worms

[azygous]

Take what you can get. Just knowing if they are positive for worms will allow you to treat with an all species wormer. Knowing there are no worms will let you rule it out, and you won't need to bother worming. This is enough for now.

 

[Lizzy733]

Okay, yeah that's definitely worms then. No real way to keep the sparrows out - they will find 'any' gap and then forget to find their way out.

How long have you had your flock there? If not for long, you may want to look at changing the environment around or in the run to make it a little less hospitable for parasites. There are several plants that are supposed to work as 'repellents' and chickens are 'said' to be able to self medicate with wormwood if its available. I've tried a perimeter of lavender inside my run, which the chickens do not bother and the wormwood - I'm only a new chicken momma, so my flock have only been outside since November (which is summer here), but their fecals came back clean (from the vet) just a month ago, so I consider that promising.

If your vet is rubbish, you might want to look into doing the float tests yourself at home - you can even diy the suspension fluid. It takes a bit of prepwork, but I plan on self educating on this as I have a lizard that will be a bit too big to spend all his time indoors in a year or two and he had a worm problem as a baby straight from the pet shop (he was born outside).

 

[dawg53]

My local vet is worthless. He'll do a fecal for $15 and tell you, yep you have worms, but no detail. I'm in the middle of nowhere, not many vets near. Several of my hens have messy butts and I've seen some squirts. The poop board shows splashy poops, not all of them but enough. I've put 2" of sand down under the coop and may put some down in the chicken yard itself. I have 1 roo, 8 hens and 3 chicks in a 900 sq ft enclosure, the coop is 8 X 12 and raised off the ground by 2 cement blocks. Plenty of space for the # of birds. I keep the grass fairly short, but there are wild birds there. I spent last night covering the entire run with bird netting, haven't finished yet, got maybe 1/3. but there are gaps that wild birds can get in, no way I can make it better than that with the current setup.

Lately some of my birds have had the squirts and messy butts, like your birds but not all of them. It's due to the heat we're having. They're drinking more water and I've had to set out extra containers with ice water for them to drink. I usually set out the ice water around noon or 1pm when it really starts to heat up. Of course the ice melts but the water is still cool late in the afternoon. I have a box fan running under each coop and a fan inside each coop blowing hot air out a vent.
Check your birds for poopy butt, you dont want fly strike to occur. If you see any with poopy butt, snatch poopy butt birds off the roost the next morning before letting them out for the day.
Then take the dirty bird and wash her butt off with the garden hose using the sprayer. Make sure it's all washed off. Then pat dry her butt with an old rag, or you can just return her to the pen and let her go. She'll preen herself and dry off during the hot day.
Then go get the next dirty bird out of the coop and repeat this procedure, it doesnt take long.
I worm my birds monthly, just finished worming them last Friday. I have sand in my pens as well.

 

[trudyg]

The poopy butts are much better, one week after the wazine. Saturday morning I will dose them all with safeguard liquid (except the babies).

 

[trudyg]

Had absolutely bad luck dosing the birds thus morning. Took one off the roost and under the carport (where there is light) to dribble safeguard into her, she bawked and struggled and woke the neighbors, didn't get any into her before giving up.... I finally broke bread into one piece per bird, dosed the bread and arranged it along the outer edge of a round pan, set it on the ground and, what do you know, they each grabbed a piece and ran off. each got their dose! And the babies stayed away and didn't get any at all. Since I did wazine 10 days ago I'm done, right?

 

[azygous]

You have proven you are smarter than a chicken. Good work! I'd say you're done!

 

[dawg53]

Had absolutely bad luck dosing the birds thus morning. Took one off the roost and under the carport (where there is light) to dribble safeguard into her, she bawked and struggled and woke the neighbors, didn't get any into her before giving up.... I finally broke bread into one piece per bird, dosed the bread and arranged it along the outer edge of a round pan, set it on the ground and, what do you know, they each grabbed a piece and ran off. each got their dose! And the babies stayed away and didn't get any at all. Since I did wazine 10 days ago I'm done, right?

Too bad we dont live closer, I wouldve helped you.
Next time, here's what you do:
Preload your syringe (without needle) with the liquid wormer. Then snatch a bird off the roost. Cradle her in your forearm and kind of under your armpit up against your body for support. With your free hand, grab the syringe.
With your other hand, use your fingers and thumb to firmly pull down on her wattles and her mouth will open. Then quickly shoot the liquid in her mouth. Then immediately release her wattles so she can swallow the liquid on her own. If you dont immediately release her wattles, the liquid can go down her windpipe, then there would be big problems.
I cant stress the importance enough about releasing the wattles as soon as the liquid is squirted inside the mouth. She must be able to swallow it on her own.

Sometimes they'll shake their heads, just hang on, they'll tire out. If you have a bird without wattles, just pull down the skin under the lower beak.
Same as before, quickly release the skin so she swallow the liquid on her own.
The next time you worm, practice it without actually squirting the liquid, a dry run so to speak. You'll get the hang of it, easy peasy.

One other thing, only dose a bird 1/2cc at a time.
For example; if you have a large hen and she requires 1cc or more of oral dosing, again, only squirt 1/2cc into her mouth at a time. That's all that they can swallow at a time, otherwise it'll go down the windpipe.

This procedure can be used when using liquid antibiotics, a drop of Poultry Nutri Drench etc...
It also helps if someone else is holding the bird for you. The rest of the procedure stays the same.

I forgot to add that doing it this way ensures your bird(s) got properly dosed and properly wormed. The same is true for antibiotics. No guesswork about it.

 

[trudyg]

Thanks so much Dawg, I didn't know about the wattles. I just kind of dripped it on the beak and hoped it would go in, but she shook and it got all over everywhere else. You are such a help, thanks again.

 

[klbaker75]

The two wormers I would recommend, Valbazen and SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer are not water soluble, and will settle out. Thus, you need to dose each chicken separately. They treat other worms such as cecal worms, gapeworms, and capillary worms, while Wazine only kills roundworms. SafeGuard dosage for just roundworms is 1/4 ml per pound once orally and repeated in 10-14 days. It can be given for 5 straight days to treat capillary and gape worms. Since you gave Wazine already, it just needs to be given once.

Valbazen dosage is 1/2 ml (or 0.09 ml per pound) given once orally and again in 10-14 days. For both SafeGuard and Valbazen, (and Wazine) toss the eggs for 14 days after the last dose.

Is there any way to separate the chicks for the one day to use the Wazine in the water?

Do you use valbazen five days in a row for gapeworm as well?