Treating gapeworm in turkeys?

[jenniferf82]

We've never had a parasite problem before despite keeping poultry for about 15 years now. We bought a pair of adult turkeys about 5 months ago and we've noticed pretty much all the poultry making a yawning motion that probably started a few months ago. We had decreased egg production from the chickens, but blamed it on the heat. I'm thinking we brought gape worm in with the new turkeys. Well, we have about 60 hatched turkeys and we've lost four 14 week olds all making a gasping motion and one definitely had gapeworms in the trachea when we cut it open. I've heard turkeys are more susceptible to gapeworm than chickens. We're delaying putting the most recent hatches on the ground until we have this problem under control.
What should we treat with and how often to get this nastiness under control? Sure regret buying adult birds and bringing this junk onto the property when we've never had it before.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

For gapeworm, you'd need Safeguard (fenbendazole). Piperazine only kills roundworms. Gapeworm and tapeworms are a bit tougher to kill. Also, that product isn't made for chickens and there are no established withdrawal periods, per se. Some say two weeks, some say a month.

Because gapeworm is in the trachea and drinks the chicken's blood, the medication has to be in the chicken's bloodstream to be effective.

Strangulation seems to be happening as the chicken reaches to gulp air. The gapeworm grows bigger, blocks more of the trachea, and the eggs go into the chicken's lungs. When the infected chicken coughs, or even shakes the head to try to dislodge the problem, the microscopic eggs can be spread to the coop, run, water, food etc.

From another thread;

I talked to one of our local vets about using one of our parasiteides we use on our cattle 'Cydectin'. Although definitely not an avian vet, the conclusion was that using Cydectin would not be harmful (of course in the correct dosage).

I used the same dosage that is recommended for the Ivemec/mectin products - drops on the skin. Cydectin when used on dairy cattle has no withdrawal period BTW. It is very expensive, an oily purple liquid. I did withdraw the eggs for a short period after using the product. The symptoms on my chicken(s) disappeared, to more grasping for air---particularly one of them--

If you have worm problems, and you know someone who has cattle, they would possibly be willing to give you a small amount to keep around.

My chickens are fine---this was about a month ago.

Hope this helps!​

 

[jenniferf82]

I have Ivomec Pour On, is that something that would work for Gapeworm? I'm going to the feed store tomorrow, didn't get to make it there before closing today because I had finals.

 

[chickenzoo]

Yes, most people use the Ivomec for gapeworm. Give 1/2 cc on skin of adult turkey, 1/4 cc for younger