Internal parasites, specifically worms, are one of those ever present but rarely seen menaces that can wreak havoc if not managed properly. If one or more of your flock members starts ailing, you may want to ask, does my chicken have worms? Worms are a fairly common internal parasite that can cause serious damage if they get out of hand. Understanding how worms work can help you better prevent worm issues in your flock as well as deal with any worm problems that your flock may contract.
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What Are Worms?
Worms are an internal parasite that can negatively affect the health of a chicken. Nearly all birds have small amounts of worms present somewhere in their body (due to the diet they eat and lifestyle they live). A strong immune system can help keep worms in-check. Worms only become an issue when they get out of hand, become an infestation, and the chicken’s body can’t naturally keep them under control.
There are many different kinds of worms that chickens can contract. The most common being different types of roundworms and several varities of flatworms. Different types of worms have different lifecycles: a direct lifecycle or an indirect lifecycle.
A direct lifecycle involves the eggs or larvae of a worm species being expelled from one bird’s body. When another bird accidentally consumes the eggs or larvae, it becomes infested with worms as the eggs or larvae mature.
An indirect lifecycle requires the present of an intermediate host. The worm eggs or larvae are expelled from a bird’s body. They must then be consumed by an intermediate host. Most intermediate hosts are insects, earthworms, beetles and other bugs. When a chicken consumes an intermediate host it then becomes infected by worms when the eggs and larvae mature.
Over half of the species of roundworms and all the species of tapeworms need an intermediate host. Controlling intermediate hosts can be a fundamental key in preventing worm problems in your flock. Spring and fall seem to trigger the most active times for intermediate hosts to be prevelant. Some worm’s lifecycles peak in the spring and fall too, making them more troublesome during those seasons.
How Worms Affect Your Flock
When worms get out of control they can cause serious health issues for chickens and can even lead to death. When a chicken consumes worm eggs or larvae, the eggs or larvae then travel to their preferred part of the body. Once there, they begin to mature and grow into adult worms.
The adult worms reproduce and the worm lifecycle goes on. When a chicken consumes too many or accumulates too many worm eggs or larvae, the amount of worms the body can handle is surpassed, causing health issues. Chickens with a healthy, strong immune system can usually deal with small amounts of worms. However, anything that suppresses the immune system will open the way for internal parasites to proliferate.
Worms feed off of the nutrients needed by a chicken, thus they are considered a pasasite. When the worms get out of hand, they start stealing nutrition that is needed by the chicken to stay healthy. Loss of nutrition leads to a decline in health.
Some internal worms will also cause damage to the internal organ they affect, which slowly breaks down the body’s systems. Eventually the lack of nutrients and/or break down of an organ will lead to death.
A general decline in health usually results from a worm overload. Sometimes there are so many worms present that live worms or worms that have died off are expelled in a chicken’s droppings.
Recognizing the symptoms of worms and addressing the problem immeditaly is important to keeping your flock safe from the damage internal parasites can cause.
Symptoms of Worms
Unfortunately, worms share similar symptoms to many other poultry diseases. However, the most characteristic signs of worms include lethargy, weight loss, and diarrhea. A tell tale sign that your chicken or flock has worms is if you find worms in their droppings or eggs.
Keep in mind that worms may be found in droppings if the body is expelling them due to the chicken consuming natural de-worming foods. Finding live worms or worm eggs in the droppings is a sure sign of an active worm infestation.
Worms often result in symptoms such as weight loss and emaciation because they steal nutrients from the chicken’s body. They also inhibit nutrient absorption and keep a chicken from using the food it consumes.
Symptoms of Eye Worms:
- swollen eyes
- constant blinking
- blindness
- eye irritation
Symptoms of Gapeworm:
- gasping
- coughing
- constant yawning
- head shaking
- death due to a clogged windpipe
- sometimes the red, small worms are visible in the chicken’s throat
Symptoms of Worms In General
- lethargy and ruffled feathers
- pale/shriveled comb and wattles
- weight loss
- emaciation and sunken facial features
- stunted growth
- diarrhea
- bloody diarrhea (capillary worm, microscopic tapeworm)
- poop contain worms, worm eggs, or worm segments
- poopy vent feathers from diarrhea
- eggs containing worms
- inactivity and weakness
- decreased laying
- paralysis (microscopic tapeworm)
- slimy diarrhea (large chicken tapeworm, nodualar tapeworm)
- death
Types of Worms
There are several different categories of worms that poultry can become infected with, including various species of roundworms and flatworms. Identifying what type of worm you are dealing with can help you treat an infestation more directly or help you prevent worms from becoming a serious issue.
