The best chicken wormer? And how often?

[casportpony]

No, I guess it doesn't, lol, but I did look up several different species and found info saying that fenbendazole is an effective wormer for them, but I'm guessing it probably requires several days dosing.

-Kathy

 

[dawg53]

Here in this part of the country, fenbendazole is ineffective against tapeworms. Albendazole and praziquantel are effective against them. If you add praziquantel w/ fenbendazole, then yes...a deadly combo against all worms. I prefer one wormer to do it all...valbazen.

 

[casportpony]

Here in this part of the country, fenbendazole is ineffective against tapeworms. Albendazole and praziquantel are effective against them. If you add praziquantel w/ fenbendazole, then yes...a deadly combo against all worms. I prefer one wormer to do it all...valbazen.

So you think that fenbendazole three days in a row won't work on tapes? Just curious... I've only ever seen evidence of tapes in my cats. Not saying the chickens don't have them, just never seen and evidence of them and my fecals have always been negative, but I also know that false negatives are possible.

-Kathy

 

[dawg53]

Quote: Safeguard didnt work for me against tapes. Consider yourself lucky that you havnt dealt with them in your chickens. Segments in chicken feces looks like uncooked white rice. Just when you think you've gotten rid of them, a week or two later you start seeing the segments in feces again. The reason is that the tapeworm 'head' is buried in the intestinal lining. If you dont administer a high enough dose of valbazen and withhold feed for a day or two, you'll never kill the darn thing and it will continue producing segments. Withholding feed weakens the worms making the wormer more effective. Each segment contains hundreds of eggs. The segments work their way onto and into the soil where eggs are eaten by earthworms, ants, termites, and other insects. Then
your chickens eat the infected insect, completeing the tapeworms lifecycle. A regular worming schedule is needed to kill larva before they mature and reproduce. When specifically dealing with tapeworms, I also rotate with praziquantel.
It's difficult to control tapeworm infective insects. I believe wild birds migrating south years ago infected our soil with segments. It had been an ongoing battle for a while.

 

[rbaker0345]

I had tapes in my ducks and chickens and I used the praziquantel, but you have to be very careful. You could also double dose with pyrantel, we used to do that in horses before praziquantel became readily available.


I think that you're all right as far as which is the best wormer for chickens. In my humble opinion, rotating dewormers is the best policy. Parasites can develop resistance to anthelmintics, maybe not as easily as bacteria to antibiotics, but we're seeing a lot of anthelmintic resistance in this part of the state (in horse parasites) in the past couple of years and that's thanks to people giving their horses and dogs the same dewormer month after month and in the case of some feed-through wormers in horses, they get them every day. That's just a recipe for resistance. Plus, if you rotate, you don't have to worry about whether you're killing all of the worms that your chickens have, you will eventually rotate onto something that will kill whatever isn't covered by the current dewormer.

 

[casportpony]

Since were talking about wormers, I just read this:
"WARNING: niclosamide is toxic for geese, and the combination of praziquantel with pyrantel tartrate is toxic for chicken!"
Source:http://parasitipedia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2588&Itemid=2870

I don't know how true it is, just thought I should share it.

-Kathy

 

[rbaker0345]

I don't do a combo of pyrantel and praziquantel. I actually use a horse dewormer called Quest and it is moxidectin/praziquantel, but it can still be toxic if you don't keep the dosage on the minimum side.

 

[dawg53]

I don't do a combo of pyrantel and praziquantel. I actually use a horse dewormer called Quest and it is moxidectin/praziquantel, but it can still be toxic if you don't keep the dosage on the minimum side.

You're right. Quest Plus requires exact dosage, no room for overdosing. From what I read only a "BB" size amount was necessary. I bought some long ago but decided not to use it in my chickens because of the close tolerance dosing. Instead I use Zimectrin Gold, much safer. Another one is Equimax which has a higher percentage of praziquantel than Z-Gold. As long as the Z-Gold works, I'll stick with it and see no reason to use a higher dose of praziquantel (for tapes only) while rotating with valbazen and safeguard. I've read reports of pyrantel pamoate becoming ineffective in some flocks. I'd use it as a last resort as it doesnt kill certain type of worms that chickens can get, same for wazine.

 

[casportpony]

I don't do a combo of pyrantel and praziquantel. I actually use a horse dewormer called Quest and it is moxidectin/praziquantel, but it can still be toxic if you don't keep the dosage on the minimum side.

I just thought the pyrantel/praziquantel thing was interesting because I do use that combo on cats.

-Kathy

 

[dawg53]

Quote: I think drontal or droncit is the combo used for cats, not sure though.