When should chickens be worm free after safeguard?

[PippinChicken]

Hi all,
I recently discovered my chickens had roundworms. Individually gave each once an oral dose of goat safeguard, then repeated in ten days. Faces and combs are no longer pale but I think I spotted a worm while cleaning their coop today. Their second dose was six days ago. Should they all be gone by now if it was effective, or is it normal for them to still be excreting the last of the worms?

 

[pibb]

I don't have any real experience with worms but I would think they should be gone 6 days after the 2nd dose.
Poop pics of the worms in question would be real helpful.
What dose did you give it?

 

[PippinChicken]

I don't have any real experience with worms but I would think they should be gone 6 days after the 2nd dose.
Poop pics of the worms in question would be real helpful.
What dose did you give it?

2 mL each, given individually so there's no question of if a certain bird didn't get any...

Don't have any pics but they were definitely roundworms. The only reason I'm less confident about today's finding is because it was deep within a bedding coated semi frozen poop that I poked apart with a stick

 

[pibb]

Sounds like you gave more than enough medicine. I thought you were going to say you had tapeworms or something harder to get rid of than roundworms.

I'm guessing the worms you saw are from an earlier point in which they were expelled. I would clean out the bedding and coop after the last round of medicine so there are no traces of worms. Chickens peck at everything including things wiggling in their poo. That is why it's hard to get rid of tapeworms.

After you give everything a good cleaning, then keep your eye on the poo.

 

[PippinChicken]

Sounds like you gave more than enough medicine. I thought you were going to say you had tapeworms or something harder to get rid of than roundworms.

I'm guessing the worms you saw are from an earlier point in which they were expelled. I would clean out the bedding and coop after the last round of medicine so there are no traces of worms. Chickens peck at everything including things wiggling in their poo. That is why it's hard to get rid of tapeworms.

After you give everything a good cleaning, then keep your eye on the poo.

Thanks for the info! I did a full bedding clean out after the second dose but am unable to do anything like pasture rotation so there's always the chance they grabbed some more outside... although I'm not sure how well roundworms and worm eggs fare outside a host in freezing temperatures. Fingers crossed it was either an older poop or just the last worm to make it through. Or, better yet, not even a worm after all

 

[dawg53]

Thanks for the info! I did a full bedding clean out after the second dose but am unable to do anything like pasture rotation so there's always the chance they grabbed some more outside... although I'm not sure how well roundworms and worm eggs fare outside a host in freezing temperatures. Fingers crossed it was either an older poop or just the last worm to make it through. Or, better yet, not even a worm after all

You're right, they'll be back because worm eggs can survive in soil for months, frozen or not frozen. Chemical soil treatments are ineffective. Direct sunlight or heating the soil will kill the eggs.
Monthly wormings will eventually end their lifecycle.

 

[PippinChicken]

You're right, they'll be back because worm eggs can survive in soil for months, frozen or not frozen. Chemical soil treatments are ineffective. Direct sunlight or heating the soil will kill the eggs.
Monthly wormings will eventually end their lifecycle.

Darn, that was my concern but I don't have any other choice unless I want to set them loose to fend for themselves on the rest of the property with no shelter or predator protection.

Is monthly worming the best solution for this situation?

 

[dawg53]

My birds are penned all the time. I worm monthly, and have been doing so for a long time. I have sand in the pens which helps in keeping everything as dry as possible. I remove soiled bedding from inside the coops every morning. It only takes about 10 minutes after 2 cups of coffee, 15 minutes without coffee lol.
You can always gather fresh fecals and take them to a vet and have them look under a microscope for worm eggs. If they're clear, perhaps you can worm every 2 or 3 months. It really depends on your soil conditions. Wet/moist warm soil is worm soup.

 

[PippinChicken]

My birds are penned all the time. I worm monthly, and have been doing so for a long time. I have sand in the pens which helps in keeping everything as dry as possible. I remove soiled bedding from inside the coops every morning. It only takes about 10 minutes after 2 cups of coffee, 15 minutes without coffee lol.
You can always gather fresh fecals and take them to a vet and have them look under a microscope for worm eggs. If they're clear, perhaps you can worm every 2 or 3 months. It really depends on your soil conditions. Wet/moist warm soil is worm soup.

That's really helpful, thank you. We are just mud all winter so I've been thinking about doing sand in the run too.
What wormer(s) do you use and what sort of egg withdrawal do you personally do?

 

[dawg53]

I use Valbazen, Safeguard liquid goat wormer, pyrantel pamoate and sometimes wazine.
We eat the eggs after worming. I dont recommend it if you or someone is susceptible to an adverse reaction to residue in eggs or allergic to it. It would be best to toss eggs in the garbage for a couple weeks after the last dosing. Also you dont want to sell nor give eggs away to be eaten and dont feed eggs back to the chickens.