Tapeworms?

[Trampmom]

I have a 2 year old broad breasted turkey hen, a 2 year old bantam rooster, and 5 sixteen week old girls (one is a bantam).

Last night we took them out for supervised free ranging, and I noticed the Mystic Marans seemed to be straining to go to the bathroom, and she was reaching around to her butt.

I could see something white and flat poking out. Her feathers were very spread out so I had a good view. I immediately thought of tapeworms, but since I've never had that problem before, I'm not sure.

She finally pooped, but I didn't think to look at it because I was too interested in the white thing (stupid). And I didn't even think to take a picture (stupid!).

Before they went to bed, I checked all butts, and they all looked fine.

She is eating, drinking and acting normal. I checked everyone's poop in the coop this morning and "didn't think" I saw any white fragments. And I specifically watched her poop and did not see any fragments.

In 15 years I've never treated for worms and never had a problem, but I guess now's the time to start! Can anyone give me advice on something I can give them orally (I can't handle shots). And preferably something I can get at TSC or Family Farm and Home?

With the size range of a 30+ pound turkey down to the teeny, tiny bantam, I want to make sure everyone gets the correct dosage.

 

[Eggcessive]

Can you take some collected droppings in to your vet for a fecal float, and tell them you suspect tapeworms? If you can post a picture of a suspect dropping please do so. For normal worming, Valbazen or SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer are both good, but for tapeworms, Equimax horse paste is better for tapeworms, but not the best for regular worms.

Equimax dosage is 0.03 ml per pound or 0.15 ml for a 5 pound chicken. Valbazen dosage is 0.08 ml per pound given orally once and repeated in 10 days. SafeGuard dosage is 0.23 ml per pound given once and again in 10 days for round and cecal worms. For capillary or gapeworms give it 5 consecutive days.
Again for tapeworms a wormer with praziquantel is best used. Those include the Equimax above and Zimecterin Gold (which has a different dosage than Equimax.)

 

[Trampmom]

Can you take some collected droppings in to your vet for a fecal float, and tell them you suspect tapeworms? If you can post a picture of a suspect dropping please do so. For normal worming, Valbazen or SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer are both good, but for tapeworms, Equimax horse paste is better for tapeworms, but not the best for regular worms.

Equimax dosage is 0.03 ml per pound or 0.15 ml for a 5 pound chicken. Valbazen dosage is 0.08 ml per pound given orally once and repeated in 10 days. SafeGuard dosage is 0.23 ml per pound given once and again in 10 days for round and cecal worms. For capillary or gapeworms give it 5 consecutive days.
Again for tapeworms a wormer with praziquantel is best used. Those include the Equimax above and Zimecterin Gold (which has a different dosage than Equimax.)

Thank you for the reply.
Our local vet doesn't deal with chickens. I once drove an hour away to have a beloved rooster put down...

I'm going to keep a close watch on her, and I'll try to get pictures.

I appreciate the dosing amounts. If she has it, should I only treat her, or should I treat all of them?

And should I be treating them on a regular basis with a preventative? And use the same medicine?

 

[Eggcessive]

Many people worm their flocks on a regular basis, while some do not worm unless they see worms or get a fecal test. Worm eggs are not seen without a microscope, though. There are some online worm tests at Amazon that you collect yourself and send in. I don’t know how accurate they are. Twice a year is an average time to worm, and if you live in a very warm wet environment you might need to worm more often. A dry cool environment might only require worming once a year. You will see a lot of different opinions on worming. Some never worm. You can do a lot to prevent worms and reinfestation once you do treat. Many worms have an intermediate host. Tapeworm eggs can be eaten by snails, slugs, earthworms, beetles, and flies. When your chicken eats one of those, they can get reinfected. So cleaning up droppings, keeping bedding dry and clean, avoiding deep litter, and getting rid of those intermediate hosts can help. With tapeworms, you see moving segments in the droppings:

 

[Trampmom]

