Maggots are indeed harmful to chickens. Since they digest filth (rather than just dirt as earthworms do) they also digest a lot more bacteria than earthworms and the like do. They're notorious carriers of botulism. This is something I learned the hard way. I thought that it would take carcass maggots to do so, but learned just from fly larvae in a damp space where some leaves were decaying that they can cause botulism. I lost ducks to it.
Decaying vegetation (like hay if you have a place out of the reach of horses where you ever put hay), algea ponds, puddles, etc - stagnant water - those things can also be sources of botulism which results in very quick death. Usually if you catch the symptoms the birds will have a very fowl smelling quite green dropping, very runny diarrhea. They will have paralysis - flaccing meaning floppy. It tends to hit one leg or the other and I think I read somewhere that it tends to hit the left side but that could be misremembering. Mine all did the left side. It also ends up paralyzing the neck (limberneck is its nickname) and then the respiratory system if they get enough of it. You might find them dead with profuse green droppings that really smell. Clostridium bacteria results in a horrible smelling dropping, usually green, and way worse smelling even than cecal droppings. It will literally run you out of a small room.
If you see any of your birds showing any signs, or know that they've gotten into something rotten (as chickens tend to do) you can find recipes for a mollasses or epsom salt flush online. I used the molasses flush with luck on two ducks.
In any case, when you see maggots, dispose of them and make that ground unattractive to the birds - put sand over it, or something.
On worming - yes, earthworms do carry a lot but what can you do (other than worm)? They're chickens. That's why instead of treating birds to worms, I always recommend buying (and even raising) mealyworms which live in a more clean environment and don't act as a host vector to parasites.
For worming, the first time in an older flock I always worm with Wazine which is piperazine 17% solution. It's a liquid you mix with water for one day. Withhold (don't eat eggs or meat) for two weeks. (This is really good to do during molt btw). Then I follow up with a broad spectrum wormer (my choice is pour-on ivermectin) which I repeat twice annually thereafter without the pre-worming of wazine.
The reason for the wazine is that it only paralyzes the adults of about three types of worms. It's not very broad spectrum, is mean to be repeated, and is a mild wormer. The reason I do that is without a fecal egg count done by a vet, you really don't know how many worms a bird has. They don't generally shed worms in their droppings even if they're heavily infested. If they had a heavy infestation and you wormed them with something that kills both adults and larvae, then you risk over-stressing the bird with the dying worms (which then are seen as 'foreign proteins' by the body), and possibly clogging if a large number of dying/paralyzed worms leave the body. There are a number of worms that live in the lungs of birds at one point in their stage, in the crop, in the airways (gapeworms) and to kill them all if there were a lot - well you can see how it could be a mess.
So intead, using Wazine knocks back their numbers to allow the birds to get better nutrition, more health, without the risks. Just adult worms. Then you go back 2 weeks later and kill everything - including the larvae - so you don't have to worry as much about those larvae transitioning into infective adults.
So my protocol: wazine first, ,wait 2 weeks, then use something stronger (levamisole, fenbendazole, ivermectin).
Decaying vegetation (like hay if you have a place out of the reach of horses where you ever put hay), algea ponds, puddles, etc - stagnant water - those things can also be sources of botulism which results in very quick death. Usually if you catch the symptoms the birds will have a very fowl smelling quite green dropping, very runny diarrhea. They will have paralysis - flaccing meaning floppy. It tends to hit one leg or the other and I think I read somewhere that it tends to hit the left side but that could be misremembering. Mine all did the left side. It also ends up paralyzing the neck (limberneck is its nickname) and then the respiratory system if they get enough of it. You might find them dead with profuse green droppings that really smell. Clostridium bacteria results in a horrible smelling dropping, usually green, and way worse smelling even than cecal droppings. It will literally run you out of a small room.
If you see any of your birds showing any signs, or know that they've gotten into something rotten (as chickens tend to do) you can find recipes for a mollasses or epsom salt flush online. I used the molasses flush with luck on two ducks.
In any case, when you see maggots, dispose of them and make that ground unattractive to the birds - put sand over it, or something.
On worming - yes, earthworms do carry a lot but what can you do (other than worm)? They're chickens. That's why instead of treating birds to worms, I always recommend buying (and even raising) mealyworms which live in a more clean environment and don't act as a host vector to parasites.
For worming, the first time in an older flock I always worm with Wazine which is piperazine 17% solution. It's a liquid you mix with water for one day. Withhold (don't eat eggs or meat) for two weeks. (This is really good to do during molt btw). Then I follow up with a broad spectrum wormer (my choice is pour-on ivermectin) which I repeat twice annually thereafter without the pre-worming of wazine.
The reason for the wazine is that it only paralyzes the adults of about three types of worms. It's not very broad spectrum, is mean to be repeated, and is a mild wormer. The reason I do that is without a fecal egg count done by a vet, you really don't know how many worms a bird has. They don't generally shed worms in their droppings even if they're heavily infested. If they had a heavy infestation and you wormed them with something that kills both adults and larvae, then you risk over-stressing the bird with the dying worms (which then are seen as 'foreign proteins' by the body), and possibly clogging if a large number of dying/paralyzed worms leave the body. There are a number of worms that live in the lungs of birds at one point in their stage, in the crop, in the airways (gapeworms) and to kill them all if there were a lot - well you can see how it could be a mess.
So intead, using Wazine knocks back their numbers to allow the birds to get better nutrition, more health, without the risks. Just adult worms. Then you go back 2 weeks later and kill everything - including the larvae - so you don't have to worry as much about those larvae transitioning into infective adults.
So my protocol: wazine first, ,wait 2 weeks, then use something stronger (levamisole, fenbendazole, ivermectin).
