Worms in my chickens poop!

[Ashleys backyard farm]

I clean my chickens coop once a week and while cleaning out the poop I noticed worms! This is my first time dealing with this and I don’t know what kind they are. Someone please help! What are they and what do I do??

 

[nuthatched]

Have you ever wormed your birds before?

 

[DuckingLost]

I've never seen this but I throw pumpkin to my chickens every 3 or 4 months. It's a natural wormer. But Id clean these fellas out pronto!

 

[nuthatched]

I've never seen this but I throw pumpkin to my chickens every 3 or 4 months. It's a natural wormer. But Id clean these fellas out pronto!

Pumpkin seeds specifically contain minor amounts of a wormer called Cucurbitacin, but they're also very high in antinutritional properties, some almost high enough to be toxic. I can't recommend them for effective worming.

 

[coach723]

Those look like maggots, not chicken worms. Everything looks really wet, which is probably contributing. Maggots are larvae from flying insects that lay their eggs in the droppings after they are deposited, they hatch and you have maggots. So you may need to do something to get your moisture level down, and depending on your space and number of birds, you may need to clean up droppings more often, or you may need to give them a bigger area, to keep droppings from building up. The drier it is the better, droppings will dry out faster and less likely to have an issue. Inside my coop I have poop boards under the roosts that I scrape daily and my covered run has a very deep layer of shavings (deep litter method-it only works if it stays pretty dry). Wet conditions and droppings build up can also mean increased ammonia fumes, which can be bad for your birds respiratory systems. If you have a lot of flies being attracted to droppings build up, you also increase the risk that a bird with a wound or droppings stuck around the vent will be affected by flystrike, so good to keep the population of those down as much as you can.

 

[StarlightTesa]

Those are maggots, not worms. Any fly or fruitful loves the stinky moist bedding, so I'd cleannit up and maybe set up fly traps near, but away from rhe coop.

 

[Ashleys backyard farm]

Those look like maggots, not chicken worms. Everything looks really wet, which is probably contributing. Maggots are larvae from flying insects that lay their eggs in the droppings after they are deposited, they hatch and you have maggots. So you may need to do something to get your moisture level down, and depending on your space and number of birds, you may need to clean up droppings more often, or you may need to give them a bigger area, to keep droppings from building up. The drier it is the better, droppings will dry out faster and less likely to have an issue. Inside my coop I have poop boards under the roosts that I scrape daily and my covered run has a very deep layer of shavings (deep litter method-it only works if it stays pretty dry). Wet conditions and droppings build up can also mean increased ammonia fumes, which can be bad for your birds respiratory systems. If you have a lot of flies being attracted to droppings build up, you also increase the risk that a bird with a wound or droppings stuck around the vent will be affected by flystrike, so good to keep the population of those down as much as you can.

Thank you I appreciate your help and knowledge about the matter. I was also thinking maggots based on photos I’ve been looking at. It’s been raining a lot so my chickens have been staying in their coop more often and it’s also hot and humid which probably has contributed. I’ll be checking daily to make sure it doesn’t build up again. Any recommendations to keep flies away? They’re everywhere

 

[Ashleys backyard farm]

Those are maggots, not worms. Any fly or fruitful loves the stinky moist bedding, so I'd cleannit up and maybe set up fly traps near, but away from rhe coop.

Thank you! I’m so relieved…I was so disgusted when I cleaned out their coop today literally showered for 30 minutes after haha

 

[coach723]

You can put up fly traps, sticky ones, some are like bags, you add water to bait. The bags can STINK terrible when they fill with flies, so if you use those put them down wind and change often. Get rid of as much stuff that attracts them, droppings from any animal being a big attractant.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

These are fly larvae and are not intestinal parasites.