PLEASE HELP chickens with tapeworms..

[reneeeWA]

Nevermind, think I got it figure out. Thanks anyways

 

[dawg53]

Purchase valbazen liquid cattle/sheep wormer to treat all known types of worms that chickens can get, including tapeworms. Valbazen can be purchased from Jefferslivestock.com or call them. Here's the link:
http://www.jefferspet.com/valbazen/camid/LIV/cp/16387/
Here's how you treat for tapeworms: Withhold your chickens feed for 24 hours, let them drink water as needed. Twenty four hours later, dose your birds orally 1cc valbazen undiluted. Use a syringe without a needle to administer. The 1cc dosage orally is for standard size birds when treating for tapeworms, 1/2cc for smaller birds. Withhold feed from them again in 6 days, redose them 1cc valbazen again. Then keep an eye on their feces for the next 10 days. If you see what appears to be "white rice" in the feces, those are tapeworm segments. If you see them, repeat the worming procedures or PM me and I'll tell you another way to rid your birds from tapes.

 

[reneeeWA]

Thank you, didn't see that you had posted a reply until after I edited mine as no one was responding. I called my vet in a last ditch and she wants to distribute praviquantel based on their weight... she's not requiring to see them so hopefully I'll just be paying for the medication but she didn't know how much $ yet. For some reason my feed stores around here (Aslin Finch, Big R, etc.) are rather (surprisingly) limited in what they carry for tapeworm and of course everything for chickens is off label and some were worried that using pastes wouldn't work well even with 1cc dosage, etc. because they homogenize the paste and I would probably have to squirt it all out, mix it, then administer. Why, oh why can't they just come out with a de-wormer for chickens? lol This is just crazy. I'm not sure I can find the stuff you mentioned and hopefully I can afford it so I'll check vet route first (what she suggested) then while I'm out I'll check around for the Valbazen. Thank you so much for offering your help this is my first year with chickens and this is really stressing me out. I've heard they can die from worms. I've become quite attached to them and I don't like it when I can't find a proper solution to things.. Anyway I will keep you posted, thank you so much again

 

[dawg53]

You are correct, praziquantel can be used to treat chickens for tapeworms. Here's a link regarding Zimectrin Gold, an equine paste wormer that you can dose your chickens for tapeworms.
http://www.jefferspet.com/zimecterin-gold/camid/EQU/cp/M0-Z2/
Dosage is a "pea" sized amount given orally to each standard size chicken. For smaller chickens, dosage is a "small pea" size or "BB" size amount given to each chicken. Since z-gold is a paste, it might be best to put the pea size amount on a piece of bread and give each chicken a piece of the medicated bread. Ensure you seperate your birds or they will steal the bread from each other and they could possibly overdose. Repeat dosing in 10 days.
Birds may wipe their beaks on the ground after dosing them, that's normal.

 

[reneeeWA]

found last bottle of valbazen even a little cheaper than Jeffers picking up tomorrow. will pick their food up now so can start dosing tomorrow. worried about scratch leftover on ground though as they seemed to have list appetite over last couple days. if they clean up that little bit during food withold period is that okay?
Also how soon after dosing can I resume feeding? I was going to do yogurt with layer feed mixed think that's acceptable?
thank u again so much you have taken so much stress off me!

 

[dawg53]

found last bottle of valbazen even a little cheaper than Jeffers picking up tomorrow. will pick their food up now so can start dosing tomorrow. worried about scratch leftover on ground though as they seemed to have list appetite over last couple days. if they clean up that little bit during food withold period is that okay?
Also how soon after dosing can I resume feeding? I was going to do yogurt with layer feed mixed think that's acceptable?
thank u again so much you have taken so much stress off me!

Dont worry about the scratch on the ground. The reason you withhold feed is that it starves the worms, weakening them. That makes the wormer more effective in killing them. Resume feeding your birds gradually about 4 hours after worming. The reason you gradually feed them is to prevent them gorging on feed possibly causing an impacted crop. As far as probiotics after worming, it would be better to mix buttermilk in their feed.