Worming your parrot? do you? & your thoughts

[bmsweb]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering what your thoughts are on Worming your Parrot? do you worm them and if so how often? I've been getting a lot of conflicting information on this and would like your thoughts on this.

Cheers
Paul

[Michael]

Huh!?

[Rrrma]

Huh!?

worms http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm ... 9&aid=2699

From what I understand, pet birds don't suffer from worms very often. I do know breeders deworm a lot of their breeder birds, but they are kept in outdoor or semi-outdoor aviaries. I've also heard keets are more likely to get them, but still not that common in indoor birds.

If you feed them properly and keep their environment clean, you shouldn't have to worry. A fecal smear can indicate the presence of worms and you apparently can just bring a sample to the vet, no need for a checkup every time. If your bird spends a lot of time outside I'd maybe consider sending in a fecal sample every few months, if you are really worried.

[TheNzJessie]

i have tried worming my birds buts its always unsuccessful, i dnt like the idea of putting it in the only drinking water

[Kim S]

I deworm my aviarybirds twice a year. Once before they go into breedingseason, and once before winter sets in.
My indoor birds get dewormed once a year, just before winter.

Aviary birds, and birds that get outside often (that would include yours too Michael!) get into contact with wild birdpoo, soil and other things that contain worms or worm eggs. So it makes sense to deworm them at least once a year since they have a greater risk of ingesting some. Indoorbirds that dont see sunlight dont have that risk, but I do advice people who buy my birds to deworm them once a year just to be sure. It could be on a branch you hang up in the cage, or theres a patch of soil left on the spinache you gave him. Its not expensive, theres no healthrisk and its easy. So why take the risk?

But yes, you do need to make sure you have only one source of water with the stuff in for a couple of days in a row. Parrots dont like the tast of it and refuse to drink it if theres a way around it.

[birdvet]

I deworm my aviarybirds twice a year. Once before they go into breedingseason, and once before winter sets in.
My indoor birds get dewormed once a year, just before winter.

Aviary birds, and birds that get outside often (that would include yours too Michael!) get into contact with wild birdpoo, soil and other things that contain worms or worm eggs. So it makes sense to deworm them at least once a year since they have a greater risk of ingesting some. Indoorbirds that dont see sunlight dont have that risk, but I do advice people who buy my birds to deworm them once a year just to be sure. It could be on a branch you hang up in the cage, or theres a patch of soil left on the spinache you gave him. Its not expensive, theres no healthrisk and its easy. So why take the risk?

But yes, you do need to make sure you have only one source of water with the stuff in for a couple of days in a row. Parrots dont like the tast of it and refuse to drink it if theres a way around it.

Well said! Other ways of deworming are to put the drug into a treat (a nut - its usually a teeny volume of drug so shouldn't be a problem) or, for a rainbow lory, mix it up with some nectar and get the bird to drink the dose that way. The only reason I'm dubious of in water treatments is that some birds (Aussie birds especially) don't have a huge requirement for water so likely won't drink enough of the water to get the correct dose. However, aviary owners can't do this so mixing in water or even food is the best way of treating. The best way to monitor is to send a fresh faecal sample to your vet and they will perform a faecal float and look for worm eggs under a microscope.

For pet birds, I'd probably only ever deworm if they came back with a positive faecal test or were allowed outdoors and exposed to wild bird poop. Of course, as with all diagnostic tests, the faecal test sometimes misses worms so if you get a negative result but you're suspicious your bird has worms or you know it has been exposed to wild birds, then I'd give it a dose of de-wormer

[Baylee4ever]

I do deworm Baylee vet did a fecal test of her poop and she was full of parasites thanks to the ants that invaded her food for 6 months until recently.... so i recently learned that birds do need to be dewormed, vet told me to first give her 0.1 ml oral for 2 days, not in the water. then repeat every 30 days. She is an indoor bird.