Need advice on worming...

This is interesting - I have a similar situation going on with a hen I was given - she was fat when I got her but she has lost a lot of weight and I am thinking about de worming my flock for the first time - but I have young chicks in with them also so don't know if its safe to do it.

 

Feed stores in my area carry liquid, worming medicine in 6oz bottles you add to a few gallons of water. I usually put in the water container about once a year. Must work i have never had problems. Ask a local feed store

 

Our vet charges $18.00 for a fecal check. I take samples for many poops from the bottom of the nest box. Weight loss can be caused other problems and unnecessary medication, especially poison, can compound these. Make sure you check for lice and mites too. And consider molting. One of our hens lost a noticeable amount of weight before she lost her feathers.

Chickens, like all other outdoor birds are exposed to parasites everyday so unless you keep them confined indoors very unlikely that your chickens don't have worms even if you worm them often. Mitigation advice: http://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/chickenhouses/Worming_Poultry.html

If I were going to worm, I would worm all my hens following the instructions on the package (note: with a small flock it's better to know how much water your hens consume in a day so you know they are getting the correct dose rather than to mix up a gallon when your hens only consume 10 oz of water in 24 hours)

After the treatment consider adding foods that will aid in prevention of new infestations. I feed active culture yogurt (good for the gut) and cayenne pepper flakes or seeds (keeps parasites from settling in) that I mix with scratch or raw sunflower seeds. I also regularly feed (rotting) pumpkin and (cooked) sweet potatoes because 1. they grow freely in my compost and 2. my chickens really like them. I know that people swear by pumpkin as worm preventive but can't speak to this except to say it can't hurt.

But I can't say enough about the addition of a few drops of active vinegar (the cloudy kind you get at the heath food store) to the waterer as a immunity boost.

I am not saying that cayenne will treat an existing infestation, it won't, but since I have only had to worm twice in the past 25 years years and in one case it was that I felt pressured to do it and in the other it was just one chicken who came to us with worms (and mites). I have also treated pin worms in my kids using capsules filled with cayenne powder as an alternative to prescribed insecticide and I know for sure that it was effective.

 

Chickens are commonly infected with roundworms, tapeworms and gapeworm.

Symptoms include a dishevelled appearance, feathers becoming ruffled and dry, diarrhoea, drop in egg production, a sharp keel, pale comb and wattles and a mucky bum.

Flubenvet is a licensed for medicating poultry (contains flubendazole) and can be bought on Amazon. Or you can buy layers pellets with Flubenvet mixed in. Available in a 10 or 20kg sack from farm and pet place.

Another product to is use is Verm-X available in liquid and pelleted forms which is chemical free. Though I personally found that this product did not work as well as the Flubenvet.

Use a wormer twice a year, once in the spring and again in the autumn. This will control any infestations that your chickens may have picked up.

One of the best prevention methods is regularly rotate your flock to fresh ground. Another precaution is to don't allow their pen to become waterlogged as this encourages snails which are a host for part of the life cycle.

 

I used a natural regimen I found posted here that worked wonderfully!!! Very easy to do. I'm guessing easier than orally dosing hens. Day 1 Fast em, water only. Day 2 Ground pumpkin seeds in buttermilk(raw if you can get it, I used organic), feed em lots of it!, Day 3, whole milk(once again raw if you can) mixed w/ bran flakes. Day 4 back to feed.

Something in the pumpkin seeds paralyzes the worms and the buttermilk has good cultures. Then the milk and bran flush everything out.

I had great results with this! Went from gross wormy poops to nice solid blobs again. Hens started laying after and are growing bigger too! And you don't have to worry about throwing eggs away if they are already laying.

 

Didn't think to add this but maintaining healthy soil flora especially in your run is probably one of the best preventive measures against parasites.

I want to add that Cocurbitaci, the chemical on the shells of gourd/pumpkin seeds only kills certain types of worms. I am sure it is effective for round worms but it specifically doesn't work on gape worms, the worms carried by slugs and earthworms. While it is difficult to keep free ranging birds from eating earthworms, keeping them from ranging in boggy/soggy/stinky soil can lower the risk of consuming infected worms.

 

Flora you talking about flora Ms.lol I live there and the soil at my house is kinda sorry for growing a garden without a lot of lime added to it.

 

It's pumpkin seeds. You can buy them many places but they need to be raw and not roasted. And I used organic. Raw milk and buttermilk was an 80 mile round trip to get. No, not doing that. Still worked great!