Persistent worms; help please?

[aliris]

I think all I see in here is urates... I still have the chicken isolated. In that past it's actually around 4-5pm that I see the wormy poop. I have no idea if that time is significant but I think it has always been in the late afternoon. Dunno why that should matter, but perhaps there's just a buildup?... that makes no sense though. My understanding is that they can be infected and not present segments except sporadically as a funtion of their internal gut-capacity and perhaps the worms' lifecycle (presumably it doesn't always shed segments??).

Anyway, my question I guess is also whether there's something in here above and beyond the tapes (which I don't think are currently presenting). I've asked before and someone said "nope, just urates", so.... but I know there are bazillions of parasites so.... Do y'all need a photo of the barren breastbone?

 

[aliris]

Sure - they're pretty well-doted on. They get to freerange on our urban backyard which is pretty wild and wooly. That's of course the biggest problem. I give them ScratchNPeck layer feed in a treadle feeder that they pick all the good stuff out of and leave the nutritious fines. [elsewhere someone was talking about what toddlers these things are]. I set that aside and ferment it daily with, well, now with Modesto chick food that my brand new flock of five ate practically none of. Their mama just set them straight on BigGirl food. Shy of locking them up I wasn't sure how to manage that and they seems to be amply healthy. Also available is ScratchNPeck pellets for when the other runs out, it's just available and I top it off as needed. They don't take much of it. It's good to have around should I forget. Into the fermenting fines and baby-food I add a little bit of scratch and field peas to soak. The ten-beaks (5 are 2 months old) we have around here now eat more than a quart of this mash a day. Especially the babies; they are voracious. I chop up for them scrounged greens from the farmer's market - carrot tops mostly, but some onion leaves and spinach leaves and the rest. Squash blossoms, strawberries (which they do NOT like - ???) - stuff like that. The occasional ear of corn. Sometimes lettuce. They regularly get into the garden and consume all our kale; it's a wonder they are not stewing yet. Treats every few days are black sesame seeds which they adore like no other. And I give them - I am sure this will give some conniptions - freeze dried mealworms to up the protein level. I give a lot of these at bedtime. They go berserk for this too. I think they get enough. In the 4 or so years I've had them, I have bought one #25 of scratch. I know it's frowned on and they do get some of it soaked with the fines. And I do also sometimes throw out some animal-grade barley and wheat and rye; I don't think more than one handful each per week - less, really. Also I feed them back their eggshells, and they don't take it well. I literally have 3 kinds of calcium sitting around (also oyster shells and some sort of pelleted white commercial stuff), none of which they much like or take. grump. Sometimes I hand-feed them calcium pills.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Anyway, my question I guess is also whether there's something in here above and beyond the tapes (which I don't think are currently presenting). I've asked before and someone said "nope, just urates", so....

Yep, that was me on your other thread.

I don't see any Proglottids in the poop photos.

I think all I see in here is urates... I still have the chicken isolated. In that past it's actually around 4-5pm that I see the wormy poop. I have no idea if that time is significant but I think it has always been in the late afternoon. Dunno why that should matter, but perhaps there's just a buildup?... that makes no sense though. My understanding is that they can be infected and not present segments except sporadically as a funtion of their internal gut-capacity and perhaps the worms' lifecycle (presumably it doesn't always shed segments??).

Anyway, my question I guess is also whether there's something in here above and beyond the tapes (which I don't think are currently presenting). I've asked before and someone said "nope, just urates", so.... but I know there are bazillions of parasites so.... Do y'all need a photo of the barren breastbone?

 

[aliris]

Yep, that was me on your other thread.

I don't see any Proglottids in the poop photos.

Thanks for checking/!

OK, here's my plan. Well wait, first - let me post photo of this poor thing's breastbone. I was about to post a plan as if there were nothing wrong, but this just reminds me there is something wrong:

This is just raw, protruding bone. She can't be OK.

What I was going to say was I was going to wait to see another poop with worms and then give her the 100mg/kg dose 1x. But... I really am wondering whether there's another drug I can try bc it seems like they must be resistant? Valbazen? Or is that largely the same as what I've used. I know in trying to treat MRSA they keep trying to find a different rx, so that's why I was wondering if there's a different drug I should try?

 

[aliris]

Gape worm?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thanks for checking/!

