Capillaria

[Anonymous]

I live in South Africa and have about 21hens that are free range. I have experienced death in my hens through the capillaria worm but am only now realising that (a) bedding can be the problem and (b) earthworms are another. My soil is rich with earthworms and my hens also have access to the compost that I make from their bedding which obviously includes their droppings. My mothers and their chicks scratch in the bedding all day, especially on rainy days! I thought I was well on the way to practising good permaculture!

Our products are different here, but I am currently treating a very sick hen with Panicur, and am crop feeding her with growing mash but she is growing weaker by the day and I think I am going to lose her. I have been given Mediworm which is an accepted treatment for Hairworm (capillaria) to dose the rest of the poultry.

My question is : where to from here? If I give them Mediworm this week, do I then follow a standard deworming practice say every six weeks (we have Tramisol here) and I could also include diatomacious earth on a daily basis or what should I do. I can try and section off a piece of land to rest it, but the area is vast so I would be guessing as to where they hang out for most of the day.

Please help. I feel so depressed about this situation.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,so sorry that you've got this problem.Here,we can buy panacur,but it isn't licensed for chickens,if you can get the 10% solution as opposed to the 2.5% do give it a try.
Would you be able to buy some flubenvet? That is a poultry wormer and I believe you can buy it on the internet.
If you can rest the ground,this would help a lot.Good luck and please let us now how you get on,it sounds as if you're doing everything you can.

 

[Tim]

Hi Lindsaygray,

There are a few things to think about - you could follow a treatment plan to reduce the infection pressure but I would get a worm count done if you can to make sure this is the problem.

If you treat now and kill all of the worms your birds are carrying then with heavily infested ground, your birds will be picking up eggs and getting re-infected. If you break the cycle by re-treating before those eggs are adults laying more eggs, the infection pressure will drop considerably.

The prepatent period (the time from being an egg to being an egg laying worm) for most common worms is around 3 weeks so this is a good time period to re-treat initially. Another 3 weeks after the second treatment, you might want to get another worm count done to see how bad the infection pressure really is.

You have a big advantage being in S.A = Ultraviolet kills worm eggs so if you keep grass short, they will not survive for long and you should be able to keep the infection pressure down in this way. I don't believe worm eggs will last for long in the litter if composted and they are only passing through earthworms for a short period.

Changing their pasture as already suggested is an excellent way to break the cycle without having to resort to lots of chemical worming.