Worms or Shed Intestinal Lining - Yucky Pics!!

[Tamara119]

I just found out I can get Flubenvet here! That's ideal. Dawg, from what you wrote it sounds like you agree that it is intestinal lining, right? I will watch to see if this happens a lot; I didn't know that capillary worms could cause this. Thanks again!

 

[dawg53]

Flubenvet is a good wormer and will work just fine for you.

 

[chicknmania]

i am going to try Levamisole. It is supposed to be easier to use than the Wormout gel, and just as effective, especially for Capillary worms. How often would we give this stuff? I'm told that capillary worms are difficult to get rid of, so....

 

[Tamara119]

Do you know your chickens have capillary worms?

With any wormer you need to be sure to repeat in 2 weeks. Levamisole does have a 2 week egg withdrawal period, so that means you have a month of no eggs. Some people do still eat the eggs, but that's up to you. If you have more than one flock, you can do one flock first, then the other a month later so that you always have eggs. How often you worm is up to you, and depends on several factors. If your chickens are free-ranging and therefore potentially eating many sources of worms, then you might worm every 6 months or more. That said, if you use levamisole and follow the egg withdrawal, you'll spend way too much time not eating eggs. I have levamisole, but I haven't used it because of the withdrawal period.

All things considered, chickens that are free-ranging can become infected with worms the day after their worm medicine stops working, or not for 6 months or more. You might not ever even see evidence of infection, eg. worms in their poop or seriously decreased egg production. For me, I went a year and a half without worming, and I wormed because I figured I should. But, I've never seen any direct evidence of worms even though they almost certainly have some. Interestingly, people from different countries have widely different views on this. I'm currently in South America where no one worms their chickens, and if you read the Aussie forums they rarely worm either, suggesting that chickens tolerate low-level infections of worms quite well, and some say that frequent worming is harder on the chickens than the worms themselves. Of course, there's always a tipping point, and a chicken can become so heavily loaded with worms that it weakens and dies. From a biological standpoint though, this isn't the goal of the parasite, and in cases like this there are probably other factors weakening the chicken.

 

[dawg53]

Levamisole has a 9 day egg withdrawal period.
http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/84/1/9.full.pdf

 

[subhanalah]

Levamisole has a 9 day egg withdrawal period.
http://www.medscape.com/medline/abstract/15685936

asks for membership.

 

[dawg53]

Quote:
Yeah, I saw that too. I found another site with the same info. See above.

 

[subhanalah]

Thanks!

 

[Tamara119]

Oddly, this egg residue chart that I use references that same article but rounds it to 14 days (page 20), probably because of the mention of 18 days delay for slaughter. Well, all the better!

 

[chicknmania]

Yes, we have a definite diagnosis of Capillary worms. I'm nervous because I was told to dose the whole flock Iincluding our 10 day old chick) and then dose them again 5 days later. then a two week withdrawal (wait period). before eating eggs. But then I was told to dose them again, monthly, or even more often than that if I want to. I don't want to dose them monthly. I think that's too much, not only from the standpoint of not getting many eggs, but also because I think it could be harmful to the birds. The reasoning behind the frequent dose was that capillary worms are hard to eradicate. OK, but the medicine has side effects that In my opinion might present themselves if it's used that much.

My plan was to dose the first time, then five days later, and them maybe wait two or three months, before dosing them again, and dose them quarterly for a while. And I stil think that's too much, but we did lose a few bird, so I want to aggressively attack the worms.. I ASSUME we lost them all due to parasites, but I don't know for sure. We only had a definite diagnosis on the one bird.

I hate using chemicals of any kind, but I do think this is one case where I'm going to have to. Do the dosage instructions the way I described them sound ok?