Shelf life of Flubenvet 1%

Icemaiden

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I'm wondering whether it'll work out cheaper to treat my 4 hens with Marriage's pellets with Flubenvet (I'd only use 3.5kg of the 10kg bag before it went out of date) or to use the 1% dilution & add it to their regular Smallholder pellets. I gather that 60g of 1% Flubenvet costs around £15 depending where you get it from, whereas I've seen the treated pellets online for around £7 / 10kg. What's the shelf life of the 1% powder & does it need to be kept in the fridge?
 

Marigold

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I have 4 hens at the moment and find the little pot of 1% powder is fine, it does 20 hens so it will do 4 X 5 times. This is well within its expiry date, you just keep it in any reasonably cool place, no need for refrigeration. If you buy ready- treated pellets you have to store the ones you don't use and even f you get the small bag they will be out of date by the next treatment. Its easy to work out how much powder they need for the week, (they will eat 5 kilos of pellets, so 2.5 scoops.)
If your pot of powder did 5 treatments, it works out at £3 per week of dosing, plus the cost of the 5 kilos of feed feed you would in any case be giving them. Not a lot in it, for such small numbers, just do what's most convenient I would think.
 

Icemaiden

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Marigold said:
I have 4 hens at the moment and find the little pot of 1% powder is fine, it does 20 hens so it will do 4 X 5 times. This is well within its expiry date, you just keep it in any reasonably cool place, no need for refrigeration. If you buy ready- treated pellets you have to store the ones you don't use and even f you get the small bag they will be out of date by the next treatment. Its easy to work out how much powder they need for the week, (they will eat 5 kilos of pellets, so 2.5 scoops.)
If your pot of powder did 5 treatments, it works out at £3 per week of dosing, plus the cost of the 5 kilos of feed feed you would in any case be giving them. Not a lot in it, for such small numbers, just do what's most convenient I would think.


I'm about to order some more flubenvet. Can anyone tell me what the maximum shelf life is for the 1% powder please? The last tub that I bought only had a few months on it, so I've had to throw the vast majority of it away. I've tried using out of date stuff before & it didn't work...
 

chrismahon

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We have a pot here with an expiry date of May 2014. Used it in February 2021 and it worked fine. Did notice though that the worms came out dead in the poo whereas previously we've never seen any after worming, so they must have been digested. That implies that perhaps that far out of date it is losing effectiveness?
 

Icemaiden

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Do you keep it in the fridge after opening, Chris? Early last year I used a tub that was 6 months out of date & I was finding live worms again 3 months later.
 

chrismahon

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We don't keep it in the fridge Icemaiden, just in a dark cupboard. But it has occurred to me that there was mention that the manufacturer had changed? This old tub was made by Janssen. If someone else has compounded it differently it may explain the short shelf life?
 

Marigold

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How are you feeding it to them, Icemaiden? Are you sure they’re getting enough? I keep mine in a dark cupboard (Flubenvet, nit hens!) and have not had any problems with shelf life.
The aim isn’t to eliminate worms, just to keep the numbers well down so the birds can manage them. Worms are endemic to chickens, but if you think they’ve had a bad outbreak it’s recommended to give them another course 2-3 weeks later to get the ones which were worm eggs when they had the first dose. The reason you can’t eliminate them on one dose is because Flubenvet only works on hatched worms, not eggs.
 
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