Worming a mixed flock? Need some input...

[KsKingBee]

My vet recommended changing wormer meds ever year and a half. The Wormout gel is interesting as I can medicate the water and mix in the feed. All of the meds will be taken in and still in proportion to body weight.

 

[Garden Peas]

Sigh. I got an email back that my account registration had been approved & I could now shop, but after doing everything except spitting on the keyboard, the site still isn't letting me shop

I guess I will wait for the vet and maybe try the site again tomorrow. Good grief. It's like trying to get concert tickets or something.

 

[Garden Peas]

My vet recommended changing wormer meds ever year and a half. The Wormout gel is interesting as I can medicate the water and mix in the feed. All of the meds will be taken in and still in proportion to body weight.

I agree. The only problem I see here is that the literature Kathy cited says that the oxfendazole is identical to the fenbendazole metabolite... in other words, when the bird ingests fenbendazole, it metabolizes in the bird's body to the same ingredient as oxfendazole, so rotating between fenbendazole (safeguard & aquasol) and oxfendazole (Oxzole) won't actually change the drug effect on the parasite.

Now the Wormout Gel version does have praziquantel in addition to the oxfendazole, whereas the stuff Kathy quoted, Oxzole, was straight oxfendazole... So there might be a benefit to throwing the praziquantel at the worms, one would think...

But it's not quite the same as changing classes of wormers the way your vet was probably suggesting.

 

[casportpony]

As I understand rotating, it means changing "class" of wormers. All the "zoles" are in the same class, so one would have to use levimasole, pyrantel or something like moxidectin or ivermectin.

-Kathy

 

[KsKingBee]

Since I have the ability to do fecals before and after worming perhaps I do not need to be worried about changing up the med I use? I would think that resistance build up would be more likely with underdosing.

 

[casportpony]

Since I have the ability to do fecals before and after worming perhaps I do not need to be worried about changing up the med I use?  I would think that resistance build up would be more likely with underdosing.

Maybe talk to your vet about using something like pyrantel pamoate if all you find are roundworm eggs?

-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

Since I have the ability to do fecals before and after worming perhaps I do not need to be worried about changing up the med I use? I would think that resistance build up would be more likely with underdosing.

Ummm, well, yes, maybe, not exactly....

Yes, you do have an advantage in doing your own fecals, and it is smart to tailor your worming to what you find. By the way, your home parasitology work is truly, truly impressive and amazing

Yes, you probably still need to be worried about changing up wormer class periodically.

Yes, resistance build up is more likely with underdosing.

But that's not the whole story.

Worming (or similarly, treating bacterial infections with antibiotics) resolves acute issues and restores animals to reasonable health. Few of us would choose to forego the life-saving benefits of either. But even with optimal dosing, sometimes a few, more resistant organisms may survive. They can then flourish and repopulate the host organism with a more-resistant form. As cycles repeat, more and more resistant organisms reproduce and higher doses of the medication are needed for control, until eventually attempts to control with that medication is futile. Under-dosing leaves even more resistant or partially-resistant organisms, and speeds the resistance.

By carefully checking fecals, you are minimizing the opportunity for resistance, but not eliminating it -- some undetected organisms may survive despite fecal exams. The resistant ones are the ones we are worried about here, because they can reproduce more of themselves relative to the numbers of susceptible (able to be killed with the medication) organisms.

When we change wormer class, we improve the odds of knocking out those organisms that may have survived the previous class, slowing the cycle of resistance by eliminating the bad guys via another weapon in the medication arsenal. This means using a medication which attacks the organism through a different biological route. That's why it's important to change "classes" of wormer periodically.

I love your vet

she sounds awesome

 

[KsKingBee]

In the 1980's a new honey bee pest emerged called varroa mite. It very nearly wiped out the honey bees in the USA, feral stocks were mostly non-existent and most of the big commercial outfits saw losses in the 90% range. We came very close to losing them altogether, both bees and commercial operators. The big chem companies rushed to find a chemical that would kill the pest and not the bees and they came up with Apistan in a strip form that could be inserted into the hive for a two-week period when there were no honey supers on the hive.

Apistan was 98% effective, meaning that two out of one hundred mites would survive the treatment. Eventually, those resistant mites would breed and became an even bigger problem. Added to that the misuse of the strips also caused even more resistance. Some beekeepers would either forget or not care about proper usage of the drug and leave it on past the prescribed two weeks. The lessening effectiveness of the past date strips would give less than lethal dosing to mites that furthered in the resistance to the drug.

Then another drug was developed, Checkmite, it was supposed to be even stronger and not have the resistance build up that Apistan had. Well, that didn't work out the way they had planned either. Now there are even more drugs to throw into hives in an effort to keep the honey bees alive. Some are benign and some are quite serious, one thing they have in common is a cycle of dependency on honey bees and the risk of those drugs getting into the honey we eat.

Fortunately, for us, nature can and will solve the plight of the honey bee and has been showing us that bees can cope with a certain mite load through survival breeding strategies. It is much akin to peafowl being able to survive with a minor parisite load that only manifests itself when conditions allow it to get out of hand.

 

[Garden Peas]

Sigh.  I got an email back that my account registration had been approved & I could now shop, but after doing everything except spitting on the keyboard, the site still isn't letting me shop

I guess I will wait for the vet and maybe try the site again tomorrow.  Good grief.  It's like trying to get concert tickets or something.

Well, it's letting me shop now, but only for some things. I think the vet only or vet rx stuff is somehow coded off limits based on my account info. It doesn't specify that it's a vet only or vet rx med, but it's super concentrated. Turns out the aquasol is 20% fenbendazole, so there's some precautions for dealing with it at that strength. I think it gets diluted twice before the poultry gets it... once to make a stock solution and then through the automatic equipment as it goes through the commercial nipple watering system or whatever the poultry raiser is using.
Eventually I will hear back from vet, lol.

 

[Garden Peas]

Quote:
Vet finally heard back from distributor. Ouch. Even with a really substantial discount to me, the 1 liter (that's the liter, not the gallon) would cost upwards of $300. I suspect that's because of the high concentration (it's actually 20% fenbendazole, so extremely concentrated) and then they have to recoup their fancy new technology for making it water soluble, right? So it's out of my price range at the moment, given my small number of peas. It's more realistic for someone with a larger flock, though. I haven't tried to do the math, but I bet the cost per bird would actually be pretty reasonable when you figure how much there is in the bottle.