Worm in poop during deworming

[Eddie12109]

Hi all,
I started deworming my two hens yesterday. I am using safeguard liquid goat dewormer and Eddie is getting 1.2 mL and Dev is getting 1.4 mL.
I dewormed just as a regular thing. No liquid poops, besides heat ones but that is normal in Florida weather. It’s been rainy and cool the past few days and it was normal poops.
Today, Dev had a worm in her poop that I took pictures of, placed a q tip by it to show you the size of it. She lays eggs and is acting healthy. How come this happened? Why does she have a worm but is healthy?

In November I wormed my hens randomly, none were unwell. The same thing happened where a healthy hen had a worm in her poop the second day.
I doubt this is normal, any ideas why this is happening?
@azygous @Wyorp Rock @TwoCrows

 

[Kiki]

Did you mean to attach a picture?

Not all chickens act like they're dying when they have worms.
Most people don't even know that their birds have worms until they deworm them.

 

[coach723]

Most of the time when birds have worms you don't see them. They may not have any obvious symptoms for quite a while. When they do have them and you worm them it's not uncommon to have a dead or dieing worm get expelled after the medication has been given. Many times that won't happen either, the worms are just digested rather than being expelled. This is why so many times the advice is to have a fecal done, to look for the microscopic eggs, the only way to know for sure. Those are roundworms in your pictures, one of the easiest to pick up in the environment and the birds are very commonly reinfected as the eggs survive a very long time in the environment. Your birds pick them up from the soil while scratching and pecking. Everytime one of your birds with a worm load poops, they deposit thousands of eggs into the environment. So the cycle just repeats. You may need to worm regularly to keep your birds healthy.

 

[azygous]

When you deworm, the worming medicine causes the worms to be anesthetized. Most are rendered unconscious and most of these are absorbed into the chicken's system as extra protein. Occasionally a worm will be expelled in poop. Basically, it's just something that happens, and it doesn't mean anything.

Most wild animals carry worms in their guts. Most live normal lives without the worms making them sick. It's only when worm loads become heavy that it makes the animal sick, and killing the heavy load of worms off too fast can actually kill the chicken.

 

[Kiki]

I see the pictures now. I didn't see them earlier. Roundworm is right.

 

[Eddie12109]

Thank you for the responses @Kiki @azygous and @coach723 !

I understand a lot more of it now. So if I do need to deworm regularly, how often would that be?
And it’s interesting how an animal can have worms but not be affected by them unless they become a heavy worm load. How does that happen.. Where the worms won’t kill the animal?

And if the chicken does have a heavy worm load, gets dewormed, and dies, would it die because the dead worms block the chickens system?

 

[azygous]

You ask very good questions, Grasshopper. You keep us on our toes.

Worms can co-exist with their host as long as there aren't so many they deprive the animal host of nutrition. If that happens, the animal becomes visibly unhealthy, frowsy coat or feathers, weight loss, and sometimes secondary infections from being generally rundown will occur.

Things can get even worse for a chicken if the worms form an obstruction. This slows down the crop and can cause starvation.

When you try to worm such a chicken, one with a heavy worm load, it can cause shock from so many worms suddenly dying inside her. Shock is a medical emergency because it upsets the glucose and electrolytes in her system, and these directly govern the heart which can cause the heart to fail. For this reason, when we suspect a heavy worm load from the signs I listed above, we use a gentle wormer such as Safeguard and we push glucose and electrolytes to head off shock.

 

[coach723]

Safeguard and Valbazen are both good to use, the both kill the worms more slowly and there is less risk of overloading the system with dieing worms. I use both regularly. I have to worm for roundworm about every 3 months in my flock, every flock is different. Some people can do once or twice a year, some have to do even more often than I. I found my frequency by watching the birds, and droppings. I tend to start seeing runny droppings, and weight loss can be an early sign also, though you won't know unless you pick them up and feel them. Feathers hide a lot. With heavy loads of worms you can see slow and doughy crops, and sometimes complete crop stasis from what's going on in the gut. Early on I lost a couple of birds to secondary infections from roundworm, so I don't mess around with it any more. I've had some very sick birds from roundworm. I've been worming for years and there have been no negative effects in my flock, there were negative effects from not worming. I've never killed a bird by worming it. Again, every flock is different, every environment has a different worm load, so what works for you may not be the same as what works for someone else. I have a near neighbor that does not have the worm load I have, even though we live fairly near to each other. Once the bird has picked up the worms they can multiply rapidly, so you can go from zero to a heavy load rather quickly.

 

[Eddie12109]

thank you for the detailed information!

@coach723 do you use safeguard every time you worm? Could that eventually cause the safeguard to not work as effectively since they are getting it fairly often?

 

[coach723]

I alternate wormers between Valbazen and Safeguard. Not really on a schedule, just what I have on hand, and vary it. May do a few times with one, and then switch to the other. If you worm regularly, it is a good idea to rotate wormers so that you don't build resistance in the parasites. Also important to correctly dose them, underdosing can have the same result.