I have dosed my girls' water as per the instructions on the Kilverm: 100mls of Kilverm to 2litres of water. There's nothing that says how many birds this is supposed to be for, and nothing to say how much of it they should drink for it to work. It basically says take away their access to water at 3pm the day before, give them only the medicated water the next morning, dry food only, no vege scraps, grass etc that they can get moisture from. Then give them fresh water once the medicated stuff is gone, or after 8 hours if there's still some left. So...... I only have three chooks - the water has been there since just after 6am (it's now 1:15pm, so they've had it in there for around 7 hours) and they've hardly touched it. It's a warm day here, and they all had a good long drink of it when I put the medicated water in there this morning, but have only sipped at it sporadically since. They've been locked int eh run all day so they're not getting water elsewhere. 2 litres for three chooks is more than they usually get through in a day normally. I have to throw this lot out in another hour or so whether or not they've had enough. SO my question is..... HOW do I know if they've had enough???? (Also, one of the girls vomited today and they all raced over and drank it up!!! YUK!!! They obviously are still thirsty despite not drinking much)
I took the medicated water in and measured what was left, and it appears that each chook drank about a cup of it... that seems OK doesn't it?
Yes, just do as the directions tell you. They will drink about enough in that 8 hours to dose them. There are other wormers with similar directions. They find out on average how much a chicken drinks in that amount of time. About a cup sounds good.
That's the problem with mixing wormers in water, as well as antibiotics for that matter. You never know if they drank the mixture, nor if they drank enough of it to be effective. Sick birds wont drink at all. That's when you have to syringe feed them the mixture. This is why I prefer to give wormers orally, individually. Then you KNOW they've been properly wormed.