Roundworms:
- Large Roundworm– affects the small intestine and sometimes the oviduct, does not require an intermediate host, is one of the most common internal parasites
- Capillary Worm– affects the esophagus, crop, small intestine, and ceca
- Crop Worm– affects the crop and esophagus, rarely causes a serious condition
- Cecal Worm– affects the ceca, does not require an intermediate host, does not usually affect a chicken’s health seriously, is one of the most common internal parasites
- Stomach Worm– affects the proventriculus
- Eye Worm– affects the eye, occurs in tropical and sub-tropical regions, causes eye irritation and malformities
- Gapeworm– affects the windpipe and lungs, does not always require a intermediate host, are red and can sometimes be seen in a chicken’s throat, causes the chicken to gasp for air
- Gizzard Worm– affects the gizzard, is usually rare and doesn’t cause serious issues
Flatworms (tapeworms & flukes):
All tapeworms require an intermediate host and affect the intestinal tract of a chicken.
- Short Tapeworm– affects the duodenum, usually only causes mild symptoms
- Microscopic Tapeworm– affects the duodenum, is the most devastating
- Threadlike Tapeworm– affects the duodenum, does not usually affect a chicken’s health seriously
- Large Chicken Tapeworm– affects the duodenum and jejunum, usually only causes mild symptoms
- Branching Tapeworm– affects the small intestine, does not usually affect a chicken’s health seriously
- Sawtooth Tapeworm– affects the small intestine
- Nodular Tapeworm– affects the small intestine
Note: Another worm type, called the horny-headed worm, is spread by wild birds but rarely affects chickens. Thorny-headed worms affect a chicken’s intestines.
Sources of Worms
Knowing what sources of worms your flock is exposed to can help you both prevent and treat a worm problem. Since many types of worms need an intermediate host to complete their lifecycle, by controlling the intermediate hosts you can prevent worms from becoming too big of a threat.
Here are some common intermediate hosts that can spread worms to chickens:
- Cockroach– eye worm, crop worm, stomach worm, cecal worm
- Earthworm– gapeworm, crop worm, stomach worm, capillary worm, short tapeworm
- Fly– gapeworm, sawtooth tapeworm
- Beetle– crop worm, gizzard worm, cecal worm, large chicken tapeworm, sawtooth tapeworm
- Pillbug– spiral stomach worm, thorny headed worm
- Slug– gapeworm, microscopic tapeworm
- Snail-gapeworm, microscopic tapeworm
- Grasshopper– stomach worm, gizzard worm, cecal worm
- Termite– threadlike tapeworm
- Earwig– cecal worm
- Ant– nodular tapeworm
- Dung Beetle– branching tapeworm, threadlike tapeworm
Controlling your flock’s access to these intermediate hosts can be fundamental in preventing internal parasite problems in your homestead flock!
Other times you can’t control or monitor the source of the worms. Insects, wild birds, and other wild animals can spread worms no matter if the worm has a direct or indirect lifecycle. Wild birds and animals will often contain worms or worm eggs in their poop, which can spread to chickens if the chickens forage through or accidentally consume some of the droppings.
Cleaning up leftover treats, moving feeders inside, and not feeding wild birds near the chicken coop or yard can help keep wild birds and animals away from your flock.
Swamps and wet areas are notorious for harboring a number of bugs and insects that play host to parasitic worms. By keeping your flock’s enclosure and forage area as dry as possible you can help reduce the amount of parasitic hosts available for your flock to encounter.
Diagnosing Worms
When you suspect a worm overload in one of your chickens or your flock, you will want to figure out what type of worm you are dealing with. Knowing the type of worm can help you treat the issue directly and help prevent the problem from occuring again.
There are two ways you can diagnose if your chicken or flock has a worm overload: visual diagnosis or a fecal float test.
Visually Diagnosing:
- look for the general symptoms of worms, especially weight loss, diarrhea, and emaciation
- if the chicken is gasping for air and continually shaking it’s head, check for gapeworms in its throat
- eye worms will cause obvious eye malformities and irritation
- watch for worms expelled in the chicken’s poop, you may be able to identify the type of worm
- note the time of year, weather conditions, and where your flock has had access to (if they may have consumed many intermediate worm hosts)
- consider if a suppressed immune system or other stress factor is making the chicken more susceptible to worms
Worms that affect the crop, gizzard, intestines, or ceca are little more difficult to identify.
Fecal-Float Test:
The most accurate way to get a worm diagnosis is by doing a fecal exam. A fecal float exam is when a sample of fecal (or poop) is put in a flotation solution. The solution then seperates the elements of the poop and allows you to see any parasite eggs present in the poop.
Some worm eggs need to be viewed under a microscope in order to be identified. Other worm eggs can be accurrately identified just by seeing them with the naked eye. Most roundworm eggs can be identified through a fecal float test. However, tapeworm eggs do not seperate easily from the droppings. Instead, tapeworms tend to shed body segments which will often appear in fecal tests.
Once you know what type of worm you are dealing with, you can start treating the infestation.
Does my Chicken Have Worms?
Learning to recognize the symptoms of internal parasites and identify different types of worms can help determine if your chickens have worms. Roundworms, particularly the large roundworm and the cecal worm, are the most common type of internal parasite to affect chickens.
Whether you identify the worms based on symptoms, visually seeing worms, or doing a fecal float, treating your flock for a worm infestation is important to keep the worms from stealing your flock’s health. In a future post I’ll go into details about treating and preventing internal parasites using natural, homestead methods!
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by Alexa
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