None taken!
Whilst I perfectly understand where you are coming from on this I can't see what you suggest working
for me or, judging from the things I have read, too many others like me. Not because it doesn't make sense ( it does
) but because it won't necessarily work out as intended. It might, but equally it might not.
It would be very hard to find an exact amount given the variations I have already set out in an earlier posting and then there would be seasonal variations too to take into account. And as others have said the hens won't always eat the pellets if they have flubenvet suddenly added! And the flubenvet might not evenly distribute across the pellets to enable proper take up, and while adding sunflower oil to the pellets and wormer might stop that problem it might affect the taste and my chickens might not eat it....So all calculations might go out the window. Plus I feed a 100% organic feed which I don't want to suddenly change them from either. I re-iterate I can't restrict other sources of food that they naturally forage. Also I would lose some to wild birds that help themselves to the pellets - the feeder is under the night coop and my chickens do not have a run. If they are not asleep in the coop that they go off to themselves at dusk, and are let out from by a timed auto door in the morning, they are utterly free to range and forage in the garden.
I am sure you can see how hit and miss what
you say to do would be in my circumstances. However, what
I do I recognise is also hit and miss - not in the sense that my chickens do not get wormed (which is what I am afraid would happen in the scenario you describe -
for my situation)- they
do get wormed. But in the sense that they all get the same or very similar amounts when the flubenvet is supposed to be taken up in the correct amount from feed based on the size (and eating habits) of the bird. As my lot are all around the 2kg mark give or take there is a margin of error but is it less than there would be using the prescribed method of worming or more????
It would seem just from this forum alone never mind others I have read items from in the past and other people I know with chickens that I am not alone in worming chickens this way.
If I discuss it with my chicken vet I'll ask her about egg withdrawal for the worming period of 7 days and see what she says. To be honest as I have no commercial interest in the eggs and have no problem chucking eggs for eg cephacare for a week after as well as treatment period this would not be a problem for me. Having said that |I really don't see that it would be necessary.
I believe it was Foxy who stated that chickens would have to be taking an awfully high amount of flubenvet to get anywhere near the amount you state would be dangerous in the eggs. If i have given the impression I am flinging vast amounts of flubenvet into my chosen medium and chucking it at my chickens in a haphazard way then I hope I can clarify this is not the case. I can't see why anyone would be that irresponsible.
I still believe that with a small backyard
free-ranging and free foraging flock worming is a very inexact science. Perhaps it should be made common practice at the very least to withdraw eggs from consumption for duration of worming? Then there would no issues or conflicts.
