Received baby chicks and they have worms! What do I do???!!

[mtnviewgirl]

Thursday morning we received 10 baby day-old chicks from a local breeder. One was a little wobbly, but he seemed to perk up ok. They all seemed to be doing well until this morning (Sat)when I woke up to find one of them dead. Shortly after that, we found a reddish brown worm in the waterer and a few other segments. Later I found a few more worms (2 inches) on the bedding in their brooder. The breeder said he had never had this happen before and honestly I had never heard of such young chicks getting worms. Their brooder and everything in it was new and sterile and they went straight from his box to my brooder with no other contact with any surfaces. Ick!-what should I do-I don't want to lose any more. Thanks for any advice!

 

[danielnv]

could the worms be from his box or the bedding?

 

[redhen]

ooh lord! heres a bump up! good luck!

 

[ScoobyRoo]

That is a new one to me. It seems there was another thread similar to this and if I remember correctly a poster thought it was really the dropping (poop). Is the worm moving??
Sorry for you loss. BTW,

 

[mtnviewgirl]

Thanks for the welcome! I am really enjoying the abundance of info on this site. As for the brooder, it was brand new and cleaned thoroughly (a metal stock tank). We covered the bottom in white paper towels. The waterers and feeder are also new and were cleaned. The chicks were delivered to me in a cardboard box with wood shavings. I wonder if they were contaminated. Or could my feed (from co-op) have been contaminated? It is easy to see that they are indeed worms -yuck!no doubt about it. I am not sure what to do. TSC didn't have any wormer(if that is what I need) and co-op was closed. I am hoping they will be ok until Monday when I can perhaps get something. I haven't found anyone yet who has experienced such young chicks with worms-will worming medicine hurt them? BTW, thanks again for your help. What a great resource!

 

[azelgin]

This is really bizarre! I've heard of worms ending up in the eggs of hens with severe worm infestations, but never in a young chick. If the worms were in the egg at the start of incubation, what are the chances the chick would even develop and hatch? Day old chicks haven't been eating long enough to ingest and grow a 2" worm. I wouldn't start them on any wormer until I looked at all other possible sources for the origin of these worms. Worms in day old chicks just doesn't fit.

 

[mtnviewgirl]

I know-none of it makes any sense. The breeder is at a loss as well. He is checking all his stock. Can worms really grow that fast anyway? The breeder man says they can. Our last experience with chicks - we had 50 that we kept for over 3 years and I never wormed them. They were always so healthy-and great egg layers. This is so discouraging.

I was hoping someone else might know what to do.

 

[redhen]

its hard because they are sooo young...i dont know if you can medicate young chicks for worms? if they were older you would just worm them...but, them being so young..i dont know...

 

[Big dreams]

What about the food?

 

[moonpie]

you say the worms are reddish? Might you mean brownish rusty looking with segments? I bet that the feed has meal worms in it. If this is the case then your baby chicks don't actually have worms it's in the feed. You might scoop a handful out and never even see them. I bought some cornmeal once from a mill and low and behold there were worms in it, I later found out what they were. If there are meal worms in it and you can look them up to see if they match.. then you need to get rid of the remaining feed and to be safe any bedding/litter you have in your brooder. Hope this is your answer