White egg like specks on chicken poop

[Becky Stone]

I've recently been letting my chickens free range in our acre back yard full of weeds. I live in AZ & this evening I noticed three different chicken poops had teeny tiny white eggs looking specks on them. Is this from eating weeds or I'm thinking worm eggs.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi

Welcome To BYC

Can you post some photos?



If the poop you saw was fresh and you suspect they are eggs from worms and not insects (flies) or weed seeds, then worming them would be a good idea. Taking a fresh sample to your vet for testing of worms is always best.

You can give Valbazen 1/2 ml orally and then repeated in 10 days for each chicken or Fenbendazole (Safeguard, Panacur) at 1/4 ml per pound for 5 days in a row.


http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2015/11/control-treatment-of-worms-in-chickens.html

 

[Eggcessive]

If the droppings have been out in the yard, it would be hard to tell if they are from the chickens or not. I have seen droppings with feed granules that looked suspicious. Tapeworms, which are not very common in chickens can be seen as white specks that may be moving in the droppings. They need special treatment such as a wormer containing Praziquantel. You really would be better off looking at fresh droppings to tell. Below are some pictures of tapeworm segments that are tiny short flat ribbons:

photo by CynthisMQ

photo by chickencrazy21

 

[Becky Stone]

Yep, that is exactly what my chickens have. Yuck! I don't even know how they got it. My worry is that my goats are around the chickens as well. I'll have to find a good dewormer. Thanks for your help.

 

[Eggcessive]

Yep, that is exactly what my chickens have. Yuck! I don't even know how they got it. My worry is that my goats are around the chickens as well. I'll have to find a good dewormer. Thanks for your help.

Tapeworms are more of a bother, and you probably can only control them, not stamp them out completely. Removing droppings from ranging areas or coops, a regular dewormer with praziquantel or a combo product, is what you can do. Casportpony has several good threads on worming. Do a search top of this page for "tapeworm." Her research of latest treatments are good. The later the threads you look for up in the search box, the more accurate the information. Many online articles can be outdated. Some have successfully used Valbazen for several days in a row with success.