what to do with eggs during worming

[bibliophile birds]

Quote:
Newbie's question: how is it that something as old and mild as pumpkin and coconut can be effective against worms when today's dewormers have to be much stronger than the ones people began using INSTEAD of pumpkin and coconut all those years ago?

I'm not trying to me a smart-alec. I really would like to understand chicken care.

ridgerunner makes several very good points. i'm not suggesting everyone stop using chemical dewormer all the time. i just wanted to offer the idea that there are alternatives that might work for some people.

modern chemical dewormers have been developed for very specific farming conditions. they are ideally suited to the "feedlot" farmers who are either uninterested or unable to rotate pasture so that their animals aren't constantly living in poop. because of this, the dewormers MUST kill the worms or they would just be reinjested almost immediately.

for someone with space constraints that cannot move their chickens around or keep them up out of their poop for certain periods of time, chemical dewormers may be the best option. you just need to look into what works best for you and keeps your birds healthy. for backyard rangers or birds on raised runs, alternative methods may be quite effective.

pumpkin works as basically a system flush. it will give your chickies the runs, so it shouldn't be fed often or you can cause nutritional deficiencies. basically, the pumpkin doesn't kill the worms but it removes them from the chicken's digestive systems. this will be most effective if the chickens can be moved to a completely new area the day after eating the pumpkin (you need to give them time to actually process it). this way, they will poop out all (or virtually all) the worms and then not have a chance to reinjest them. if you have very limited space, you may try creating a divide in your run so you can sequester the chickens for a limited amount of time to deal with the problem. most parasites don't survive in the open air for very long, so if you treat the area with DE and let it sit for a week or so, you can then open it back up and you should be fairly secure.

to be honest, i have NO idea how the coconut works, but coconuts are incredible wonder foods. there are studies that show coconut ridding people in India of 6 ft tape worms... it's insane. do your own research since i'm certainly no authority. there is a lot of good information out there though.

 

[allison finch]

I have been having fun with the cast off eggs. I have been giving them to my two silkie/cochin broodies. I figured.....what the heck!. They both insist on crowding into the same nest box. I sat two eggs in front of them and watched as they each rolled one underneath themselves. THEN, I watched as they would stick their heads underneath the other and roll the egg out and steal it. The eggs were rolled back and forth all day. I wish someone near me had fertile TRUE araucauna/Ameraucauna eggs for them to hatch. Maybe it would shake them out of the broodiness.

I'm hoping a week and a half will be enough time to wait to eat the eggs.

 

[rcentner]

Ok, it says not to eat the eggs for 2 weeks, but in 2 weeks you are supposed to re-treat (the drug only works on adult stages and must be repeated in 2 weeks to get the ones that are now adults). I just dewormed last week and I have eaten a few of the eggs simply because I can't bring myself to throw away a months worth of eggs. I also read in the veterinary drug handbook and it says in there that it is safe to use in pregnant animals and that it has a very high safety margin. They do not use in humans as it can lower the seizure threshold (so if u are prone to seizures, don't eat the eggs). I It also stated that there is no evidence to suggest that the dewormer affects the eggs or is tranferred to the eggs (and no studies have been done to prove either way). So....If you are like me and figure you may need some dewormer yourself anyway then eat the eggs, if you are wary dont eat them. But chooks love scrambled eggs.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

to be honest, i have NO idea how the coconut works, but coconuts are incredible wonder foods. there are studies that show coconut ridding people in India of 6 ft tape worms... it's insane. do your own research since i'm certainly no authority. there is a lot of good information out there though.

Raw coconut oil is antivirul, antibacterial, and antifungul. Not only is it an ideal lipid for humans ( it will not clog anything up), it will work wonders on chickens with worms. Just make sure its raw, and not heat treated.
OT, but the oil is ideal for disinfecting doorknobs and lightswitches after illness as well.​

 

[Akane]

Most dewormers are safe for use in humans even if they aren't regularly used so any residual amounts in eggs are unlikely to be harmful.


Natural dewormers will not work on an existing infestation without other changes. They will help keep populations lower and that's it. They are a preventative not a treatment. The reason wild animals suffer less parasites is because they aren't reingesting the eggs. Very few parasites can live out their entire lifecycle in one host. The adults shed eggs which leave the body and then are ingested by another animal or the same animal. The more animal waste you have in a smaller area the more they ingest parasite eggs and larvae. Things like rotational grazing, lower stocking levels, and keeping things cleaner will do more to lower parasite levels than any natural dewormer. Combined they could potentially eliminate the need for chemical dewormers. We used to deworm our horses regularly every 1-2months or they'd develop such a bad infestation they'd even start to show physical symptoms like tail rubbing. In the past year we have yet to use a chemical dewormer. The difference is we had 3 times as many horses in less space. We sold many of our horses and added on another pasture and parasites are no longer a problem. I plan to use a combination dewormer this fall and that will be the first time in a year they've been dewormed. If the parasites are reaching a high enough concentration you have no choice but to use chemical dewormers. No natural dewormer out there that works that well will be any safer. Plenty of animals and people have been poisoned by "natural" compounds and herbs that were taken for various reasons. Natural does not mean completely safe at any amount.

 

[accio! chickens]

If it helps, when I was worming my hens with the drench for cattle (ivermec) i knocked the bottle a bit and soaked my hand. I'm still alive and kickin'

 

[jhm47]

When my cousin was doing his medical residency, he went to Sierra Leone (a country on the western coast of Africa). While he was there, he used huge amounts of Ivomec on humans. It was considered a wonder drug there, and the manufacturer donated millions of $ worth to be used on humans. One of the biggest threats to humans in that country is parasites, and the Ivomec was effective on most of them. River blindness was a major cause of blindness in the people, and Ivomec saved thousands of them from going blind. There are also many other worms, like elephantiasis, and another one that encircles the affected person's body. Ivomec worked on these too. I'd eat the eggs without reservation. Who knows what parasites might be lurking in our bodies?

 

[bibliophile birds]

DDT was once hailed as a wonder of science and thought to be harmless. we learned the hard way that it wasn't.

like i said, i'm not trying to convince everyone to abandon chemical dewormer altogether. but we should all be aware of alternatives. even if we cut back on the use of chemical dewormer by using the alternatives then we're doing better. i, for one, don't like them. and i don't like giving my money to chemical companies.

like Akane said, a lot has to do with your set-up. if your only option is to use chemicals to keep your animals healthy, then do it. of course. but if you can use other methods, and save yourself that money, then why not look into it? plus, you don't ever have to worry about throwing your eggs out. sounds good to me!

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I feel dumb asking this, but why do people worm chickens? Is it because they see the worms or is it just a routine health care done in case there might be worms.

I have checked and I don't see any worms in any poop. I also have never wormed them either. I have always gone with "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

 

[rcentner]

Quote:
I have read that you only need to deworm your chickens if you are seeing parasites in the feces, chickens are capable of dealing with a certain amount of worms, but if the load gets too heavy then you start seeing worms in the stool and possible health problems. A vet at cornell university I spoke to yesterday said that when a sick chicken comes to the hospital they always deworm it as it will help the chicken heal from whatever else it has. Also, egg production can suffer if the parasite load is too heavy. Lots of people never deworm their chickens. I agree with what is said about keeping the load down by rotating pastures...I wish I could rotate the chickens "pasture" as I have seen worms now that they are in the runs more. Good luck all! I will have my DH post a message on here if I die from the dewormed eggs.