Common internal parasitic Poultry Worms are: Photo: our lovely, healthy, Lemon Cuckoo Pekin Bantam Cockerel. There will also be a drop in egg production and the birds may seem 'unwell' and listless. Worms can damage the digestive tract of the birds which can lead to other infections. In any kind of poultry, worms will impair the health of the bird because they are taking the nutrients out of the food of their hosts and you will see weight loss in your birds, or they may not be growing at the rate they should be. Worm infestations should be thought of as 'one of those things' that chickens get, but for the sake of the bird, they should be dealt with so that they do not become life-threatening. I am not going to blind you with Latin names, there are plenty of books and web pages to do that, but I will try and explain simply what they are, how to recognise the symptoms, how to deal with them and how to prevent them. Learning about the life cycle of intestinal worms may not seem like a nice conversational topic but it is one of the most common problems/ailments for poultry and it is really important that you know what to look for and how to treat the birds, as well as learn what preventative measures you can take.

Hen with long flat worms