OK, here's my plan. Well wait, first - let me post photo of this poor thing's breastbone. I was about to post a plan as if there were nothing wrong, but this just reminds me there is something wrong:

This is just raw, protruding bone. She can't be OK.

What I was going to say was I was going to wait to see another poop with worms and then give her the 100mg/kg dose 1x. But... I really am wondering whether there's another drug I can try bc it seems like they must be resistant? Valbazen? Or is that largely the same as what I've used. I know in trying to treat MRSA they keep trying to find a different rx, so that's why I was wondering if there's a different drug I should try?

Up to you if you want to give her that large of a dose, it's 2X the recommended dose of Fenbendazole for birds.

Gapeworm? Is she gaping and gasping all the time?

There's numberous things that can cause weight loss and poor condition of a hen. Reproductive disorders, cancer, tumors, diseases, poor nutrition, etc. 1000s of things.

Feed her a nutritionally balanced poultry feed, treat for lice/mites if she has any. Take a sample of her poop to that Vet and have a fecal float done to see if she has worms and what type so you can give the correct medications.



https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/fenbendazole-poisoning.1281129/post-25993164

 

[aliris]

"Is she gaping and gasping all the time?" - no, I saw her doing it persistently a couple weeks back, but only or a few minutes. I distracted her and she stopped, and I haven't noticed it much recently. But she does ear-scratch more than normal.

Yeah, unfortunately that vet-friend is 1K miles away and the person who recommended the high dose is someone on her vet's email loop, another vet who does treat chickens. My friend does goats and cats/dogs but not chickens.

I am literally thinking of just getting some slides and doing a fecal float myself. There are microscopes floating around. But I haven't got any of the stuff yet.

She gets a well-balanced feed all the time and with the babies I had nutridrench in water for them that everyone liked - I set things up with less in the main water and the right dose for the littles up in their "berth". I had stopped that a bit ago - those babies are massive; there is no nutritional deficiency there. But I setup the "clinic" today with some nutri-drenched water. They all love it; it must be sweet maybe?

I see no lice/mites/creepy crawlies.

Yeah, I know that dose is high though it's less than the x5 I _think_ it was CAsportpony recommended, just given in one huge wallop. That vet said that's how they treated their 'patients', acknowledging the high dose.

I hear you about other problems, but she has had this one for certain up until recently. I will go to plan B which is to really try to ascertain she is still having the tapes and if so, then do the super-high-one-time dose. Unless there's some other drug but probably without the fecal float and no persistent symptoms it's dumb to go stabbing randomly.

 

[aliris]

I wanted to report back here. I was convinced the worm problem was ongoing and I might need to keep searching for effective treatment, maybe that I'd induced resistance to medication.

However, I held off that night, partly because I was unsure about the dose; the heavy one-off dose recommended by the unknown vet might have made sense had they not received the 5-day course so recently past.

I decided that though I'd seen the tape segments a few days earlier, I hadn't immediately past and I would wait for more poop-evidence with worms. That was almost 3 weeks ago and nothing since.

That is, following the 50mg/kg x5 dosing, worms were evident 2 days post full treatment, but then not afterwards. And that one, bare-breastbone chicken has been putting on weight for sure since. There's still a slight bareness on her breastbone, but it's less-so. Her comb is bigger than ever. She's laying daily now massive sized eggs.

So... my take-homes (from SoCal):
1) The goat formulation of white fenbendazole ("Safe-guard" in a small bottle) I found easier to control than either of the horse dewormers (which were both about the same in terms of paste-consistency (like runny toothpaste) and ease of use; but one contains {praziquantel+ivermectin (="equimax")} and the other fenbendazole ("safe-guard")).
2) The 5x dose at half the high-dose recommended to me (high dose per vet was 100mg/kg; 5x50mg/kg was recommended by @casportpony who lives in humid Florida I believe) was effective in the end.

not sure this is systematic enough to be helpful to anyone else, but wanted to put a bow on it from here at least. Thank you all.

Oh, and also to note my plan for the future now that it is many days post-5x treatment: if/when I see segments again I will try one day high-dose first, as a "beat-down". Then reevaluate.

 

[Yorkiekisses]

Hi folks - We've been on a long journey here with a new family, lice + worms discovered, multiple treatments and ultimately no success.

