Wet soil is parasite soup. The key is trying to keep everything as dry as possible, tough to do sometimes. You can add alot of sand to your pen which will help keep it dry. Sand quickly absorbs water and wont create gulleys in a downpour, it dries quicker than dirt. Here, it costs $25 for a cubic yard, a good pickup truckload. Sand helps cut back on the parasite load, including external parasites...but wont eliminate internal/external parasites altogether.
I dont recommend mixing wormers in water. If you have a sick bird, they wont eat nor drink. Even if your birds are healthy, you dont know how much of the treated water they drank to make the wormer effective. Additionally, chickens drink less water in cooler temps. It's always best to dose them orally, that way you KNOW they got properly wormed. Use a syringe without a needle to give the wormer to them orally. Pull the wattles down and their mouth will open, squirt a little in and let them swallow it on their own. Someone can hold the chicken for you. I do it by myself and it only takes about 15 minutes to worm mine and only use about a capfull and a half of valbazen for my 18 chickens. I repeat it again 10 days later to kill larva hatched from eggs since the first dosing...ending their lifecycle.
You never mentioned how old your chickens were. If you arnt sure when to worm, it's advisable to take a fecal sample to a vet and have them take a look at it under a microscope. It doesnt cost much. My vet charges $14.50. I dont bring a sample in often, it's cheaper to set up a regular worming schedule. I might add that keeping everything clean as best as you can cuts down on all types of parasites/pests. I clean the chicken houses/pens once a week, shovel poop every afternoon out of the pens... doesnt take long. Waterers get cleaned everyday or every other day. I just dont like putting on all my decon gear to do it in the heat when doing the weekly clean out. LOL
Thanks.
