More Dewormer Questions

[BirdGuy2018]

Good lord. "Get chickens," they said, "cheap and low-maintenance," they said.

Have been researching researching researching. Got some responses on another discussion. Ready to throw up hands. Would appear that no one on the planet owns chickens, nor needs to deworm them. Vets don't care for chickens. All the "good dewormers" either are not available in U.S. or are "off-label" use and/or are for goats or horses. The goat/horse meds require you to research the dosage. Of course, you will find a million different opinions on the dosage, treatment times, etc.

So...hours and hours later, after a week of research, I still have *nothing* ordered.

Here's what I was hoping for, based on my home planet of Unreasonable Expectations. I figured I would google "best chicken de-wormer," find 2 or 3 and see which product on amazon has the most reviews and most stars. Boom, order some and do it.

Is there any sort of broad-spectrum de-wormer that is safe, effective, has broad consensus as the #1 or #2 de-wormer, and can be ordered online for U.S. delivery?And actually comes with authoritative instructions on treatment, usage warnings, etc...*for chickens* and other fowl. Just off the shelf without having to translate dosage from a horse to a chicken and converting it from a paste to a solution--and hoping you know what the hell you are doing. (Ideally, ok for Guinea and geese, too.) Have some Wazine-17, but no, I don't want to give *chickens* a med that then requires you to never eat their eggs again. I know, I'm really hard to please. *Head Explodes*

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[rebrascora]

Firstly, do you really need to worm your chickens? If you don't then I won't be at risk of exploding your head with answers that you don't want to hear because it is not simple and straight forward for chickens because they are part of the food chain.... so in my opinion the best thing to do is have their poop tested to see if it is necessary to worm them. Most vets can do this as it is the same as they do for dogs and cats. Unfortunately some vets will not or insist upon seeing the chicken(s) and charging accordingly. I'm in the UK and I can send a faecal sample off to an independent lab that charges £10 to check for worms and coccidia. I believe there are labs in the USA that operate a similar service.... look for a livestock one as they will be cheaper than a cats and dogs one. If you get a positive result that needs treating (almost all chickens will have a low level of internal parasites due to the nature of their lifestyle so you really only need to deworm them when there is a high infestation), you should be told which worms were found so that you can get a product to treat that species of worm.
If you decide that you want to routinely worm rather than get them tested, then you have to get your head round using off label products and finding reliable people who can advise you on dosage. As regards egg withdrawal period, because you are using off label, there has been no research done on residues that may be in eggs, so if a vet prescribes something, they may say that you cannot ever eat the eggs simply because they are not able to say when the eggs will be free of residues and safe to eat. Most people discard them for 2 weeks.

I'm sorry it isn't simple and straightforward and we all have to get our heads around it as best we can. There are people here on BYC who are very knowledgeable about wormers and posts by @casportpony on this subject will be accurate and reliable.

If it helps, my current flock has not been wormed for 4 years and some people never worm them and some routinely worm every 6 months or once a year.

 

[Teila]

Did you check out this discussion during your hours of research?

Topic of the Week - Deworming chickens