Many people worm their flocks on a regular basis, while some do not worm unless they see worms or get a fecal test. Worm eggs are not seen without a microscope, though. There are some online worm tests at Amazon that you collect yourself and send in. I don’t know how accurate they are. Twice a year is an average time to worm, and if you live in a very warm wet environment you might need to worm more often. A dry cool environment might only require worming once a year. You will see a lot of different opinions on worming. Some never worm. You can do a lot to prevent worms and reinfestation once you do treat. Many worms have an intermediate host. Tapeworm eggs can be eaten by snails, slugs, earthworms, beetles, and flies. When your chicken eats one of those, they can get reinfected. So cleaning up droppings, keeping bedding dry and clean, avoiding deep litter, and getting rid of those intermediate hosts can help. With tapeworms, you see moving segments in the droppings:

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

 

[keeper 1960]

if you free range, they will aways have worms. a healthy hen will do fine . there are some things you can feed them that will help.

 

[Trampmom]

Can you take some collected droppings in to your vet for a fecal float, and tell them you suspect tapeworms? If you can post a picture of a suspect dropping please do so. For normal worming, Valbazen or SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer are both good, but for tapeworms, Equimax horse paste is better for tapeworms, but not the best for regular worms.

Equimax dosage is 0.03 ml per pound or 0.15 ml for a 5 pound chicken. Valbazen dosage is 0.08 ml per pound given orally once and repeated in 10 days. SafeGuard dosage is 0.23 ml per pound given once and again in 10 days for round and cecal worms. For capillary or gapeworms give it 5 consecutive days.
Again for tapeworms a wormer with praziquantel is best used. Those include the Equimax above and Zimecterin Gold (which has a different dosage than Equimax.)

I've been watching everybody's poop and have not seen any tapeworm fragments. I've actually watched the hen in question poop and didn't see anything.

I hope my picture attached...
This morning I found this egg in the poop when I was cleaning up where they sleep. It's definitely an egg because there was egg white, and the rooster, who sleeps right below them, had yolk all over his back.

Could this have been what I saw trying to come out of her 2 days ago? She did lay a normal egg during the day yesterday.

 

[dawg53]

Yes, it's possible you saw a soft egg shell excreted, not a tapeworm. Tapeworms are flat and segmented. It's very rare to have a tapeworm detach itself from intestinal lining and excreted unless the proper wormer such as Equimax has been given to the tapeworm infected chicken. Why would a parasite want to leave its host, especially a tapeworm?

If any of your birds have tapeworms, you'll see slowly moving rice-like segments in feces as in the video provided by @Eggcessive in post #4.

In the above photo that you provided, did you see any tapeworm segments? There appears that there might be one segment on the top part of the feces in the photo. Either that or it's excess calcium or debris of some sort.

 

[bradymars]

Valbazen is the best wormer for all worms and kills tapes too. About twice a year you can worm them with lye oats. All you do is measure out the amount of oats you need and put them in a five gallon bucket put 1 tablespoon of the pure lye mix with 3 gallons of water soak for 2 days then dont feed the day before you worm make sure you use the right amount of water to lye mix and keep the oats submerged, strain the water off And give a hand full per bird.mine get fermentEd oats daily so they gobble them right up. Get food grade 100 % lye. They will have nice redheads on them. Be careful and only mix like I said. Lye is no joke if given to much it will cause harm. i know most will not try this but this is how farmers used to worm there livestock in the old days and it works. Don’t give to chicks under 6 weeks.

 

[dawg53]

You're right about Valbazen, I've used it for a long time. It kills every known type of worm a chicken can get including flukes as well as some types of protozoa. However I've seen tape worm resistance to Valbazen over the years. I've dealt with tapeworms quite a few times when I lived in Georgia.
Withholding feed from tapeworm infected birds for 24 hours and increasing Valbazen dosage to each tapeworm infected bird and repeating this procedure every other day 3 times will eliminate tapeworms.
It's much easier to dose tapeworm infected birds with Equimax equine horse paste, one dose is all it takes, with one follow up 10 days later. Bye bye tapeworms.

I've used Red Devil lye to worm hogs years ago. They took it off the market due to its illegal use in producing meth.