Using external med. on hen with chick

[ducksgeesechooks]

I have a question about the safety of using ivermection pour-on for a serama hen with a chick.

I worm my chickens once a year, in November. I normally use valbazen (albendazole) to worm. This year I discovered a mite problem in one coop - my serama coop. In all my years of keeping chickens I have never had to deal with mites before. Since valbazen is oral and does not treat mites I opted to go with ivermectin pour-on instead. I used it on all my birds - both the coops that were nearly due for their yearly worming anyhow and in the serama coop to both worm and treat the mites. I have one hen that I did not treat as she was isolated with her one chick at the time. That chick is now six weeks old.

I have a new home lined up for the entire flock of seramas, save one. I would like to go ahead and treat this hen now. I haven't seen any mites on her but she is due for her yearly worming and I don't want to take a chance on passing on any worms or pests to the new owner; a friend of mine.

Given that the ivermection is an external (pour-on) med., is it safe to treat her?

 

[Marigold]

I think most keepers in this country use Flubenvet (flubendazole) which is a powder we add to the feed during a 7-day course of treatment. There's no egg withdrawal and it's very effective against the whole worm spectrum. Sometimes Ivermectin is used though over here this is only on prescription and of course there is the withdrawal period for eggs. So I think most people would only use it for bad infestations rather than worms, though worming would be a useful sideline as it were. Could you perhaps try Flubenvet or whatever it's called over in the USA, if you don't want to risk using Ivermectin? Or alternatively, if you are nervous about the effect on the chick if you treat the hen, at 6 weeks the chick would be old enough to separate from the mother?
Information about these products is n the main Poultrykeeper website (link at bottom of the Index page) here http://poultrykeeper.com/general-chickens/worming-chickens
The standard advice for worming over here is to use Flubenvet every 4-6 months. Do you find that yours have quite a worm burden if you go a whole year between treatments?

 

[chrismahon]

Think the risk here is contact dosage DGC. If it has dried I can't see it will spread from hen to chick. Problem is separating them long enough to not stress out the chick and yet let the Ivermectin dry.

 

[ducksgeesechooks]

The standard advice for worming over here is to use Flubenvet every 4-6 months. Do you find that yours have quite a worm burden if you go a whole year between treatments?

Thank you for the input. I'm not sure if flubenvet is readily available here in the US or not. Two things in short supply in the area I live - poultry vets and medications intended specifically for poultry; thus most folks around here go "off-label" and use cattle or sheep products. I live surrounded by commercial chicken farms. In fact, this farm was a commercial chicken farm when my husband's parents were alive. I am considered a bit of an oddity because I keep backyard birds. My own vet will share her limited advice on chickens with me via the phone, but refuses to see chickens in the office for bio-security reasons.

To answer your question, no I don't have a problem with heavy worm burdens because I only worm once a year. In fact, I have never seen a worm in my chickens droppings nor have I ever lost a chicken to an illness - other than a hen that had a stroke. Predators are my biggest issue here. I have many chicken keeping friends. Some never worm, others use only natural products like DE (I'm not convinced of its effectiveness on worms) and others like me go the once or twice a year route with the orals or pour-ons.

As both the flubenvet (Flubendazole) and the valbazen (albendazole) end in the "azole" I wonder if they could be related chemically?

 

[ducksgeesechooks]

Think the risk here is contact dosage DGC. If it has dried I can't see it will spread from hen to chick. Problem is separating them long enough to not stress out the chick and yet let the Ivermectin dry.

The hen with the chick will be introduced back into the flock this week. I had intended to do it sooner but had to be out of town for two weeks when my father passed away.
I bought a single serama hen to keep my crossbeaked hen company. My crossbeak "Dragon" cannot live with my much bigger birds. The serama settled in and immediately went broody. I thought it would be cute to let her hatch just a few eggs. Now her and her female offspring stay broody pretty much year-round. Much too broody for my liking or needs. I am rehoming all of the seramas, save the latest chick hatched named Oops (from a hidden egg). The entire flock will go to a friend, leaving Oops as company for Dragon.
As soon as Oops is settled with the flock I suppose I could isolate the mother hen long enough to treat her and let it dry.
Thanks.

 

[Marigold]

My own vet will share her limited advice on chickens with me via the phone, but refuses to see chickens in the office for bio-security reasons.

Thats quite odd - a chicken, presumably in a box, is a bio security risk greater than, say, a sick dog walking around in contact with everybody?
Yes over here, too, it's still rare to find an avian specialist vet, but things are improving because so many people are starting to keep a few hens as pets in the back garden and so some small animal practices are adapting their expertise.

