Safeguard and Feather Damage While Molting

[casportpony]

This is what this book says about treating gapeworms:







-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

I think someone looked at a bottle of Safeguard and decided that peafowl should get the same amount as goats and cattle (5mg/kg) and extrapolated that 3cc in one gallon was the magic number. People have been doing it for so long now that it is very hard for them to think it might not be correct, just like the 1/2 teaspoon Corid powder misinformation that people were doing for *years*.

I'm thinking there are a couple possibilities. First, it may have been commercially recommended (for turkeys?) based on original rates of application before resistance developed. That may have come from the original manufacturer or during the licensing process... The published rate on the DuraFend bag (0.5% medicated feed pellets) works out to 7.23 mg per pound of mixed feed -- an almost infinitesimal amount -- and that's the manufacturer's published rate of application. They say to mix one pound of 0.5% medicated pellets with 313 pounds of regular feed...

Three cc's of 10% liquid per gallon works out to about 2.34 mg/ounce of water.

I'm thinking that might actually be kinda similar doses... If a bird ate 1/3 of a pound of food, or drank an ounce of water??? (continues below photos)



I

I suppose that would give you approximately one bird dose at the 5mg/kg rate (as you mention, using what is actually the livestock rate) for a one pound turkey poult...

Another thing that is totally unclear to me at this point is the hang time in the bird... How long does it stay in the bird's system? I've been doing a lot of reading, and I remember one of the dewormers stays in the system for 30 days... If it accumulates and isn't rapidly cleared, then too high a dose could build up. (I have a whole page of questions written down, lol... So many questions, so little time

)

 

[casportpony]

Not sure how long it stays in their systems... Birds have a very fast metabolism compared to cows, horses, goats, etc. I have actually fed mineral oil to birds (long story) and seen it get pooped out in less than two hours, but something like a horse takes more like 12 hours.

As for residuals in tissues, no clue...

-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

Birds have a very fast metabolism compared to cows, horses, goats, etc. I have actually fed mineral oil to birds (long story) and seen it get pooped out in less than two hours, but something like a horse takes more like 12 hours.

And thus giving rise to the eternal George S. Patton phrase, "Cr@p through a goose..." Tee Hee

 

[casportpony]

Birds have a very fast metabolism compared to cows, horses, goats, etc. I have actually fed mineral oil to birds (long story) and seen it get pooped out in less than two hours, but something like a horse takes more like 12 hours.

And thus giving rise to the eternal George S. Patton phrase, "Cr@p through a goose..."  Tee Hee

That's funny, I had not heard that before.

-Kathy

 

[Hannah15]

I have no idea how long Safeguard stays in a birds system, but I doubt it stays very long. I just finished 5 weeks of Safeguard at 20mg/kg for a rabbit to attempt to treat E. cunniculi. He has no ill effects from that treatment every day. None that he didn't have already anyway.

It would be interesting to see studies on that though, for many different kinds of wormers.

 

[Garden Peas]

In doing further reading, apparently the fenbendazole leaves the system really fast -- within a day or so -- but I am also very curious now about this with regard to various wormers, and I'm still curious about the whole paste vs. liquid thing. If I can find answers, I will post them later.

In the meantime, we had a worming adventure here... I tried to figure out how to do it without stressing everybody out, and still make sure everyone got the right dose.

I was not confident that we could catch and administer oral meds without injuries, and I kept thinking if I tried the mash thing, I couldn't make sure that each bird got the correct amount of meds. I kept thinking that the more dominant birds would get a bigger share of the food, and the more picked-on birds might not get enough...

But the one thing that every bird in my pen loves above everything else is bread

So I experimented with how much liquid wormer could be soaked into a peafowl-sized piece of bread, and the same for the chickens.







I figured out that a piece of bread that the peas would chunk down in one gulp could hold about 0.5 ml of liquid goat wormer (10% fenbendazole). It soaks in easier if the bread is moist -- not dried out -- and if the bread chunk is thicker. It takes a few seconds or even a minute to really soak in. You can spread some on top and then kinda poke it into the inside of the chunk with the medicine syringe (no needle) once the bread starts getting soft and saturated.

I drew up 250 ml of wormer and divided it evenly between 5 pieces of bread, so each chunk had 0.5 ml, or about 50 mg of meds per bread cube, and a total of 250 mg for each of my medium-sized peas. (I figured I could also tailor the dose for each bird, by adding or subtracting a bread chunk, since there is actually a bit of difference in my bird sizes). That way I didn't have to predesignate which bread went to which individual bird, I could just throw the correct number of 50 mg pieces...

For chicken-sized pieces, I was able to put about 20 ml per bread bit, so again, I did 5 chunks per bird, anticipating an individual total dose of 100 mg. That's 1 ml divided onto 5 small bread triangles...



Here's the whole thing, all prepped and ready to go to the yard. The extra tub of plain bread is "diversion bread" -- to throw to other birds to draw them away from the target bird.

Lol I don't have any photos of feeding it -- my hands were full and my brain was overloaded, trying to keep count as to who had eaten what

The birds were VERY happy to grab it, except for initial concern from the peahen -- but she got over it and joined in happily after the first piece or two, which she lost to a quick chicken

I figured it was best to do it a breakfast time, when everyone would be looking for food. I started by tossing some scratch, just to break up the crowd and keep everybody spread out. Then, targeting one or two birds at a time (this was a challenge), I tossed the correct number of bread chunks, one at a time, until everyone had received a correct dose. It worked fairly smoothly with the chickens. It was a little harder with the peas, because the chickens darted in and carted off some of the pea's bread chunks. So I had to go back in the house to make a few extras (next time, I'll do that in advance!), and a couple of the chickens ended very heavily dosed

The diversion bread helped a lot, but the birds are quick! I monitored them closely for the rest of the day, and the good news is that everybody (including the heavily dosed chickens) is fine today. Water consumption was definitely a bit higher than usual yesterday, and there was maybe a little more scratching/grooming than usual yesterday evening, but nothing to a worrisome level. I did read that there can be a reaction with itchiness from the toxicity of the dying worms, but I haven't seen anything that appeared to be concerning. Everybody is totally fine this morning and eating well.

Anyway, this worked out okay with my tiny flock, so maybe it will work for someone else? My birds think the worming was a special treat session

And thanks again for posting that necropsy photo -- that's changed what we do here at my house, for sure. That picture was worth about ten thousand words -- WOW

 

[casportpony]

Regarding liquid vs paste, same dose applies. One ml of paste does weigh one gram. One gram of paste has 100mg, just like the liquid, so 1ml of paste is equal to 1ml of liquid.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Here is the paste experiment I did.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/812128/worming-with-horse-wormer

Next paste experiment will be with the various ivermectin paste wormers.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

@KsKingBee , where are those poop pictures?

-Kathy