Safeguard and Feather Damage While Molting

[casportpony]

Quote:
The math formula is:

Weight of flock in pounds divided by 2.2, times 50, divided by 100. The answer to that is the number of ml needed for your flock.
For example:
10 seven pound hens looks like this - 70 ÷ 2.2 x 50 ÷ 100 = 16ml (rounded up from 15.9090909091)

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

This is a long thread, but it contains some very good posts with suggestions on ways to worm... Probably a good thing to go back and re-read it, I know I will.

-Kathy

 

[KsKingBee]

The research I have done just happens to be exactly what KsKingBee's vet recommended, which is Safeguard liquid or paste at 0.5ml per 2.2 pounds for five days.

That works out to:

• Large adult male - 3ml
• Large adult female - 2ml
• Small adult male - 2ml
• Small adult female - 1.5ml
• Large 3 month old chick - 1ml
• Medium 3 month old chick - 0.8ml
• Small 3 month old chick - 0.7

Above doses are for liquid *or* paste.

I prefer to work all of mine orally, but I can understand why some people don't want to, and I guess if I had to choose between food or water or food, I'd choose food. To do that I would guess the weight of my flock in pounds or kg and do a little math. I would then most likely put the amount of Safeguard needed in some water, mix well and then I'd use that water to make a mash. I think Zazouse puts her wormer in eggs?

Hope this helps,
Kathy

The beauty of Safeguard according to my vet is that it is so safe. In clinical trials they have dosed at ten times the recommended amounts without hurting the animals being tested, So if you are off by a bit too much there is little chance of hurting your animal. In my case the broody chicks were taking the dosing for adult with no ill effect from the drug, but boy did it kill the worms!

Bottom line is that any way that you can get the required amount listed in the above post into your bird, whether in the mash, tubing, mixing it into eggs, or soaking it into bread, it will work. The only important thing is that the meds get INTO the bird.

 

[dheltzel]

@dheltzel Did you see the photos where I put the liquid Safeguard on bread cubes and fed the individual doses to the individual birds? That worked really, really well, and I know the bird got the full dose because I watched it go down!

Of course, I only have a few birds, not a whole field full...

That's what I did last time, but I'm not sure they each got the correct dose. Bread creates a bit of an uncontrollable feeding frenzy.
Adding it to their regular pellets seems more accurate. Plus, if I calculated the 5 days dosage and 5 day feed amount, I could load up the feeder with medicated feed and come back in 5 days to add un-medicated feed.

Guess that makes me seem lazy, huh?

 

[dheltzel]

The math formula is:

Weight of flock in pounds divided by 2.2, times 50, divided by 100. The answer to that is the number of ml needed for your flock.
For example:
10 seven pound hens looks like this - 70 ÷ 2.2 x 50 ÷ 100 = 16ml (rounded up from 15.9090909091)

-Kathy

Simplified to -- total live weight / 4.4
In your ex, 70 / 4.4 = 16 (well, 15.9)

 

[Garden Peas]

Edit: I went back and looked and still couldn't find it...I found were it said that 5 cc isn't even enough...

5 cc in a gallon of water isn't enough... it's too diluted by all the water. 2 or 3 cc's of meds need to actually go into a full-grown pea -- depending on the weight of the bird. It doesn't look like the putting it in water supply method is effective at all...

If the bigger amount that's needed is diluted with just enough water to make a mash that the birds will eat, then that's more concentrated and will get the job done.

I went back on the UPA site and read about where DCT's birds died, after she put the wormer in the water at the 3cc rate, after another bird died, and I wonder if the same thing happened to her that happened to KsKingbee's bird that died and was necropsied -- it was too little, too late? Then the bigger dose was working for his bird, but DCT's birds never got the higher dose.

 

[Garden Peas]

That's what I did last time, but I'm not sure they each got the correct dose. Bread creates a bit of an uncontrollable feeding frenzy.
Adding it to their regular pellets seems more accurate. Plus, if I calculated the 5 days dosage and 5 day feed amount, I could load up the feeder with medicated feed and come back in 5 days to add un-medicated feed.

Guess that makes me seem lazy, huh?

We're both lazy! Kathy catches each bird and individually puts it down their throats

So we managed the feeding frenzy by scattering feed first (when they were hungry), and using untreated "diversion" bread to tease the other birds away so we could work with one or two birds at a time. Then we counted how many chunks we gave to each bird so we could get it right. Chickens got too much but are fine.

When I did the math, I figured out I would have to feed straight medicated pellets to get a high enough concentration into the bird (equal to the 50 mg/kilo rate). Those numbers are worked out someplace higher up in the thread

It turns out to be about 1/10 of a bag, but you have to calculate it based on weight of bird and weight of medicated feed. [edited to correct amount]

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I use the above formula for all the different meds, which all have different suggested doses and different mg/ml.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I think one pound of pellets will treat 100 pounds of birds for one day.

-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

I also figured out that the dosage rate for turkeys published on the DuraFend 0.5 % medicated feed bag would require the bird to consume approximately 35 pounds of combined regular and medicated feed in order to get a 250 mg dose. Like the apocryphal 3 cc per gallon water recommendation, that turkey feed dosage on the bag would be unlikely to be effective -- at least not if our birds need a rate of 50 mg per kg to be effective. (That's about 10 times the dosing rate for livestock, btw, but that's the number I saw over and over again when I read all the threads I could find...) I took a couple photos of the bag, so if anyone wants to see that info, I can post the pix in another post. I'm really puzzled by this, but am thinking it is because they are feeding it as a sole food source over a period 6 days, and that it may have to do with the rate of clearance/excretion/breakdown from the turkey and the need to prevent overdosing? Anyway, I humbly don't think it would work.

I assumed a 250 mg dose of fenbendazole for cost-comparison purposes, based on all the recommendations. That is 2.5 ml of 10% liquid, 2.5 g of 10% paste, and is also 1.76 ounces BY WEIGHT (or 49.6 g) of 0.5% medicated feed. That's about 1/10 of a 1 lb medicated feed bag -- looking at the volume in the bag, my peas could probably, I think, each eat that in one meal without too much trouble, if they liked it. (Thinking a nice mash with egg or some cat food...) The 1 lb bag says that it has 2.27 g/lb, (0.45 kg), so the whole entire bag has 2270 mg of fenbendazole in it, or a little less than 10 individual bird doses. (When I saw it in the store, my plan was to do the 6 day turkey thing for a repeat dose in 10 days or so, but after doing the math, I don't think that will work. It will, however, work fine, I think, for single-dosing at the higher rate.)
...
Anyway, I think this is the correct math for calculating the medicated feed (grain/alfalfa/pellet/crumble) dosing -- the thing on the bag is just weird. It says to mix the 1 lb bag of medicated feed into 313 lb of regular feed and give it to growing turkeys as the sole ration for six days. As I said above, it would take 34 1/2 lb of feed mixed at that ratio to get one 250 mg dose into a bird -- my peas definitely are not each eating 34 pounds of food per week, it's just not physically possible for them to consume that much... Since I wasn't at all sure how much they do eat per day, I worked it out backwards to see how much of it is needed to get an effective 250 mg dose... straight out of the bag, that's 1.76 ounces by weight. I don't know the volume measurement though -- it needs to be weighed out. I'd have to fool with a measuring cup and scale to figure out the volume, and doubt if it would be exactly the same across the different manufacturers. It's sold by weight.

@dheltzel I found it, it's in post #88, I cut out everything except the medicated feed numbers. It's about one-tenth of a one pound bag, 1.76 ounces by WEIGHT to get the right dose (assuming your bird needs 250 mg)