 

[ducksgeesechooks]

My own vet will share her limited advice on chickens with me via the phone, but refuses to see chickens in the office for bio-security reasons.

Thats quite odd - a chicken, presumably in a box, is a bio security risk greater than, say, a sick dog walking around in contact with everybody?
Yes over here, too, it's still rare to find an avian specialist vet, but things are improving because so many people are starting to keep a few hens as pets in the back garden and so some small animal practices are adapting their expertise.

Well here's how it works around here. Most commercial chicken farmers and every single farmer I know are also cattle farmers. In fact, one of our neighbors leases our pastures (we have 80 acres) for some of his cattle to graze on. He has his eight commercial broiler houses up by his own farm a few miles away. My vet sees dogs and cats, but she is primarily a large animal vet working with cattle. The large animals are the bread and butter of her practice. She's afraid that if one of those cattle farmers that also raises the broilers were to see a pet chicken in her office they would no longer use her services. Tyson and Pilgrims Pride are the two chicken processing companies around here. They have very strict rules about bio-security. The man that leases our pastures could lose his contract with Pilgrims Pride should the company ever learn that he raises cattle around my chickens.
There are three vets within an hours drive of our home. One I wouldn't use no matter what. There is our vet and she's approx. 45 minutes away. There is a new vet that I've been wanting to try, but hubby likes our vet because she's always been our vet and knows our dogs well. Our vet will be retiring next year. At that time we will be forced to switch to the newest vet in the area. I haven't inquired yet, but I'm hopeful she will be willing to also see chickens and other fowl. In the meantime, I do my birds doctoring myself.

 

[Marigold]

And we thought things were sometimes difficult over here?
I think it's hard for us Brits to realise the sheer scope of the farming in areas of the USA like yours. We think there's a big difference in climate and even cultural outlook between the different areas of England, let alone the other 3 countries of the British Isles, but when you compare us on the map with the USA we are so tiny, with all our little patchwork fields stIll in many areas. Most of us do try to avoid taking chickens to the vets where possible and that's where we find forums like this so helpful, as although you may need a vet to do a tricky diagnosis on a special bird and to prescribe drugs not available online, many chicken ailments are fairly simple and can be made better by changes in husbandry or diet or available remedies. The are some good experienced people on here and ive found it helpful to take advice and at least sort out my ideas about whether a vets visit is necessary. Many of us have back garden chickens that are what you might call productive pets, though not very productive if you need to pay the high vets fees to examine and treat them, all out of proportion to the original price of a pullet. This is where the fault line occurs between chickens as pets and chickens purely for production!

 

[ducksgeesechooks]

And we thought things were sometimes difficult over here?
I think it's hard for us Brits to realise the sheer scope of the farming in areas of the USA like yours. We think there's a big difference in climate and even cultural outlook between the different areas of England, let alone the other 3 countries of the British Isles, but when you compare us on the map with the USA we are so tiny, with all our little patchwork fields stIll in many areas. Most of us do try to avoid taking chickens to the vets where possible and that's where we find forums like this so helpful, as although you may need a vet to do a tricky diagnosis on a special bird and to prescribe drugs not available online, many chicken ailments are fairly simple and can be made better by changes in husbandry or diet or available remedies. The are some good experienced people on here and ive found it helpful to take advice and at least sort out my ideas about whether a vets visit is necessary. Many of us have back garden chickens that are what you might call productive pets, though not very productive if you need to pay the high vets fees to examine and treat them, all out of proportion to the original price of a pullet. This is where the fault line occurs between chickens as pets and chickens purely for production!

17
I am fortunate to have a tight group of friends that all keep fowl of some sort, as well as an email friend that knows more about chickens than anyone I have ever met. If one of us experiences a health problem with our birds that we have never dealt with before we can usually find someone in our group that has and can advise. I have mutally agreed with my husband that my youngest flock of chickens, my 6 month old brahmas, will be my last. My oldest brahma hens are nearly 5 years old. We both much prefer the waterfowl. With my husband recently retired we now live on an fixed income. It may sound harsh but if one of my younger chickens were to get ill and it was something beyond my scope of treating I would probably make the difficult decision to cull. What I'm saying is that with the exception of my 4 old hens and the geese all others get treated at home or have their lives mercifully ended. The geese are more like my dogs, family pets. I would definitely seek out a vet if one of the pair were to take ill.
I don't consider the commercial meat industry in the US to be safe in the least; therefore I am a vegetarian. Now if hubby and I could just learn to appreciate the taste of duck eggs.