To worm or not to worm that is the question.

[Jesusfreak101]

Outside of killing the good bacteria and other things that help chickens survive the problem i had with the ideal of worming is your using something thats for another animal to do this and yet it really hasnt be aproved in chickens. So as much as one can estimate when it would be ok to eat said chicken or eggs can you really be sure. I know some medication stay in our system for a month and the amount is small but the damage still can be done in away if its the same with chickens. If i can refrain from worming i am going to i prefer not using chemicals if its not needed or required to keep a healthy flock.

 

[Justso]

I would agree with OldHen but...This year for the first time I've dewormed. This came about because my close neighbor acquired a number of new chickens, one of which had worms and died (might have been compromised by other issues as well). Here's the Backyard reality, our flocks sometimes mix and who knows what came in on the new chicks? I recently lost nearly all my laying hens to a predator, so I didn't want to risk losing any of my new pullets or one older hen. We both dewormed in September, and we both just finished our second treatment with Valbazen, (1 cc for standard foul, 1/2cc for bantams/small chickens). We administered 2 doses, 10 days apart and eggs need to be discarded for 10 days (no layers for me right now so it's not a problem.)
I will point out that non-worming advocates have a good point as far as natural order. I am not a production breeder or egg producer, I keep these animals for my own use and fancy. The loss of just one animal has a lot of impact.

 

[Jesusfreak101]

We keep them for our own use as well. But with as expensive eggs are for our family i am not sure i can just throw eggs away. Right now we a family of three and go through atleast 5 dozen a month. I am pregnant with our second child so that means a few more eggs we would be using. Right now i get about 11.6 dozen a month from the hens that are laying and i am able to give some away to my parents and his father but thats also when i am careful not to use alot of the eggs. Which between baking and cooking with them is hard for us to do. For us the feed is cheaper then buying eggs we spend about .08 a egg. Ours free range in 1300sq foot area. So if its caused by them eating bugs like i keep reading then no matter what they are going to because i dont regulate what the eat. I put scraps, flock raiser cumbles(about one horse scoop a day) mix with scratch. By the end of the day they barely eat that the eat coastal grass bugs and what ever seeds they find in the yard(lots of natural plants and my garden). So yeah. All of the birds are healthy and happy so for now i stick with it. I am about to build a compost bin so less goes to waste(scraps they cant have) plus it attract more insects for them and i have great soil for my plants.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Certain critters that chickens eat CAN be part of certain worms’ life cycle (tapeworm and gapeworm) if the worm is present to start with. If the worms is not present in that particular environment, grubs, snails, grasshoppers, or other critters will not be part of that life cycle. Roundworms (the most common) and some other worms do not need an intermediate host. They can be passed from bird to bird, normally by eating the droppings after the eggs have matured in the ground for two to three weeks.

There are different types of worms that can infect chickens. They have different life cycles. Some do more damage than others. How much damage is done, if any, will depend on how heavily they are infected.

 

[shortgrass]

Well I'll wait and see if Bee digs up those articles again @Ridgerunner before I try to find them... Lol I can tell you what microbe to use to kill mosquito larvae but I can't work a computer or cell phone without wanting to throw it in the creek ha-ha


By I did dig up some stuff on wormwood, just for reference for now; time allowing, I'll dug up the rest if the articles I have saved somewhere in my phone
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037887411000382X

http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1751731107000730

http://www.biomedcentral.com/conten...f%EF%BF%BD%C3%A9e%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD%C2%ACu%C3


And I do understand that a lot of owners don't have the space or options I do... I am greatly blessed with what I have to be able to pick up and move animals to completely different homesteads if need be, but I try to prevent that This spring we had an eerily wet spring, so I was on the watch for an increase in the crickets, because they've been known to cause worm infestations... It can get out if balance, but other plants also grew that I've never had and I found out one of them was Nettles, turns out to have anthelmintic properties! So, I got an excess if worm loaded crickets, but I also got a new plant to eradicate the worms they had

I would do the same thing as I do now if I had a serious infestation, with one twist... I would max out my beneficial microbes, order nematodes, change ph levels, medicate with all the plants I can find all at once, and pray that I was able to stop it. Or cull my entire flock.

Drastic measures yes, but these are livestock. Sure I adore my chooks, but I can't afford to do anything more for chickens. A cow, yes. Chicken no

Pets are pets. I DO worm cats and dogs occasionally, especially if I see a stray around or see feces with obvious worms. But they're pets and I don't eat them no drugs enter the food chain for sure, but I have organic crops here, so I'm not even ALLOWED to have wormers on my property unless approved by the USDA...

As always, its up to the owner to take all options into account and be fully educated before unknowingly giving medicines, because there actually ARE easier, better options if we just look around

 

[azygous]

In all these eight years of chicken keeping, I've never had the problem of worms in my flock. How do I know they've never had worms? I sent off stool samples to the local university veterinary lab for testing for a reasonable fee and received back a report on both parasites and pathogens that were negative.

Unless you see the worms wiggling in the poop, I wouldn't worm until after I had the poop tested and found they were positive for worms.

 

[shortgrass]

As requested, here's a few articles on garlic...
http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/19560801278.html;jsessionid=D37A4598D65C93C0CD039B6FE1F7285E

http://m.ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/2/364.short


Nettles...
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1746-4269-7-21

This one has dandelion, nettkes, and curcubits (pumpkins)

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cnf/2010/00000006/00000004/art00008

These ones used papayas...
http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Journal/ArticleDetail/3404150

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874106002819

And I can't remember the thread where Bee had those links... I saved them but can't find them lol... I'll keep looking; in the meantime, here's one for cucurbits..

http://idosi.org/gv/gv11(5)13/11.pdf


Oh, 2...

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-1764-0_40/fulltext.html

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thanks, Shortgrass. I’m leaving on a trip in about an hour so don’t have time to study those right now. I don’t take the internet with me when I visit relatives. I’ve skimmed a couple of those and they deserve some time to study.

 

[aart]

Thanks, Shortgrass. I’m leaving on a trip in about an hour so don’t have time to study those right now. I don’t take the internet with me when I visit relatives. I’ve skimmed a couple of those and they deserve some time to study.

Waves.... good bye, have a nice trip ...to Ridgerunner!

 

[Justso]

In all these eight years of chicken keeping, I've never had the problem of worms in my flock. How do I know they've never had worms? I sent off stool samples to the local university veterinary lab for testing for a reasonable fee and received back a report on both parasites and pathogens that were negative.

Unless you see the worms wiggling in the poop, I wouldn't worm until after I had the poop tested and found they were positive for worms.

Hi azygous, I guess my question to you would be if you did find they were positive would you bother to worm them?

Also - good for you for keeping up with regular testing, personally I don't feel that we (backyard owners in urban/suburban settings like me) stay in touch enough with our state Ag extensions. They are on the line of defense for disease.