Tapeworms - A few questions

[IronEagle]

Hello BYC,
Last evening I found tapeworms (rice-ish looking segments) in one of my 4 month old hen's poo. It was the first time I had seen that. Interesting enough her poo today is clean. I have not seen worm activity in any of the other chickens poo. Anyway,

The situation:
I live in a very remote part of Mexico and the nearest vet/feed store is a 2 hour drive. I'm a brand new chicken keeper (6 mos) and have learned that things come up unexpectedly and that I ought to put together a first-aid kit for chickens (similar to the one I have for humans.) So last time I was in town I went into the vet and did a "stock-up" on things to include in the kit. I had done a bit of research here (Thank you BYC members!) and had a small list but found it was more difficult than I expected because brand names are different here (similar to Mexican pharmacies you ask for the active ingredient, not the brand name) so the only option I had was to describe what I needed (in my not-so-good-yet Spanish) and they just gave me what they have. I should have known better! But in the end I just asked for "an antibiotic" and "a de-wormer." For wormer he gave me a 10g packet of Fenbendazol 5% in powder form.

Couple of questions:
1) Will Fenbendazol kill the tapeworms? (I have read conflicting information on this forum) If not, what is the main active ingredient I will need to ask for at the vet?
2) If the Fenbendazol isn't going to work, do I have time or do I need to make an "emergency trip" into town? I can probably find someone going in the next two weeks but if this is a more urgent situation I'll need to plan a trip myself sooner.
3) How do I dose a powder to ensure they get evenly dosed? I have some "timid eaters" and am quite confident the turkeys would eat most of it if I just put it on the food!
4) My birds free range (beach and jungle, very hot and humid environment) so should I assume a yearly preventative worming will be necessary? If so, what is the best medicine (the active ingredient) to use for preventative worming?
5) I have: 7 layers, 1 roo, 4 4-month old girls, 3 3-month old roos (One might be a girl?), 2 2-month old chicks (gender ?), 2 3-month old turkeys (1 girl, 1 boy) and 1 adult goose. Do I dose them all? Or just the chickens? (I have no idea if gender or egg-laying status is relevant)
6) Do I need to do a 3-day course of dosing and a follow up dose in 10 days or just a single dose? (again, read a couple of different methodologies here and want to know the best for my situation)
7) I'm assuming a 14-day period for not eating the eggs after the final dose, correct?

Also, feel free to add anything you think I should know that I don't know to ask about.

Thank you in advance for your time and help! Truly, truly appreciated.
IronEagle

 

[BantamFan4Life]

The best dewormer I know of is Ivermectin. It's easy to give to the birds and does it's work fast. If one of your birds has parasites, it's extremely likely that they all have it. I would separate each bird individual and scrutinize the droppings for tapeworms. It's never a good idea to deworm birds that don't have parasites because then the parasites will become resistant to it. I hope your birds will get well soon!

 

[IronEagle]

The best dewormer I know of is Ivermectin. It's easy to give to the birds and does it's work fast. If one of your birds has parasites, it's extremely likely that they all have it. I would separate each bird individual and scrutinize the droppings for tapeworms. It's never a good idea to deworm birds that don't have parasites because then the parasites will become resistant to it. I hope your birds will get well soon!

BantamFan4Life,
Thank you for the reply! Do you happen to know if Ivermectin is the brand name or the active ingredient? I'm not confident at all that I can find it here if it's the brand name.

Thanks again,
IE

 

[BantamLover21]

Ivermectin is the active ingredient. However, I have to disagree with BantamFan4Life. At least from what I've learned from reading BYC threads and browsing the Internet, Ivermectin is not a good choice of wormer. It has been used so often to kill both external and internal parasites on chickens that many worms have become resistant to it. I wouldn't want to worm a chicken with Ivermectin, get a false sense of security, and then have an supposedly worm-free bird get killed due to wormer resistant parasites.

A better choice is fenbendazole, commonly sold as SafeGuard or Panacur. It kills all worms, including tapeworms, and is generally safe. Unfortunately, I don't know what the dosage for fenbendazole is, especially in the powdered form that you got. I know the dosage for paste form of fenbendazole (Safeguard--made for goat worming) is roughly a pea sized amount for a bird, but I just haven't heard of powdered fenbendazole.

Hopefully, someone else with more worming knowledge chimes in here.

 

[BayBay Peepers]

I used safeguard liquid wormer for goats. I'll go look where I got the dosage from and post it for you.

 

[BayBay Peepers]

.5ml per 2.2 pounds

 

[IronEagle]

.5ml per 2.2 pounds

BayBay Peepers,
Thank you so much for your reply. This does make me feel better about moving ahead with what I've got. Now I've just got to figure out how to dose from a powder. Any chance you can tell me what percentage the Safeguard is? Perhaps this can help me figure what the best dose is. I could mix it up in the food as the package recommends and then separately feed each bird until they have eaten all of their dose.

Also, do you withhold food before dosing?

Hopefully I'll hear from someone with experience dosing from a powder.

Thank you again!
IE

 

[BayBay Peepers]

Unfortunately I have not used a powder, but dawg53, eggcessive, and casportpony have good info when it comes to this stuff. (they've all helped me) If you can find threads with them you're on the right track. Maybe soon one of them will see this.

As for the percentage I don't know off the top of my head and for whatever reason couldn't find it on the website of the store I bought it. I'll be home in a few hours and I'll check the bottle and get back to you.

 

[rbaker0345]

You can't overdose with fenbendazole- well its extremely hard to anyway. Can you get a livestock catalog or order livestock supplies online? I know that most ebay sellers will ship to Mexico. I live in a very remote part of NC and probably have a harder time getting stuff than you do.

I would give the fenbendazole to everyone (including the goose) for three days then another course of three days in two weeks. Then every three months I would rotate dewormers. Some good ones are the fenbendazole, valbendazole, piperazine, and pyrantel. Go to poultrypedia.com for dosages and warnings. fenbendazole is really safe but some of the others might warrant a little more caution. The thing is not to use the same anthelmintec every time you treat them.

Some other things I would get from the pharmacy to keep on hand are: wound powder, triple antibiotic powder, coflex, baytril (enrofloxacin), doxycycline, tetracycline, erythromycin, dosing syringes, betadine or chlorhexidine and waterproof tape. I also like to keep some euthanasia solution on hand. I believe that in Mexico you can get certain drugs over the counter and if you can, I would keep some phenobarb or buprenex on hand to help with euthanasia should the need arise. Meloxicam can be given to birds for pain and it works really well but you have to keep the dosage low (poultrypedia again). Also, a digital scale for weighing your birds to figure out dosages is a good thing to have.

If you really want to work up a good list of supplies for life with chickens in a remote area I would look up ozexpat, he lives in the Philippenes and has a really comprehensive list.

On the subject of ivermectin: It works for external mites in chickens, its not so good for internal parasites (at least not here in the states). Knowing that you live in Mexico, in the jungle I would keep it on hand for schistosomes. Look up eye worm- it will give you the chills and is carried by palmetto bugs and other roaches.

 

[rbaker0345]

Castorpony (Kathy) is also a veritable dictionary of chicken boo boo remedies and she's also really nice.