# Chicken Health



## poprocksandPEZ (Jan 9, 2012)

*How often and what medicines/home remedies do you use to..
- Worm them & Vaccinate them? Or do they even need to be vaccinated?*


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## freedomstarfarm (Mar 25, 2011)

I choose to have my chickens as organic as possible. I do not vaccinate them and do not worm them or feed medicated feed. The feed I use is not certified organic but they really only eat that in winter otherwise they get all the bugs they want. :wink:


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

Mine are not vaccinated either. I generally avoid medications too, but when some of them got sick this past fall I broke down and bought antibiotic.
They seem to do pretty well with just basic care - feed, water, shelter, and some land to roam on.


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## apachedowns (Mar 14, 2010)

I feed non-medicated as well and only treat 3 x's a year for coccidia with liquid sulmet and pull all eggs during that time...they get electrolytes in the drinking water during the summer months and we also supplement with oyster shell all year in a seperate feeder.


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## Iwantgoats (Oct 3, 2008)

I do not vaccinate but I do worm. Going into fall when egg production falls off and they go into molting I will add Wazine to their water and throw out all eggs for two weeks or feed them to my dog (doesn't hurt him). I throw out oyster shell every once in a while when I notice soft shells but do not leave it out full time. I feed all my scraps to the chickens. I don't treat for Cocci unless the vet tells me I need to or I see stools that don't look right then off to the vet a sample goes.


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## nubians2 (Feb 20, 2011)

I don't normally worm but a couple of months ago so that there were tapeworm segments in their droppings. After many conversations with vets, and so on I found a herbal wormer that goes in their water. I didn't have to withhold eggs and their droppings are looking clean. I don't vaccinate or normally give antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. They really are pretty easy keepers.


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

What herbal wormer is that, Nubians2?


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## Mini Goat Lover (May 4, 2011)

We just mix DE in our chicken's food.


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## poprocksandPEZ (Jan 9, 2012)

Interesting! Ok so...
What is "Wazine" and what does it do? How long do you give it to them?
Also what is "DE" Is it just for tapeworms? How frequent to do give that? 

What Antibiotic do you guys use?


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

I used Duramycin from TSC, and I only used it on the sick ones.


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## Mini Goat Lover (May 4, 2011)

DE is Diatomaceous Earth. It is great for preventing parasites in general and is all natural. We feed it to our chickens every other day.


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## nubians2 (Feb 20, 2011)

I have to look at the bottle when I go out to lock the girls up. I just added it to their water for 14 days. Somedays I did forget but got most of them. I noticed that I saw less worms and they were smaller over over time. I am going to repeat next month a couple of days to try and keep up with it. I got it at Zamzows, it was in their dog and cat section but said it would work for birds. I called the company to verify for chickens and about the eggs whether there was a with hold time or not.


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## poprocksandPEZ (Jan 9, 2012)

Thank you ya'll for your posts! Has anyone tried Verm-x?


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## nubians2 (Feb 20, 2011)

The wormer is called worm clear.


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## PznIvyFarm (Jul 25, 2010)

Jeffers Livestock is having a sale right now - i bought Worm Clear and also a DE based wormer "Worm Guard Plus" that is buy 2 get 1 free.

I was thinking I should worm my chickens because a. I have not wormed them before so it is inevitable that they have worms, and b. their poop seems awful liquidy and discolored.

I start googling what does normal chicken poop look like and found this great site http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0

Looking at it, my chickens are still normal, very strange, i thought it should mostly look like the first pictures.


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## Sundancer (Jan 21, 2012)

We have 26 laying hens in our flock and have not had to worm or any antibiotics for the last 2 years. We do give them the diatomaceous earth once a week at least. They are free range thruout the farm unless I need to get some things done (I end up with an entourage of 28 hens following me around getting underfoot :GAAH: )

They feed on a vegetarian layer pellet year round and get a cup or 2 of cracked corn every day. (Heirloom corn we grow...no chemicals  )

So far, or for the last 2 years anyway) we get right at two dozen eggs a day except when it starts to get really cold and I forget to turn on the lights in the coop.

The coop and nests are kept well cleaned. Dirty coop = health problems big time.

Hope that helps :greengrin: 

Dancer
Sundance Farm
Lancaster, Virginia


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