Just some more info about these wormers from the UPA and their experiences with it.
There are three types of capillaria worms. Capillaria caudinflata has an intermediate host in the earthworm and infect the bird�s small intestine. Capillaria obsignata is passed directly form one bird to another and infects the small intestine and ceca . Capillaria contorta can either be passed directly or by the earth worm and infects the mouth, esophagus, and crop.
Ivomec is a very good wormer. I personally use two to three bottles a year on everything from pigeons to sheep; but is not effective against capillary worms. I, like many other, used Ivomec and automatically assumed I was doing a good job of controlling internal parasites until one fall. A peahen I had purchased during the summer started to go downhill on me. The bird had been quarantined for three weeks after it was purchased and treated for blackhead, coccidia, and wormed with Ivomec. At first, I just felt the bird needed to be rewormed, but two weeks after re worming the bird showed very little improvement. I ran a fecal sample and, you guessed it, the bird was loaded with capillary worms.
When I called my vet and explained what I had found , he couldn�t believe that I had never read the package insert for the product. His words were �It�s not a miracle drug. It has its limitations. If you want to get capillaria, you should be using Panacure:. I used the Panacure not only on the sick bird but on all my peafowl. The sick bird recovered and was laying eggs the following spring.
