How to Take Care of Worms’ Infestation in Poultry Chickens

Worms’ infestation in poultry chicken is often a silent and crippling condition that usually goes unnoticed by inexperienced poultry farmers.

Worms’ infestation in poultry chickens is capable of causing serious economic loss to the farmer.

Often times you hear some farmers complain from time to time that their chickens are eating too much food. But their growth is not commiserated with the quantity of food they consume.

Unfortunately for them, they fail to understand that worms’ infestation in poultry chickens might be the culprits behind their chicken behavior of eating too much, too fast, and pretending to be healthy or not eating at all.

Poor birds, they are both feeding themselves, and the army of worms inside them.

Recommended for you:

9 Reasons Why You Have Poor and Stunted Growth in Broiler Chickens

All You Need In Order To Succeed In Poultry Farming

Chickens: 9 Reasons Why Your Family Needs This Amazing Bird

Effect of Worm’s On Your Birds

These may result in many symptoms such as lethargy, poor growth, poor immune system, stunted growth uneven growth, etc.

Generally, worms’ infestation in poultry chickens could be very trickish, and confusing especially for newcomers in poultry farming.

Most times it is now left for the farmer to be very observant, and careful because the symptoms and behavior of infected flock are very wide, and maybe similar to that of other poultry diseases.

These symptoms and behavior could range from the birds eating too fast, too much, birds having a slow growth rate as mentioned above to birds not eating at all in severe cases.

Another very frustrating thing about worms’ infestation in poultry chickens is they will gradually and consistently waste your birds away and will cause serious economic loss especially if you are unable to detect the infestation on time.

Now the issue is if you really want to succeed, not just detecting them earlier it is very important you form the habit of routinely deworming your chickens. Most especially birds that are going to stay a little bit longer such as laying hens and roosters.

This will guarantee a healthy flock with even and consistent growth all through.  

The following points will help you tremendously in preventing and curbing the menace of Worms’ infestation in poultry chickens:

Recommended for you:

How to Treat Louse and Mites in Your Poultry and Farm Animals

How to Prevent and Control Livestock Diseases and Pests.

Poultry Farming: Why Some People Fail

How to prevent Worms’ infestation in poultry chickens

Prevention they say is always better than cure in other words be proactive, vigilant, and observant. And always having close look at your birds at all times monitor their behavior i.e. feed consumption, their activities, etc so as to be able to detect any abnormal behavior.

The best way to prevent worms’ infestation in poultry chickens is to adhere to the following useful points:

• By practicing routine deworming as mentioned above is one of the best ways to curb worms’ infestation in poultry chickens, most times it is already too late by the time you discover, worms have already infested your chickens.

• In combating Worms’ infestation in poultry chickens make sure you maintain dry and healthy litter especially when you practice a deep litter system because worms do well in moist and wet litter especially during the rainy season in West Africa and during summer in western countries.

• Always keep your waterers and drinkers clean at all times, avoid the deposit or soaking of feed in your drinkers. If possible wash or rinse your drinkers twice a day to keep them clean and healthy for the chickens. This will help greatly in avoiding worms’ infestation in poultry chickens

READ ALSO: How to Achieve Optimal Poultry Production with Good Deep Litter Management practice

Further Ways You Can Prevent Worms’ Infestation in Poultry Chickens

• Avoid Overcrowding: When you overstock your pen with a lot of chickens. It creates a stuffy environment, and if the environment is stuffy the litter will be overstretched and the moisture contents will also increase as a result of the stuffy environment. And this in turn may create an enabling environment for worms to emanate from the litter. This will definitely affect the chickens because most times they also feed on the litter and might easily get infested if there are worms in the litter. That is why it is very important to avoid overcrowding at all costs.

• Worms’ infestation in poultry chickens can greatly be reduced by avoiding wild birds from gaining access to your chicken coop. They are also carriers of some of these parasitic worms that may cause harm to your birds. Apart from parasitic worms they also carry some deadly disease that may cause serious economic loss to your farm, always protects your farmhouse or chicken cage with wire.

• Not only wild birds, birds like pigeons, you keep as pets at home should be separated from chickens or you should not allow the feces of pigeons near your chickens. Especially if you practice a free-range or deep litter system as mentioned above. i.e. insects and snails will feed on the feces of pigeons and chickens will in turn feed on these insects or snail that may harbor or carry worms they get from your pigeons, so you see is like a food web that transmits worms to chickens indirectly.

Simple Ways You Can Detect Worms’ Infestation in Poultry Chickens

There are different signs or symptoms you can use to detect if your chickens are infested with worms. That is if you are careful and observant because oftentimes most farmers don’t really get to know until it is already too late. I have experienced this myself before.

The following tips will help detect when your chickens are infested with worms:

• Eating too much or too fast, is an indication of worms’ infestation in poultry chickens.

• These might make you think they are healthy, but it is a trickish symptom.

• In severe cases, infested birds may stop eating and suddenly die.

• They may lose weight and exhibit symptoms of lethargy.

• In the case of laying hens, their production will drop significantly.

• Poor feather quality though could have similar symptoms with other bacterial infections but is a very important sign to look out for.

• Pale or dry combs are unhealthy signs and indications that all is not well and your chickens are invaded with worms.

• Another common sign of worms’ infestation in poultry chickens in poor growth rate or stunted growth.

• Separation from the rest of the flock and depression-like symptoms

Dry litter discourages worms in poultry Birds

How to treat your chickens if you have an infestation

Prevention is always better than cure as mentioned earlier but is it always possible to protect your entire flock completely from worm infestation.

I doubt if it is completely possible, but should in case your birds are infested what should you do. Do not despair you can restore your flock or chickens to their normal state of health.

Once you have worms’ infestation in poultry chickens, the best thing to do is to starts treatments immediately in order to avoid further complications or suffering of your chickens. There are different types of worms that may affect your chickens such as:

• Roundworms
• Gape worms
• Tapeworms etc.

The use of dewormers such as piperizine levamisole, will help tremendously in treating your sick birds, the dewormer earlier mentioned might only deal with certain worms.

The use of dewormer such as albendazole that treats and deals with different types of worms might be recommended for use.

Most especially if you are dealing with cockerels or noiler chickens since these species of birds are not kept for egg production.

They are meant for meat production especially cockerels through female noilers also lay eggs, in this case, you are not afraid of a drop in egg production. But for layers, if you are in doubt what type of treatment to adopt, please consult with your veterinary doctor.

Generally, it is very important you consult the services of your veterinary doctor for a proper prescription, dosage, and administration so as to have good results and treatment.

Conclusion

If you really want to keep worms’ infestation in your poultry chickens at bay, and also keep your birds healthy at all times.

Apart from the precautionary and preventive measures mentioned above, please adopt a very good routine treatment for worms in your flock at all times.

Avoid taking advice from quacks or unqualified farmers they might lead you to serious economic loss. Please if you don’t really know what to do in case of serious worms’ infestation in poultry chickens consult with a good veterinary doctor.