Broody mama has lice; 4d chicks do too. Now I’m wondering about all the other symptoms…

[aliris]

I thought things were going great. I was wrong and I’m wondering what signs I’ve missed.

Flock of 5 in SoCal. I was worried about worms a bit back, treated with Cori’s and thought all was fine.

But I would occasionally see these poops with little white things on it. Dg thought it was post-excretion larvae but now I’m not so sure. I saw another one today and have a picture below. But first, more bad stuff:

Broody buff Orpington was so committed I got her 7 fertile eggs from which 5 adorable fluff balls emerged, starting Monday am; it’s Thursday now.

I noticed mama nipping at their butts yesterday and thought she was just cleaning them. But I inspected one and saw something oozing from its vent.

Turns out all have lice; mama is infested. I see none in the coop, I had been inspecting and saw none on her previously.

I treated her with lots of permethrin powder and was told she’d sit on the babies. The powder brought a ton of them to the surface of her feathers and she and the babies had a feast.

Then I treated the other hens. First symptom: one has crusty, darkened broken tail feathers??

Then there appeared another of these creepy poops. WTH?

They’ve been laying… ok. A bit less than 1/d. they aren’t eating well but they look and act healthy, very bright, full combs…

I had treated them with corid water a while back and I thought everything was good?!

Tomorrow I’ll clean out the whole coop and spray with liquid permethrin into corners.

But I’m worried about that other poop now. Can anyone ID that?

Thank you!!!

 

[aliris]

This is what Crazi Oma said on a different thread: “Mom needs to be direct-feed de-wormed right away on top of the lice treatments. When you've got one, my vet said, you probably have the other.. The babies need a very watered down dose of wormer given in their water or crumbles once they are two weeks old. There are several commercial poultry wormers available and my vet says they are all basically the same. ”

So that’s what I’m worried about now. Is corid-water a “direct-feed” treatment?

So the implication is that the lice are secondary to intestinal worms? Could those little white sticky-out things be pieces of a worm??

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Dust Mama and chicks with Permethrin poultry dust.

Corid is a Coccidiostat and used to treat Coccidiosis only, it's not a dewormer.

The worms in the poop are Tapeworm Proglottids, your hen(s) have Tapeworm.
You need to treat with Praziquantel. You can find Equimax at TSC.
Dosing and other products that can be used to treat Tapeworms are in this link.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/treating-tapeworms-under-construction.1220309/

Your 4 day old chicks do not need to be dewormed, they are too young to have worms.

 

[aliris]

Dust Mama and chicks with Permethrin poultry dust.

Corid is a Coccidiostat and used to treat Coccidiosis only, it's not a dewormer.

The worms in the poop are Tapeworm Proglottids, your hen(s) have Tapeworm.
You need to treat with Praziquantel. You can find Equimax at TSC.
Dosing and other products that can be used to treat Tapeworms are in this link.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/treating-tapeworms-under-construction.1220309/

Your 4 day old chicks do not need to be dewormed, they are too young to have worms.

Thank you!

Do you agree the coop needs deep-cleaning out? I’m reluctant because of moving everyone.

Do you agree to treat all adult hens though seemingly only one has the tapeworm?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thank you!

Do you agree the coop needs deep-cleaning out? I’m reluctant because of moving everyone.

Do you agree to treat all adult hens though seemingly only one has the tapeworm?

Only treat the hen that has tapeworm showing in the poop. It won't hurt to treat the others if you feel like they need it, so it's up to you.

It would be a good idea to clean out bedding where the broody and chicks were, treat that area with a Permethrin spray, then put back clean bedding.

I would treat all the hens with the Permethrin dust.

Lice mainly live on the bird, but they can be found in housing if you have a heavy infestation. If it's not possible to do a deep cleanout, then sprinkled your Permethrin dust into the bedding, give it a stir.



Spray the coop, nesting boxes, roosting bars (hard surfaces, nooks/crannies) with your Permethrin spray. Do make sure the area is well ventilated, if necessary, run a fan after you spray. If I'm spraying heavy, then I wear a mask and keep birds out of the area until the spray has dried, doesn't take long to dry in warm weather.

