Worms????

[dawg53]

I guess if I got desperate to know, I could always run a fecal sample at work. ( I'm usually the one who does them anyway! )

Devon

That's the best thing to do if you wish.

 

[dawg53]

I think a manageable load refers to the fact that they aren't sickened by the amount of worms they carry. For example, the member ADozenGirlz (aka The Chicken Chick) does not worm her flock. It was her blog that I posted the link for. However, after speaking to her personally I learned that she doesn't worm unless she sees worms. This is the method I'm most comfortable with. Everyone has to decide that for themselves, I guess.

Glad the link was helpful. I enjoy her blog immensely and can find answers to most anything there. Plus I find her way of doing things is often the way I'm most comfortable doing them and her advice hasn't failed me yet. I owe one of little pullets life to her actually!

Think of the damage the worms do internally while waiting to see them in poop. People take dogs and cats to the vet regularly for checkups, shots, wormings etc...chickens are more apt to pick up worm eggs than dogs or cats from the soil. Chickens peck the soil....eat grass, and eat infected bugs.

 

[Buster52]

Dogs, cats, goats chickens... there will all of them come a day when they are helpless against the worms people are creating with their prophylactic worming. It's evolution 101.

Worm because your animals have worms, not because you think it's just a keen idea.

 

[dawg53]

Dogs, cats, goats chickens... there will all of them come a day when they are helpless against the worms people are creating with their prophylactic worming. It's evolution 101.

Worm because your animals have worms, not because you think it's just a keen idea.

FYI: Environment/soil conditions dictate when and how often you should worm.

 

[Hollowoakfarm]

Rotating wormers is good, if done correctly. If done incorrectly, it just causes more problems.

Many people seem to think that rotating wormers means to switch each time they worm. But this allows the worms to develop resistance to every single wormer. Proper rotation is using one wormer until it is no longer effective...ie: the worms have developed resistance. Then switch wormers and do it again. By the time you have gone through all wormers, and need to go back to the first one again, the resistance factor has been bred back out of the worms.

I had to learn this the hard way with sheep worming some years ago. The breeder I got my original flock from gave me the directions to switch wormers each time. Apparantly, she was doing the same thing, because within a month of my buying that flock of sheep they were up at NC State at the vet school getting blood transfusions...and dying. They were resistant to every single wormer on the market. I had a good discussion on worming practices with the vets there. They said the misunderstanding most people have on "rotating" wormers causes more deaths than anything else. So I now apply that to all my livestock, and have had much better results.