Worming Chickens
Basic Steps for Worming Chickens
If you keep hens, one of the early lessons you have to learn in poultry care has to be worming chickens. Chickens can sometimes be infected with worms and this will affect their overall health and affect their egg output among other things.
Before starting the process of worming chickens it helps to understand the worms that you are most likely to see. There are four or five different types of worms that are typically found in chickens and two of these are particularly common:
Roundworms or Ascaridia galli is the most common and it is the long one which can be as long as three inches and is described as being spaghetti-like in appearance. It lives in the intestine of the chicken and its larvae are known to damage the intestinal wall of the bird.
Hairworms or Capillaria are the second most common kind of worms and they are very small and can sometimes be mistaken for a grain. These 1/2 inch long, thready worms can be very harmful to the health of the chicken as they can take away essential nutrients.
Cecal worms or Heterakis, tapeworms and Gapeworms are the other three kinds of worms that you must be prepared to identify. The former two do not cause much noticeable damage and the last one produces symptoms such as gasping and uneven breathing.
You are likely to get an indication of worms in your chicken from the fecal matter. Roundworms are easy to spot and hairworms are harder to see. However, if you see lethargy, poor appetite and reduced egg laying it is a good idea to have the stool analyzed by your veterinarian's office to know the source of the problem. Once you have confirmation that your chickens have to deal with worms, you have some choices in terms of the method of treatment.
Piperazine is probably the most commonly recommended medicine for worming chickens. You have to use piperazine that is food grade and incorporate it in the feed or the drink of the flock. It is recommended that you continue treatment for 1-2 weeks and look for signs of improvement. One natural treatment that is recommended by poultry experts is garlic. Crushed garlic in the birds' water and finely chopped garlic in the feed can be good ways of incorporating the treatment in the diet of the flock.
It is important to treat the whole flock even if you see evidence of worms only in one or two birds because this is a contagious problem in that every chicken is in danger of pecking on worm eggs that maybe on the floor of the cage. The recommended period of treatment is 10 days to 2 weeks so that you can be sure of having caught all the birds. Monitor all the chicken and make sure that there are no more worm droppings before you stop the treatment.
While treating the flock it is sometimes hard to make sure that every bird is getting a share of the treated water and medicine without careful observation of the eating and drinking patterns of all the birds. If you feel any given chicken is not ingesting adequate amounts of the medicated food or water, you may have to do some separate feeding to help the process. While worming chickens affected by hairworms, you may want to add Vitamin A supplements to their food to make up for the nutrients they are losing because of the worms.
Other than medication for worming chickens, you should also ensure hygiene in the cage. A wire floor is considered an easier floor for mitigating the spread of worms in a flock as the worms and worm eggs do not lie around as potential dangers to all the birds in the enclosure. Free range chickens are likely to be a little more vulnerable as they wander around but it is very possible to manage an environment that is clean and healthy. Covering puddles and providing a good diet will help as part of the preventive program.