Worming effectively and naturally without throwing out eggs

[Lochloosachicks]

I found worms(round worms I think) in the poop deck.

I'm not positive who they belong to. Either way would I need to work everyone (21 in all)?

I have read of a few natural remedies such as cayenne pepper, but want to know if they are extremely effective.

I have safeguard but really don't want to throw out 150 eggs after dosing them.

If I'm pretty sure which hen it is can I give that one the dose and still put cayenne and garlic in the feed for the others?

Any advice?

 

[Eggcessive]

Unfortunately, most wormers will require throwing out eggs for 2 weeks after the last dose. Valbazen and SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer are two that I recommend. I also have used Wormout Gel in the water for 2 days with good results.

Some people never worm their chickens, and healthy chickens can tolerate some worms normally, but they can cause blockages, intestinal damage, and poor food usage if there is a large worm load. You can get a fecal float on some fresh droppings by a local vet to see if there are other worms, or how much of a problem there is with round worms.

Many of us have tried the natural way to prevent worms, but many have gotten fecal floats done that prove they don’t work.

 

[Lochloosachicks]

I have safe guard on hand so I'll probably use that. I read the dosage in another thread, Is it a one time dose?

Do you think I could only dose the one that I found worms in her poo? I inspected the coop and I had just cleaned it so I'm sure I'm only seeing worms in one. If it's who I'm thinking, and I'll verify, she has been acting sick lately. I've actually had her in oxytetracycline for the past 3 days.

 

[Eggcessive]

Dosage is 1/4 ml per pound given once orally and again in 10 days for roundworms. For a 5 pound chicken, that would be 1.25 ml. To treat some hard to get worms such as cecal, gapeworm, and capillary worms which are more serious, and cannot be seen without a microscope or fecal float, treat for 5 consecutive days.

If your hen has been sick, I would definitely treat her. When I had 70-80 birds, it was very hard to treat them all at once. So, I treated one breed or color one day, and treated another group the next, and so on.

 

[Ms Biddy]

You can hardboil or scramble some of those eggs and feed them back to your chickens while you wait. I would hate to throw out eggs too but with a true worm infestation there isn't any natural remedy I'd trust to be effective. For prevention, I supplement with garlic, cayenne and artemesia. I use the artemesia sparingly because it can also be toxic. Also, ugh I'm sorry. I think roundworms are so gross.

 

[Lochloosachicks]

They are gross! I just treated a few months ago so this is super annoying, but it also makes me think the infestation couldn't be too bad.

 

[lazy gardener]

In theory, if you are seeing worms, you have a fairly significant load. If you treat one bird, you might as well treat them all. Can you post a pic of the worms? What is your general location? Is your soil prone to holding moisture/standing water in the chicken run or the yard around your coop?

I've never had to treat for worms, so can't offer much in the way of advice.

 

[Lochloosachicks]

It is freezing now but I am in Texas so weather is fairly unpredictable. We recently had a lot of rain so they soil had been wet. And they free range all over. When I wormed a few months ago I never saw anything it was just precaution. It looked just like thin spaghetti in one runny poop on the deck in the coop. I already cleaned it up so I can't take a pic now. How are they transferred from bird to bird? Mine are only in the coop at night.

 

[Ms Biddy]

They shed eggs in their poop, so small you can't see them. They remain in the soil until picked up again by pecking. They can also be tracked around on shoes and feet.

 

[Ms Biddy]

Also, our puppy had roundworms. We wormed her the day we brought her home, but still. They can be passed back and forth between different animals.

Eta: the eggs pass from poop to soil and then to mouths/beaks. For example, to chickens that forage where infected dogs have pooped and to dogs that forage for chicken poop.