They do have worms – that’s a fact of life, but in a healthy bird, the parasite and the host live together in a sort of tolerant relationship. I keep seeing you all talk about worming your chickens and ducks, but no one has said when to start this process and if it is really needed. Unless your birds have a heavy worm load and are exhibiting symptoms of illness, you do not have to worm your chickens. Natural Treatment for Gapeworm in Chickens | Treating Birds With Worms Some signs you can look for at home are pale combs, a drop in laying, and watery poo. Risk to Human Health:None known; Now that you know gapeworm symptoms in chickens, lets move on to treatment and history. Following the results, I worm if necessary but I also worm new birds that we add to our flock or if I become suspicious of worms / ill thrift. Feeding your chickens is one of, if not, the most important task when it comes to raising backyard chickens. To control worms, the best strategy is to control the worms twice per year. Get it wrong, and it can lead to reduced egg production, deformed eggs, feather picking and other unwanted behaviour. From what I understand chickens do not have heat receptors but worms do. Once when you bring the hens off range in the fall, and once when you go to put the hens back on range in the spring. You can worm your chickens chemically twice a year to stave off any worm infestations, but if their living environment and diet are poor, you will be waging a constant chemical war. I read on here that you can put cayenne pepper in their feed for worms and I believe the lady said it was 3 tablespoons to 1 pound of feed every so often. Chickens raised in a warm, dry climate are less at risk for a worm load than chickens raised in a wetter climate. These factors include your climate, how your flock is housed and managed, the kind of worms that are present in your chickens’ environment, and the type of dewormer you use. The idea is that there will be an increase in worm load in the tighter quarters of the coop over winter. Prepatent Period (the time it takes from being laid as a worm egg to being a mature worm of egg laying age):18 to 20 days. As you will see from my routine list of jobs and from what I said above, I check my chickens for worms using a worm count kit twice per year as a preventative measure. Small chicken breeds, such as bantams and younger chickens are more severely affected by gapeworms. As always, do your research, count the cost, and make the decisions that are best for your homestead however you decide. If your chickens have worms, you will want to treat them. Worming chickens and other poultry is a straight forward process, but it does help to know a little bit about the worms that are likely to infect your birds and their life-cycle so you can control and manage their numbers, minimising the worm burden on your flock. Healthy adult chickens rarely suffer from a worm overload. I maintain a rather clean coop and nests, plus the poop in the run is on top of pea gravel so it is easy to hose down. However, it does no good to worm your flock--even on a seasonal schedule--unless you know precisely what type of infestation they are suffering from. I have never done the cayenne pepper thing but I know several people that do and they say its good. Get it right and you will have a healthy flock who merrily cluck every time you bring them one of their favourite snacks or kitchen scraps!. How often do I worm my Chickens. 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