[pink-chicken]

After reading some very helpful 'sticky' advice about worms it seems as if this is the best product? Can someone please help with a couple of questions if possible. I believe there are two types of Flubenvet and only one is available without a 'mixing license'? Does Flubenvet also kill Gapeworm? Not that the girlies have these, I very much hope not anyway, but it would be good to know that it also treats for them just in case. Also who is the 'cheapest' supplier for the small chicken flock owner?

Many thanks in advance for any advice  Just off food shopping now 

Jan.x

[Roughlee Handled]

Flubenvet does kill gape worm.

Cheapest supplier? Try a local feed merchant then you will not have to pay for postage.

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=Flubenvet+&hl=en

[pink-chicken]

Thank you Stuart  that's good to know as Gapeworm sounds awful  Just off for a look at the link now.

Jan.x

[hillfooter]

Never heard of a mixers license are you sure such a thing exists?   I've always bought the gamekeepers 240gram tub which has a 2.5% concentration of the active ingredient.  I now see that there's a 60gram premix tub with 1% active ingredient aimed at us poor suckers who just keep a few hens.  It seems to be about half the cost which as it contains a tenth of the active ingredient means it's 5 times more expensive than the 2.5% which is a pretty good mark up premium for Janssen the manufacturers.

The 2.5% is a little difficult to use if you are mixing less than about 5Kg of feed as you are dealing with such a tiny amount of medication.  I usually work in volume rather than weight.  5ml of the 2.5% weighs approx 5.5grams and will medicate 4.5kg of feed enough for 5 chx for a week.  When mixing always do enough for the week working on 900grams of feed per chicken per week (unless you have a better figure for your chx) and adjust the amount of medication proportionally to the weight of feed you are medicating.  There's little danger from over medicating as the medication has been tested wth no ill effects too over twice the recommended dosage but obviously try to be accurate and mix well.  If you use the 1% premix you will need 2.5 times the amount of Flubenvet I've indicated above.  I've heard of people putting a pinch in a grape to worm individual birds which seems an awfully crude measure and not what I'd recommend.  Also it's important that ALL the feed gets medicated not just some as the idea is to provide a continuously poisonous environment for the worms so they can't escape ingesting it, not just a high concentration every now and then.

If there's feed left over after 7 days you can let it run on a couple of days but don't add unmedicated feed to it as feeding a weak concentration can expose worms to a non lethal dose and breed resistance.  Discard what isn't used after 9 days.

If you use pellets add a small amount of corn oil to just colour the pellets and make the powder stick and not fall to the bottom.  Mix well well and then sprinkle the powder thinly on the top surface while mixing.  You need to medicate their feed for a week and feed NO other food other than the prepared medicated feed so that they can't avoid the medication by picking out the unmedicated feed.  I've seen people recommend mixing oats as a marker to check how well it's mixed but don't do this as you don't want them just picking out the oats which might not be uniformly medicated.

The less often you move your chx to clean ground the more attention you need to pay to worming regularly.  6 weeks in summer and I usually do 5 wormings per year.

[Vember]

This tells all about the new rules & regs Hfooter

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=46390.0

Sarah

[Aunt Sally]

Never heard of a mixtures license are you sure such a thing exists? 

There is more in heaven and earth Horatio 

http://www.petmeds.co.uk/p-3359-flubenvet-medicated-premixture-240g.aspx

[Kate and her Ducks]

Ah, there was a perfectly good product and no-one had a problem mixing it into their feed. Then the same product but more expensive, in lower concentration, smaller amount and, oh did I mention, more expensive, came out.

And then for some reason we need a mixtures liscence to use the product we have had for years...

Why?

[Aunt Sally]

The evil eye of commercialism backed up by the Nannie state 

[Kate and her Ducks]

Ooh, you've got me started on pharmaceutical companies...

Better go and lie down in a darkened room with a glass of wine...

[Kate and her Ducks]

does remind me though that I need to worm my ducks soon.

[Kate and her Ducks]

Will have to use my hoarded tub of old flubenvet before it expires.

[Aunt Sally]

Deep breathing in a brown paper bag for you Kate.


Or the wine 

[pink-chicken]

Thank you everyone for your replies    We've had the girls for around four months but thought that they'd been wormed already as they were vacinated. I found a long thin wiry worm  in some kind of 'fluid' in their pen this morning which has spurred me on to buy the wormer. I thought they only needed worming every six months but maybe more often is advisable? Our girlies eat layers mash so I'm hoping to get a good mix of flubenvet in there? I've been wondering if they get the daily 'dose' of flubenvet in one 'meal' or whether I have to spread it over the day divided between each bowl of mash, if that makes sense?

Jan.x

[Roughlee Handled]

Deep breathing in a brown paper bag for you Stuart.


Or the wine 

Why thank thank you Aunty and its Thirsty Thursday as well.

[Aunt Sally]

Yopu naughty pink frog 

I said Kate not Stu.