PLEASE HELP

[bjordan]

I have recently switched to a water bowll instead of a chicken water bowl due to the freezing conditions. I have noticed in the last week there are little tiny maggot or grub like worms in the water. I change the water every morning I am not seeing fecesin the water just a bit of dirt and grass. may sound sick but I have taken a sick and checked many of piles of fresh feces to see if the worms were also in those but I see no worms or nothing unusual at all. I have called my pet chicken. Com and they did not have any answers for me either I am hoping somebody has had the similar problem or know something about it my mom says It could come from the trees but the water is under the roof of the fenced in part of the coop.

 

[BBQJOE]

I have recently switched to a water bowll instead of a chicken water bowl due to the freezing conditions. I have noticed in the last week there are little tiny maggot or grub like worms in the water. I change the water every morning I am not seeing fecesin the water just a bit of dirt and grass. may sound sick but I have taken a sick and checked many of piles of fresh feces to see if the worms were also in those but I see no worms or nothing unusual at all. I have called my pet chicken. Com and they did not have any answers for me either I am hoping somebody has had the similar problem or know something about it my mom says It could come from the trees but the water is under the roof of the fenced in part of the coop.

I'm going to step out on a limb here, and suggest what you might be seeing is mosquito larvae.

 

[triplepurpose]

I dont understand. Why is this cause for concern at all? A couple of tiny bugs in the water will not hurt anything, whatever they are. Chickens dig in dirt and eat bugs and anything else that moves all the time. The chickens might even enjoy eating them, and thereby get some free feed into the bargain. It occurs to me that they could be mosquito larvae, but this seems unlikely if you are emptying it do often--and even so, they wouldnt have time to develop into biting adults (and even if they did, still not a big deal).

Honestly, id forget about it... theres no reason to believe it would harm your chickens or you in anyway.

in other words, dont panic, its organic, as they say.

 

[lazy gardener]

They wouldn't be mosquito larvae. They do not look like worms. But, I'd not worry about them. Is your waterer sitting right on the ground? You might try elevating it off the ground. Best to have it chest high anyways to help it stay cleaner. See if that removes the buggy issue.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you change the water every morning it’s probably not mosquito larva. Different mosquito varieties develop differently but that would take pretty fast developing for them to get big enough for you to see them. It’s not a bad guess though. I would not totally rule it out. But with you dumping the water every morning mosquitoes won’t mature so it’s not a big deal.

You don’t say where you are, that might help if we had an idea of your climate and current weather conditions. If you are south of the equator especially I could see things falling out of trees and being blown in on the wind. But since you just changed the way you water because it’s getting cold, that does not sound right at all. You’re probably too far north for mosquitoes or most other things to be an issue.

I admit to being totally stumped. You said tiny. I have seen spiders and small caterpillars spin a thread of silk and redistribute themselves on the wind that way, but they are not tiny. As long as you dump it every day I don’t think it’s a problem.

 

[shortgrass]

Are they possibly nematodes?

Nematodes are very common in soil, and are actually beneficial predators in many instances... They would be the "good worms" that keep microbes and other worm eggs in check by eating them , per se.

Just for giggles, these guys

FYI, nematodes LOVE water! In fact, I apply nematodes 3x a year by wringing out a nematode filled sponge into buckets of water and spraying them on fields and gardens, they move very easily in water, and are almost too small to see with the naked eye; mostly just look like the water is moving a bit.

Hope it helps

Edit* they would be coming from the bits of soil you are finding in the water BTW... Not harmful at all if they are nematodes, in fact, they could be helping a worm load problem that you may not know is even there