Valbazen dosage for chickens/turkeys

[FantasyFriesian]

I need to worm all my birds, especially my turkeys. I am noticing perfectly fine droppings in my chickens but my turkeys are in need of worming after seeing their recent droppings. I bought a big bottle of Valbazen and am stuck as to how I should dose my birds. Do I need to use a syringe on each and every chicken? I can easily dose my turkeys as they are very tame but my chickens are all free range so a bit more of a challenge to dose (many roost in my coop at night so can do it in the morning before I let them out but quite a few don't go in the coop). Most of my chickens are average size with a couple being Bantam mixes so a bit smaller. My Tom is quite large (Narragansett) but my two hens are half his size. Can anyone give me the proper dosage and worming schedule for chickens and turkeys? Also I have a one week old turkey poult - can I do her too? How much? We recently moved to Florida and there have never been chickens on these pastures so I guess it's good they are no longer on the Texas pastures due to contamination. How long do I have to toss the eggs? 3 or 4 weeks?
Thank you!

 

[Judy]

For large fowl chickens it is 0.5 ml for each bird. Give a second dose in 10 days and for bantams, give half that dose, 0.25 cc. Toss eggs for 1` days if you wish. (It is recommended to do this, but this is a drug that is also given to people.)

Unfortunately, yes, it must be given individually. Mine aren't particularly people friendly, but picking them up off the roost after dark works well. You can squirt it in their mouths with a syringe (Hold one and gently pull the waddles down) or put a dose on a bite of bread and give that. It's a lot easier with a helper or at least a separate space to put the ones who have had a dose. It would be nice if there were a wormer you can add to water that kills something besides roundworms, but there isn't. Maybe you can collect them all into a yard or the coop with some sort of goody. I don't envy you your challenge!

I have no idea about turkeys but I would think you would do it by weight. That is, figure around 8 lbs. for large fowl chickens and 4 lbs. for bantams, and adjust accordngly.

 

[FantasyFriesian]

Thank you Judy! No help here so I'll have to figure it out. Do you know if the Valbazan helps with Coccidiosis? While my chickens don't have a problem my turkeys are starting to have some spots of blood in the droppings.

 

[dawg53]

Thank you Judy! No help here so I'll have to figure it out. Do you know if the Valbazan helps with Coccidiosis? While my chickens don't have a problem my turkeys are starting to have some spots of blood in the droppings.

Valbazen does have an effect on certain protozoas, but you'd be better off using corid. I dont know dosages for turkeys. The corid 9.6% liquid solution dosage for chickens is 9.5cc's per gallon of water for 5 days.

 

[FantasyFriesian]

Would it be overkill to use both? I already wormed with Valbazen and doubled the dosage for my turkeys because from what I remember that is what you need to do for turkeys. Everyone seems fine a couple days later...I had my oldest rooster acting drunk like he couldn't get up and then wobbled around and did this for a short time and now he is up and doing fine. I even wormed a 7 day old turkey poult. We lost 9 others just a few days after they hatched (very possibly from parasites I was unaware of). All chickens and turkeys are doing well. Can I give them the Corid for 5 days or would that be too much meds at once? Or can I use the Corid in 10 days instead of the Valbazen? The problem I have with meds in water is that I'm in Florida and there is always a water supply somewhere....so they don't necessarily always drink from their bowl. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks

 

[sherahart]

I know this is an old thread, but the concern is still valid. Corid works for Coccidia but not all parasites. We used Valbazen because it seemed the gapeworms (I confirmed eggs by microscopic exam.) were resistant to Ivermectin after 2 years of treatment every other month. I called Zoetis and their vet wouldn't give a dosage for turkeys because a study would be necessary and isn't economically profitable. So I called our vet, and she said Ivermectin is best for gapeworms (4cc of the soluble kind/quart of water as sole source of water for 2 to 3 days). However, in the case of resistance, Valbazen dosage does depend on size. She confirmed the 1cc amount for adult turkeys or half a cc for poults no bigger than a chicken. One of our juvenile chickens died right after getting oral Valbazen, but it might have been shock. After treating each bird, we put it in another run with older juveniles. I didn't worry because they had been together before for a short time. This time, once we finished the whole group and opened the gate, 2 pullets didn't move. One died as we tried to give it a drink; CPR failed. The other pullet was sluggish for hours but recovered. There was no swelling or redness, so I'm not sure it was an allergic reaction. They might have been bullied. Either way,I felt terrible. However, we had already lost 2 chickens in spite of Ivermectin in the water given 2 months previous with a 7 day repeat. It's possible that some chickens found another water source, or maybe my son measured wrong, and they didn't get enough. We are going to use Ivermectin for the 7 day repeat. I guess I will do a few more microscopic exams afterward to check, throat swabs and fecal floats because you can't always recover worms or eggs from a throat. Under a microscope, the eggs are yellow-brown, kind of a narrow football shape, with thick walls and a cap at the ends. This picture was under low power so you can see the size relative to the viewing field. I couldn't get the camera to focus any better.



I found a CDC report of a man who had been to Brazil and got the mammalian version of gapeworms. They pulled the worms from his upper respiratory tract and posted a picture. Treatment was Albendazole followed by Mebendazole. I wonder if they analyzed the genetic makeup of the bird and mammalian type of worms, would they be the same?