An overly diligent and self-abnegating broody eventually hatched 5 of 7 eggs but developed lice, which were evidently secondary to worms. The lice was succesfully treated with permethrin and DE but then the flattish-white segments discovered in poop. There's a video on here somewhere of that type but I can't now find it; this site is huge.

First I treated the adults with praziquantel (via equimax). No chance did I underdose with this; I overdosed them but they survived (I, however, am mortified. Please let's not go into this ghastly mistake of mine).

10 days later I discover more of those worm segments. This time I treat according to @casportpony's excellent visual show of "pea" sizes (yes, I agree, it is a terribly misleading term which is why I appreciate the visuals not to mention the calculations which - I didn't screw up, but the actual translation to the syringe was my problem the first time). This second dose was with fenbendazole via safeguard horse dewormer.

Four days later the worms were back.

I haven't been able to determine precisely and reliably which hen produces the wormy poop. The trouble is that not all poops are wormy. And that the productive ones are usually later in the day, not earlier in it. [someone asserted, aggressively, it is easy to know and determine from which this emanates by watching in the morning as they come off the roost, but this isn't so here].

So then I went to the goat-liquid version of safeguard/fenbendazole. Just for the record, I far prefer this method - very easy to control, no rx-distribution issues of paste v liquid (which can be shaken well).

A vet-friend's vet-friend (if you follow) - who specializes in farm animals, said to dose at 100mg/kg. But on here someone suggested 5d x 50mg/kg so I decided to try that as more acute - you'd get that same high dose, more even, but spread out a little bit. Seemed maybe easier on the body but also maybe effective as a 1:2 on the worms?

And... everyone seemed happy _but_ .... I don't think the one is better. on d4 I still saw worms in one set of plop and then a bit after the finish of the treatment, but definitely lesser.

The problem is - also in reading someone asserts you can tell when there's a problem if the breastbone of the chicken is really prominent. And the one I suspect is affected definitely has a prominent breastbone. And appears a bit ratty even when it's not molting season. The peculiar thing is, she appears very healthy, charging around, being spirited, full, colorful crest. She is, however, exceptionally noisy - complaining. Is it possible she's telling me, constantly, she doesn't "feel well"? I dunno....

This morning that prominent breastbone I notice is actually rubbed bare of any feathers. And she's lighter still than ever. Still very hale, but I think she just isn't getting nutrition.

Is there another medication to try? I can try to confirm, again, that this is the hen with the acute problem (last time I cooped her up for a day to inspect her poop; she was not happy).

I could try, I guess, the 100mg/kg dose one-off that had been suggested. But is this enacting crazy, doing the same thing over and hoping for a different outcome? I mean, it's not precisely the same thing.... but resistance is real.

We live in SoCal. So - not hard frost, and - climate change is happening here too. It's not super-hot, we're near the ocean. But whereas once it was dry, now it is humid here nearly always. I know the worms live in damp soil and are purportedly killed by sunlight. I have been creeping around picking up poop. And their predator proof hutch does not get sunlight. I did rake it out and put in new bedding (I use bamboo leaves which I know is not likely to find favor here...). I had thought I had this under control until I discovered that, in fact, perhaps I have not.

Please any ideas? Thank you!!! There are several mavens here on the matter including @casportpony, @dawg53, @Wyorp Rock and so many others - sorry, not trying to diss anyone by not naming, I just cannot seem to find the threads I had been using earlier. Anyway, I value you-all's experience., I'd appreciate suggestions if anyone has any. As I said, this hardy hen doesn't seem all that badly off, but I actually, truly believe all this noise-making is her trying to tell me she feels as bad as her poop looks. And whereas formerly she was fine with my picking her up, she seems resistant now because perhaps all that bare skin hurts? Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing.... anyway, I would value suggestions please. TY.

Oh, one more thing I know the treatment is dependent on what worms are present. But I'm thinking there may be more than the flatish white segments I saw undulating. That at least is present but perhaps there are other things. I have looked and haven't found anything though.

Thanks again.

Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. I always want to try Non poisonous first. It basically kills everything, doesn't matter what type. It sucks the life out of them & their eggs. You can put about 2% in their food for the worms & parasites. Mix it with peat moss for their dust bath for fleas, mitts & lice and/or sprinkle it on them, close to skin (Especially top of head) You can also but it on the ground. WARNING just don't put it directly on their face, you don't want to clog their nostrils.