Worming Marriages with Flubenvet

[chickenfan]

I've just consulted Marriages as I ran out of food before the birds had completed their 7 days course. It seems the course is only 7 days long to ensure that the birds take in enough of it if they are free-ranging and not eating any pellets. The course is this long to ensure some pellets are eaten.

 

[rick]

I don't think that can be quite right although there must be a margin of error on the 7 day guidance from Elanco. Free ranging? Do they only have to eat a pellet by mistake? They probably meant '6 days, fine don't worry' in an offhand way and that probably is enough. The thing with reccomendations is they have to be the norm to allow for slippage in practice but if thats assumed from the outset then your working without the safetynet!
I brewed saki for a while. Started out meticulously following the recipe, temp, humidity and had some really nice batches. Thought I'd got it and started doing it from memory, being a little more relaxed about the timing. Pretty soon it was getting not worth bottling! Now I know why the Japanese are so pedantic about doing stuff exactly as the master instructs

 

[chickenfan]

Yes, they need to consume a certain amount of pellets and flubenvet for it to work, but they make an assumption that a free-ranging bird on rich terrain may hardly eat any pellets, or not eat pellets every day.

 

[rick]

But Elanco who make Flubenvet say that you can assume it works (and from what I've seen it does but interestingly the egg count only drops to zero two weeks after finishing the course) if the reccomended dose is consumed for 7 days. They don't recomend increasing the dose for a faster result or lower consumption so I don't see how Marriages can assume what they say. Sorry to be cantankerous Chickenfan but I don't think that sales hand knew what they were talking about! Their website doesn't give much info but does say it should replace feed for 7 to 10 days. That's more like it though why 10 I don't know.
If you have a 0.01 gram scale (they are less than £10 online) you can dose 100g of treats or rations daily. Makes it a bit less monotonous for them but the dose is the dose or your in VermX claim teratory.
But more importantly, you said you ran out of pre-med pellets early so they must have been eating them. How far short on the week were they?

 

[dinosaw]

My understanding has always been that unless all other food sources are withdrawn during the worming period then the effectiveness is drastically reduced as the birds need to eat a certain amount of the medication, therefore free ranging birds would not be properly wormed after a week.

Sake brewing and a knowledge of Japanese? are you a fan of Japan too then Rick?

 

[rick]

Oh yes dinosaw! Going there next year we hope. Can't wait but at least a chance to add to my very basic grasp of Japanese so far (very!)
There are sacred chickens at Ise Shrine apparently Wild ones - I bet they need worming!

 

[dinosaw]

Totemo ii desu. Any Japanese, no matter how badly spoken will go down very well, I always loved the mix of surprise/delight on the faces of Japanese people when you spoke to them (Take off in Japanese by Oxford University Press is very good btw). Never been to Ise Rick but have travelled about the country a bit, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and many various places you can reach from those centres so if you want to sound out anything then feel free to pm me, though I'm sure you have it all sorted in your own mind. It is the one trip you have to make!, you won't regret going.

 

[chickenfan]

Interestingly, they told me to wait 3-4 weeks before resuming the worming course. Perhaps it is worth always doing a worm count.

 

[rick]

To give them time to metabolise the last round I guess. I think I would worm them again if I thought they had had less than 85% of the prescribed course. That's ending one day early when they have only eaten medicated food and is just a guess on my part but I would feel comfortable with that. Less easy to gauge is if they have diluted the dose with other food - 90% over the full week i reckon would do it. At least, I know that mine have had a few treats in the week before and it has still worked as long as the med pellets keep going down.
A worm count is always interesting. I would say get a couple of half samples from different birds and gently mix them a bit to get an average if its only one test because I’ve had varying counts from day to day from each hen. Leave it a couple of weeks before testing as the count continues to drop over that period after worming.
I’m not quoting any standards here just guessing from a bit of experience of worming and testing at the same time.

 

[dinosaw]

Easiest solution is to confine the birds for a week when worming.

 

[rick]

Well yes. That's the way to go. I was just estimating how far off track it could go without having to start again.

Thanks for the offer of 'inside' info re Japan dinosaw. We're probably going on a package do as Carol is not keen on winging it. I wanted to ride down from the north on a motorbike through mountain mist and without a plan . She doesn't fancy that for some reason and wants to go to character writing class.

 

[dinosaw]

No problem Rick you have to do what suits you. We have tended to use the rail network utilising the JR pass, pick where we wanted to go, check the train times, book the hotels on expedia and then book our train seats between destinations on arrival at Narita, specialist tickets like Sumo and Kabuki can be booked ahead of time via JTC, stuff like baseball we pick up on the day. Anyway I will try to remember this is the chicken health section and not the Japanese holidays section of the poultry forum and will say no more.