x more in 10 days intervals, but that's me.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mites-lice-now-hen-growling.1242981/post-19965544

 

[TheChikening]

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? If they drank half a liter of your medicated water.... that would be a VERY strong dose, roughly 4.44mg per chicken! Now if you added it to water that you had not boiled to remove the oxygen, then perhaps enough of the drug would get oxidized that the dose would be less. This is ponderous. 4.44mg for a 6 pound chicken is equivalent to about 130mg for a 180 pound human. That could be done without knocking the chickens out, as they have given doses of 120mg/day or EVEN MORE to humans in recent studies with COVID patients. I saw a study where they gave a WHOLE GRAM (1000mg) to a human being with supposedly no ill effects. Now if someone is on a ventilator, nobody is going to notice if they are spacing out, I guess. I am not advocating any of this. I just think it is interesting.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

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

LOL Chickens aren't people, even though sometimes I wish they were...
Why use people (human dosing) when there's already documented veterinary dosing available?
Plumb's Vet Drug Manual, Avian Medicine Formulary...these will get you close to the best dosing information out there.

 

[casportpony]

Hopefully someone can verify if 4ml per gallon for 2 days is correct for Ivermection 1% inject solution. Then repeat in 14 days. Thank you in advance.

It's not water-soluble.