 

[aliris]

Only treat the hen that has tapeworm showing in the poop. It won't hurt to treat the others if you feel like they need it, so it's up to you.

It would be a good idea to clean out bedding where the broody and chicks were, treat that area with a Permethrin spray, then put back clean bedding.

I would treat all the hens with the Permethrin dust.

Lice mainly live on the bird, but they can be found in housing if you have a heavy infestation. If it's not possible to do a deep cleanout, then sprinkled your Permethrin dust into the bedding, give it a stir.



Spray the coop, nesting boxes, roosting bars (hard surfaces, nooks/crannies) with your Permethrin spray. Do make sure the area is well ventilated, if necessary, run a fan after you spray. If I'm spraying heavy, then I wear a mask and keep birds out of the area until the spray has dried, doesn't take long to dry in warm weather.

Thank you so much! I don’t know which hen has the wormy poop (@@). It’s ok to spend a few days figuring that out? Not even sure how to do that. I suppose I could try isolating her until I happened to catch her pooping???

The thread on dewormer is mega-confusing. Too many choices!

I will concentrate on the live, pay attention, if possible, to the poop and focus on which of the too-many solutions to the worm problem later!

Unless I hear from you a different plan…

 

[coach723]

For tapeworm get Equimax Horse paste (or Zimectrin Gold if you can't find the Equimax) and use that. It will take care of the tapes. It's only neccessary to treat the bird that is infected, but you won't hurt the others if you need to do them all (not the chicks) in order to make sure you got the one. The dosing for the Equimax (or Zimectrin) is here in post #6:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/tapeworms-that-wont-go-away.1130035/

 

[aliris]

Alright well - stressful morning. Cleaned out bottom of the coop, sprayed permethrin, aired with fan, grabbed the momma and babies into box and put them down below. They were not happy. But there's a dirt piece of that floor that the mother got straight into dustbathing in so... I see no more lice on her pelt, which happened after dusting her yesterday.

Cleaned upper part of enclosed house, sprayed permethrin, put down DE, added *shavings* not the stuff I usually use from the yard: yes I know y'all hate that. But... we have a lot of leaf litter and wtf... yes, I hear the choruses of dismay. I have some shaved bedding, I used that. It looks beautious. Moved the family back in.

hahaha. The momma is now so mad at me when I come close she screams at me. She only uses that voice for the one hen who occasionally gives her trouble, who'se been banned from her presence since early in her laying-in. I evidently now merit that call. The babies dive beneath her. :: - persona non grata, that's for sure. Honestly makes me feel badly, lol. I hope she's forgive me some day.

Babies butts don't have anything crawling in or not seemingly. Didn't check momma's, just tried to get everything back in order pronto.

Now on to the tapeworm problem. What a mess. Should have followed up on this months ago...

 

[aliris]

They've got this "quad dewormer" at a local pet store - https://yourpetandyou.elanco.com/us/our-products/quad-dewormer-dogs -- that has 22.7mg/tablet (each tablet costs $7.50) [praziquantel/pyrantel pamoate/febantel]

That horse paste would have to be easier to manage....

 

[Phoenix Collins]

They've got this "quad dewormer" at a local pet store - https://yourpetandyou.elanco.com/us/our-products/quad-dewormer-dogs -- that has 22.7mg/tablet (each tablet costs $7.50) [praziquantel/pyrantel pamoate/febantel]

That horse paste would have to be easier to manage....

The other thing that you might want to start doing is getting food grade diatomaceous earth and mixing it in with the soil they bathe in with clean ash. This is a great preventative for lice, fleas, and ticks. Plus the ash is good for them to eat and helps with their internal health. Also diatomaceous earth is a fine enough powder that it suffocates the insects, but don’t worry this won’t hurt your birds. As long as it’s the food grade diatomaceous earth it’s safe for your chickens. Plus pumpkin seeds are a great preventative tool against worms. As well as a variety of herbs and flowers. Here are a list of herbs and their benefits.

https://gardentherapy.ca/herbs-for-hens/

Be careful with garlic it can cause anemia and other health issues.