Deworming

[Ray Johnstone]

Hi all, Any suggestions on easy way (and product) to deworm finches? Thanks, Ray

[BENSONSAN]

moxidectin plus. Check some posts on it on here great stuff.

[Buzzard-1]

Avitrol plus douse all worms including tape worm readily available, administered in drinking water or crop needle.If using in drinking water do not do on a hot day.

[BENSONSAN]

Agreed with buzz i also use avitrol and swap between the two. Moxidectin plus does erm all also tho and air sac mites. Ive been crop needling mine with avitrol recently and cant complain even gouldians.

[jusdeb]

Vetafarm wormout gel now but Avitrol before that , I like to swap and change between the 2 ...

[Myzomela]

Each of these 3 drugs does all the worms that are commonly found in finches.

They all contain praziquantel as the tapewormer.
For the other worms, moxidectin plus contains moxidectin, avitrol plus contains levamisole and wormout gel contains oxfendazole. Each of these drugs is from a different group of drugs so that if we get resistance to one, we can use one of the others.

Palatability wise, none are particularly sweet but I find moxidectin plus the most palatable of the 3. As stated it also treats air sac mite and external parasites.

Be wary of worming birds in hot weather or when they have young chicks in the nest. Remove other sources of water and avoid wet weather- otherwise the birds will drink raindrops from the wire/plants and not the medicated water.

And if you're having worm problems, remove droppings from the aviary more often and eliminate wild insects from within the cage as they act as intermediate hosts for some worms. Improving drainage in the aviary also helps

[Fincho162]

Ray,

Me favourite all time topic!!!!!!!!1

Avitrol Plus - great in a crop needle drop wise but yer a very brave man to use it at 25mls/litre (the "actual" dose rate for flock treatment) ................it kills a variety of finches hot or cold weather...........if you use it at anything less than that dose rate you are creating resistant parasites which will, eventually, cause you bigger problems.

Wormout gel = about as good as their previous wormer which no longer exists - funny that!!!...buy a beer instead!!!

Cydectin Plus - excellent wormer (or even Cydectin without the plus) active ingredient moxidectin.

You could also try Equimax Liquid ALLwormer (a horse one!!!) This has a different family of round wormers (abamectin) than the usual plus praziquental..

As pointed out most have praziquental as a tape wormer so you need at least one other tapeworm drug .....so try Panacur 100 - fenbendazole instead of praziquental - this prevents tapeworms "escaping" or developing praziquental resistence......

Hate to say it but ants are probably the biggest source of worms (as an intermediate host that is) in any aviary so good luck keeping those suckers out!!!


Hope that helps Ray.

[BENSONSAN]

fincho162 i couldnt agree more! With everything you said.

[gomer]

Moxidectin plus is my favorite by far for reasons mentioned I use it in the water or crop drench.Avitrol plus panucure I use direct in the crop only.I don't particularly like using wormout as it is harder to mix unless done in warm water.As said ants and bugs can be a real problem,To minimise them I use A few Bayer products coopex is probably the easiest to obtain to rid bugs etc.You can use the search field in the top right hand corner to find out what has been said about these products.There probably wont be alot of info on Equimax,It is more widely used in QLD from what i have seen.There is quite a few different Equimax pastes available aswell.But i for one would be interested in which ones people are using.

[Myzomela]

Abamectin is still in the ivermectin group, so isn't really a huge change from moxidectin, which I agree is the best of the lot.

Therefore if you want to avoid resistance, you need to try a "white drench"- the benzimidazoles which include fenbendazole (panacur),oxfendazole (wormout gel) or the "clear drenches"- levamisole as in avitrol plus and nilverm.

I agree that levamisole-based products have a narrow safety margin and can kill birds at times- and not just finches.

And that thick orange product (name withheld !!!) is difficult to use and is very bitter.

As far as tapewormers go, fenbendazole (panacur) has limited effectiveness against tapeworms- nowhere near as effective as praziquantel, but as fincho 162 has said, worthwhile using as a change from praziquantel all the time.