Reintroduction of chicken after gapeworm

[Shannon0317]

I lost one chicken to gapeworm. I noticed another one of my chickens having symptoms of gapeworm. I isolated the chicken immediately and treated her with febendazole, safe guard for goats, for 5 days. She is asymptotic but was wondering when i can reintroduce back into the flock. The flock is not displaying any symptoms of gapeworm and do not want to infect them. The chickens are 25 weeks old.

 

[coach723]

They have all been exposed. The sick birds likely shed the worm eggs in their droppings before you even knew there was a problem. They can get infected by ingesting those eggs in the droppings (happens while scratching and pecking in the soil), or by eating a secondary host like an earthworm, snail or slug that has ingested the eggs. I would not have isolated in this case, unless the bird was weak and at risk of attack by the flock, so I'd go ahead and put her back. I probably would have treated all of them at the same time. If another shows symptoms, that is what I would do, or you may be going in circles trying to treat them one at a time over and over. I assume you had confirmation that it was indeed gapeworm?

 

[Shannon0317]

They have all been exposed. The sick birds likely shed the worm eggs in their droppings before you even knew there was a problem. They can get infected by ingesting those eggs in the droppings (happens while scratching and pecking in the soil), or by eating a secondary host like an earthworm, snail or slug that has ingested the eggs. I would not have isolated in this case, unless the bird was weak and at risk of attack by the flock, so I'd go ahead and put her back. I probably would have treated all of them at the same time. If another shows symptoms, that is what I would do, or you may be going in circles trying to treat them one at a time over and over. I assume you had confirmation that it was indeed gapeworm?

Thank you for the response and your right about them being all exposed. I guess I was thrown off by her showing symptoms and the rest did not. I will treat the whole flock, makes sense. No, I did not take the bird to the vet to have gapeworm confirmed. I know there is a kit out there where you examine droppings but not sure if it will pick up gapeworm. I know it was probably risky to assume gapeworm but it did look like all the symptoms. Again, thank you for the info, I am new to this site and newer to sick birds. I've had alot of chickens but all have been healthy.

 

[coach723]

Even though gapeworms live in the esophagus, some of the eggs still travel the digestive tract and end up in the droppings, so a fecal would likely show them. A vet can also do a swab of the esophagus. You can try a mail in option for a fecal if you don't have a vet that will do one for you:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000J5SOZ...colid=27RHKHAM35GO&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
Sometimes a respiratory infection can look like gapeworm, so that's why I asked if you'd had confirmation of the worms.